Abstract
The study is devoted to the human rights movement inside the Eastern bloc after the Helsinki conference in 1975. The article examines two particular groups, Ukrainian Helsinki Group and The Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted in Czechoslovakia.
The study is an attempt to compare these two groups in different levels: social and cultural context in both countries and main goals and activities of both movements. Particular attention is paid to the life stories of the actors of human rights movement, the article analysis the way to dissent by particular personalities and their motivation to act.
The article is an attempt to trace common features inside two human rights groups and can be perceived in a broader context as an attempt to distinguish specific features of the dissident movements inside the USSR and beyond its borders in the socialistic bloc.