Marta Bystrovová

* 1947

  • “There’s a lot of talk of how Kryl and Gott sang the anthem. Really. Although Karel Kryl later said something to the effect that he was forced to do it, which isn’t true, I can attest to that. He came, and they told him, ‘it would be good’. Because the main issue there was that it shouldn’t just be some meeting of intellectuals or artists, but that the workers should join in too. So when they invited, I don’t know who it was, which factory. Müller came with them, and on they went, it was an incredible victory. Because they really did come, Wenceslas Square was full, and it was clear that they wouldn’t shoot at them with water cannons or with anything else because they were workers, after all. It was necessary to show somehow that this is in the public interest and that it’s not just a matter of a few dozen of us who got a silly idea. Of course, the rural areas were a big problem because we wrote the newspapers and sent them, but sometimes they got lost on the way, they didn’t arrive where they were supposed to. Or someone’d chuck them out of the train, and so on. People in the countryside would say: ‘What are them Praguers doing again? They’ve got their knickers in a twist again.’”

  • “Seifert won the Nobel Prize, those were interesting times, and they told us we could write ten lines about it. Just imagine. Or when he died, there were two funerals. One was at the Rudolfinum, the official one, where it was swarming with cops, we knew that ahead of time. And the second one was private. How could we let people know that there was a second funeral taking place? So with the help of the typesetter in the letterpress workshop, without the knowledge of any of the bosses, we placed a short little note into the classified ads section. And it worked, people knew that the funeral would be in Břevnov. Well, in short, it’s hard to describe it now because what we considered was walking on a very thin line at the time, people today would find a joke, of course. But I must say that the atmosphere wasn’t so bad at Slovo. I don’t know how to describe it. Perhaps because I’d never experienced anything else except for the Socialism we had, because I was born towards the end of 1947. So every little bit of something, some release or some options or some way how to get in between the lines. All of that felt very positive to us.”

  • “We asked people, though we spoke with Russian soldiers more. We described what was going on. Then we all signed ourselves neatly under it, and the next day they forbade it, they told us we’d better not sign ourselves any more. Melantrich was taken [and turned into] some kind of Soviet HQ, so we couldn’t go there the next day. They realised there was a printing shop there, and so on. They got their bearings, and it was also a rather good spot for them on Wenceslas Square. So we continued to make the newspaper, but in various flats. My task was mainly to distribute it. I wore, as I said before, what was the fashion back then, those short skirts, and they said: ‘Put that parcel under your feet and go. Put a parcel in the car and go.’ We drove from embassy to embassy and gave the people there newspapers.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 05.02.2016

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  • 2

    Praha, 11.02.2016

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    Praha, 13.11.2018

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    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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We shouldn’t be content with below-average

Bystrovová Marta - při reportáži o půjčovně šatů,  (historic)
Marta Bystrovová
photo: Současná: Post Bellum, dobové - archiv pamětnice

Marta Bystrovová, née Švagrová, was born on 18 December 1947 to Bohumila and Emanuel Švagr. The family soon moved to Prague, where Marta’s father worked as technical support manager at Melantrich, a publishing house. Marta grew up in the streets and suburbs of Smíchov. After graduating from grammar school in 1966 she started as an intern at the daily newspaper Svobodné slovo (Free Word). She was in the hotspot of cultural and political activities in the newspaper’s office on Wenceslas Square for twenty-five years. She mainly wrote in the culture section. In 1968, in the chaotic period when the country was occupied by Warsaw Pact forces, she helped write news reports and distribute special editions of Svobodné slovo. She avoided the political profiling committees in 1970 because she was on maternity leave with her son Ladislav. Her husband Vladimír Bystrov was fired from his job of spokesman for Barrandov Studios. That same year Marta finally decided to abandon her studies of journalism - this was because all the capable and inspiring teachers were forced to leave the school. After maternity leave she returned to her employment at Svobodné slovo. According to her own words, cultural topics and the discovery of new talents became a source of meaningful, joyful, and yet politically harmless journalistic work for Marta within the limitations of normalisation journalism. She signed the petition Several Sentences, and on 17 November 1989 she joined the rest of the editorial staff in protests in Prague-Albertov. She and several colleagues pushed through the decision to publish the news about the brutal suppression of the demonstration on National Avenue together with a statement of disapproval on the title page of the Monday issue of Svobodné slovo, and despite objections from the management, she and the other journalists began providing independent coverage and news reports of the beginnings of the “velvet” coup. The revolutionary enthusiasm made the daily’s print run skyrocket to half a million copies. Marta and her colleagues worked hectically, and their office became one of the focal points of events. In December 1989 she took on the job of deputy editor-in-chief. She worked at the daily until 1991. She was then employed by Lidové noviny (The People’s News; a newspaper with a long-standing tradition - trans.), she accepted an offer to start and create the Saturday supplement. In the years 1995 to 1999 she was engaged by the magazine Týden (The Week). She now writes for the culture section of Lidové noviny.