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Šimun Šito Ćorić is a Croatian theologian, writer and psychologist, an ordained priest of the Franciscan Order. Born in Paoča in 1949 near Međugorje (Bosnia-Herzegovina), he earned a degree in philosophy in Sarajevo in 1973, and then in theology in Lucerne (Switzerland) in 1975. He earned a psychology degree from Columbia University in 1982, and then a PhD in clinical psychology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (University of Zagreb) in 1988. Some of his books and articles have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other languages. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Mostar, University of Zagreb and University of Osijek, and has lectured for eight years at the University of Zadar. From 1994 to 2005. he served as president of the Croatian World Congress (HSK), the largest Croatian international organisation. He is the national coordinator of the Croatian Catholic Mission in Switzerland. Under the pseudonym Boris Katich, he published the book So Speak Croatian Dissidents in 1983, with which he attempted to warn the world public about the unenviable position of Croatia in Yugoslavia, and especially the unfortunate status of Croatian dissidents and oppositionists persecuted and imprisoned in Yugoslavia.

Jan Čep was a Czech prose writer, essayist and translator. He was born on December 31^st, 1902 in Myšlichovice (now Haňovice - Myslechovice near Litovel), to a family of peasants as the oldest of ten siblings. Jan Čep attended a general school in Cholina, then studied high school in Litovel where he graduated in 1922. At that time he published his first work in the Moravskoslezské Noviny. He studied Czech, English and French at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. He did not finish his studies, after the first state examination he left for the publishing house, the Old Empire (Stará říše), influenced by Josef Florina, where he helped him for less than a year in publishing. He then lived as a translator and professional writer and worked for the Melantrich and Symposion publishers. Since 1923, he often took study trips to England, Spain, Yugoslavia, but mainly in France. During the war he lived in his birthplace, wrote short stories and maintained close contact with the Dominican spiritual centre in Olomouc. After the war he worked for a publishing house in Vyšehrad. After February 1948 he left Czechoslovakia and lived in Paris. From 1951 to 1955 he worked as a cultural editor of the Czechoslovak editorial office of Radio Free Europe in Munich, later acting as the Parisian cultural correspondent. Through his radio reflections, he tried to confront communist power and spiritually empower people "at home". Outside of his homeland he did not feel happy because he had a very strong relationship with Czechoslovakia. Several times, he seriously thought about becoming a priest, but in 1954 he married Charles Du Bose's daughter, a French literary critic. In 1962 Pope John XXIII gave him the papal Order of Saint Silvester for his lifetime work. He died after suffering a stroke on January 25^th, 1974 in Paris.

Nikola Čolak was born in Janjevo, now the Republic of Kosovo, on 14 April 1914. He was a Croatian historian, classical philologist, philosopher, archivist and publicist. He attended elementary school in his birthplace and the classics gymnasiums in Prizren and Travnik. In 1938, he graduated with a degree in philosophy at Gallarate, near Milan, in Italy. He also earned degrees in the Italian and French languages and literatures in Zagreb in 1943, together with degrees in history and classical philology. A communist court sentenced him to three years of forced labour in Zagreb in 1945 under charges of "plotting an uprising." After being released from the labour camp, he worked in factories on the outskirts of Zagreb and in schools in Ivanić-Grad, Glina and Novi Marof.

From 1954 to 1960, Čolak worked as archivist in the State Archives in Zadar and then moved to the Social Science Institute of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Science as a research associate in Zadar (1960-1965). In the summer of 1966, he initiated the review Slobodni glas (Free Voice) together with Mihajlo Mihajlov and a group of intellectuals, the first review that would not be controlled by the one-party state. Because of this initiative, he lost his job at the Institute and had to go into exile to Padua. He taught history and philosophy at Padua University and collaborated with the economic institutes in Verona and Padua. Čolak also joined the ranks of Croatian political émigrés, with particularly intense contacts with the circle around Branimir Jelić and his Croatian National Committee. In 1973, he unsuccessfully tried to renew the activity of the Croatian Party of the Right in exile. Since 1987, he was the assistant to Srećko Pšeničnik, the president of the Croatian Liberation Movement. In exile, he edited two political journals, Hrvatsko pravo (The Croatian Right) and Hrvatska domovina (Croatian Homeland). Čolak also wrote for other émigré journals such as the Hrvatska država (Croatian State), Hrvatska revija (Croatian Review) and Nezavisna država Hrvatska (Independent State of Croatia). He additionally contributed essays and articles about Croatian and Yugoslav matters to Italian newspapers and periodicals such as Il resto del Carlino, Cultura e politica, Il Messaggero, Reggio oggi, and Energie nuove. He established the Centre for Croatian Historical Studies in Padua as a research institution for Croatian history.
As early as 1977, he published his book “Behind Barbed Wire: the Fate of Croatia in Serb-Communist Yugoslavia,” and after that he wrote a new book in Italian in 1979 under the title “Communist Yugoslavia: Between the Intellectual Dissent and Croatia’s Right to Statehood.” In 1988, his book “Croatia Above All: Reflections on the Past and Future Perspectives” appeared, which included Čolak’s essays and articles written during the émigré period of his life. A year later, “The April Tenth Action in Light of the Key Testimony of Ivan Prusac and the Accompanying Documentation” was released. He died at the age of 82 on in Padua on 23 August 1996 and was buried in Zagreb.