Henry Kučera
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Early life and education
Kučera was born in Třebařov (between Pardubice and Olomouc) in Czechoslovakia and later moved with his family to Hodonín, where he studied. When the Communists came to power in February 1948, his studies in philosophy and linguistics at Charles University in the Czech capital of Prague were interrupted. He was forced to leave Czechoslovakia in April 1948 when it became clear that his political writings had placed him at risk of detention by the Communist authorities.
Kučera then moved to Allied-occupied Germany where he worked under the supervision of the U.S. CIC (Counterintelligence Corps) for refugee organizations, assisting Czech refugees with relocation programs and preparing passports. It was during this time that he met Pavel Tigrid, who went on to become Kučera's mentor and longtime friend. Following the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Tigrid went on to become the Minister of Culture for Czechoslovakia.
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Teaching career
In 1949, he traveled to New York City aboard the USS General C. H. Muir. After receiving his PhD from Harvard University, he taught at the University of Florida at Gainesville for two years. Kučera then returned to Harvard as a research fellow. In 1955 he received an appointment at Brown University, where he was promoted to full professor in 1965. He spent the rest of his teaching career there. He retired in 1990 as the Fred M. Seed Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences with, among other honors, a black tie retirement party and the publication of a Festschrift about his accomplishments.
Honors
In addition to his PhD in Linguistics from Harvard University, Kučera had a doctorate from Charles University in Prague which was restored after the Velvet Revolution ousted the communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1989. He received honorary degrees from Pembroke College in Providence, RI, Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA, and Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic (1990). Kučera was a member of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa.