Jaroslav Erik Frič

Jaroslav Erik Frič (14 August 1949, Libina – 24 May 2019, Brno) was a Czech poet, musician, publisher and organizer of underground culture festivals.

In 1969, Frič started to publish in samizdat, together with fellow poets Petr Mikeš [1] and Eduard Zacha, in Ostrava and then in Olomouc.

His edition, after a theologist and another poet Rostislav Valušek [2] joined them, turned into a line of books called Texty přátel ("Texts by Friends").

He also founded two non-governmental organizations: Proximus (2002; "to support people who belong to minorities, mainly racial, ethnical and religious ones, and to support people handicapped socially or by health") which is connected to the depths of Czech traditions and culture and which organises many festivals and other projects (such as Uši a vítr (Ears and Wind) which take place every Thursday and introduce poets and musicians; and Christiania (2006; "for support of culture, national memory and minorities" [3]).

He worked as a chief editor of BOX ("biannual revue for word-picture-sound-movement-life") and Uši a vítr (a monthly newspaper of Potulná Akademie ("The Wandering Academy")).