Generalized Zariski-van Kampen theorem and its application to Grassmannian dual varieties

We formulate and prove a generalization of Zariski-van Kampen theorem on the topological fundamental groups of smooth complex algebraic varieties. As an application, we prove a hyperplane section theorem of Lefschetz-Zariski-van Kampen type for the fundamental groups of the complements to the Grassmannian dual varieties.