Jiří Chadima

* 1923

  • „Začátkem 70. let ke mně nejdříve Japonci přijeli. Někde si mě našli, někde něco asi viděli, sehnali si adresu a přišli. Vybrali si deset obrázků. Tehdy ale ještě nebylo Artcentrum. Bylo jim sděleno, že autor není hoden reprezentovat české umění v cizině a aby si vybrali někoho jiného. Načež Japonci se uklonili a odešli. Tři roky je nikdo neviděl. Za tři roky se vrátili a to už existovalo Artcentrum, a to už v Artcentru zjistili, že musejí prodávat to, co zahraniční zákazník chce. Jendou mi nějaký univerzitní profesor nemohl uvěřit, že jsem dosud nebyl v Japonsku, že jsem tam poprvé. Řekl mi, že mám japonské vidění a že i moje technika se podobá tomu, jak se malovalo v Japonsku v 16. století.“ - „Jaké je Japonské vidění?“ - „ Kurosawa vždycky říkal: ‚My Japonci máme strašně rádi přírodu, ženské a obrázky. Ale až do kubismu. Kubismu nerozumíme. Kubismus u nás není malování, ale matematika.‘“

  • „Celá ta spolupráce byla v tom, že když přišly nějaké papíry, tak jsem zavolal Pepíka, on přišel, vyzvednul si je, a jednou za rok k vánocům, bylo to asi dvakrát, mi přinesl nějaký košík." - „Prý jste prováděl prověrky lidí nominovaných na spolupráci. Je to možné?“ - „To bylo jen jednou. Volali mi, že ke mně někdo přijde a hude se tvářit jako zákazník a já ho mám mezi řečí okouknout, jestli je schopný, nebo ne. Celý ten rozhovor proběhl tím způsobem, že jsem potom ohlásil, že je mdlé inteligence a k ničenu se nehodí.“

  • „Vím, že byl nějaký dotazník, těsně v roce 1945. Všichni členové zpravodajské brigády jsme museli odpovědět na dotaz, jak si představujeme republiku. Jestli samostatnou socialistickou republiku, to si pamatuji přesně, tuto formulaci, nebo jako předmnichovskou republiku, anebo jako připojenou k Sovětskému Svazu. Všichni, kdo jsme byli z grafické školy v té zpravodajské brigádě, tak jsme zaškrtli ‚samostatnou socialistickou republiku.‘“

  • “Well, nowadays it’s a bit of a fashion to claim that it was some kind of power struggle between two factions in the Communist Party, but according to my experience and to what I saw in the streets, it really was a nationwide phenomenon. The street debated, people suddenly felt closer to each other. No one could stand the phrases we had been fed. A kind of slogan of the year sixty-eight was: ‘Don’t quote, speak for yourself!’ Well, and of course, the people at the top who weren’t afraid to go into debates, they were in the fore and had the most sympathy from people. Take Goldstücker, for instance, he visited the Faculty of Law, which was very hot grounds for left-wing people. I know [something - ed.] about that, I was the chairman of one of the four organisations of the Communist Party in the Fine Artists’ Union. It’s well known that the artist unions were later declared a hotbed of the counter-revolution. One more thing that isn’t talked about today: one kind of centre of events in sixty-eight was the District Secretariat of the Communist Party in Prague 1. It was kind of due to the fact that Prague 1 wasn’t just responsible for the street committees of Prague 1, but for some unknown reason it was also assigned all of the Party organisations of the artist unions and nationwide institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences, the various ministries, and so on.”

  • “Those air raids, we kept waiting for when it start for real, but nothing happened. Until one time, when we were on our way back from Fidlovačka, loaded up with all those bags. And suddenly the sirens started blaring. We were in Slovany, by the Botanical Garden. Of course, we reckoned we wouldn’t take shelter, that we’d carry on to Charles Square. The sun was shining, it was quite a nice day. We’d sit on a bench with a view of our cart. That’s where we’d wait out the air raid. But a cop came charging out at us and shooed us into a house. We were sitting on the stairs, when suddenly - I still have that visual image - as with a gust of wind, scraps of paper blew down the street, a black dog ran across the road, lightning struck. And then some people - because nobody used the shelters much, no one believed [the alarms - trans.], people stayed at home - so now they hurtled inside and swept us down into the cellar. One old lady in the cellar started to wail: ‘Where are the boys from that cart that’s burning outside?’ Well, the nonsense we had been transporting was so easily flammable that it had burst into flame. The cart was made of tough wood, it was a bit blackened and burnt, but functional. And back ten, when we clambered out, we saw for the first time what was war. We carried the wounded on our two-wheeler to an improvised sick bay, which was somewhere beyond the little park by the Ministry of Agriculture, in one of those streets, I don’t know what it’s called, Gorazdova, I think. It was a German sick bay. At the time, the elder and supposedly more talented daughter of Josef Lada [a famous Czech artist - trans.] died during that air raid. We took the wounded there for as long as there were people to take. The road onwards was blocked, you could only walk. So we left the two-wheeler in the big courtyard of some office, the gatekeeper agreed to keep it for us there, and we climbed up the Nusle Stairs. We came back to the place. Everyone there already knew about the air raid, so we had to stop by there, and so they welcomed as if we had been born again. At the time we thought: We don’t understand this way of waging war. The houses were smashed up, Emmaus Monastery was burning, and further on, just a stone’s throw away, military transports were crossing the rail bridge, unperturbed. Allegedly, we didn’t know it at the time, but allegedly, some experts were to have confused Prague with Dresden. Things were coming to an end, we didn’t travel much any more, although the cart was burnt but usable. I know that back then before May Day, we visited the personnel officer, the cadre officer at his place. We said: ‘Major, sir, we won’t do the trips any more, we have other things to worry about now.’ He didn’t bat an eyelid and just said: ‘Boys, just be careful, so you don’t cop it pointlessly somewhere.’ That was his goodbye.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, atelier pamětníka, 09.09.2017

    (audio)
    duration: 03:26:49
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Praha, 16.06.2020

    (audio)
    duration: 01:26:03
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 3

    Praha, 25.08.2020

    (audio)
    duration: 01:41:49
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

What I do resembles a picture...

Jiří Chadima, cca 17 let
Jiří Chadima, cca 17 let
photo: pamětník

Jiří Chadima was born on 6 June 1923 as the second son of an experienced soldier who, like his wife, came from a tough background. He also spent a large part of his life in uniform, which marked his overall approach to life. Young Jiří Chadima was formed by his father’s strong social awareness and his military vigour. His choice of an artistic career came by chance: when he was at a student’s age, the experimental secondary school Atheneum opened in Prague. It functioned only briefly, from 1936 to 1941, but the school’s art teacher František Sembdner awoke his artistic flair in a major turning point in his life. He went on to study at the State School of Graphics, where he experienced the Prague Uprising. He and several friends joined the Intelligence Brigade, which was one of the successful, leading underground resistance organisations during the war. It was structured and led in a military manner. Its activities included collecting and passing on military intelligence to the foreign resistance. After the war the witness continued his interrupted studies and was accepted to the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. In 1946 his social awareness was probably what led him to join the Communist Party, where he even functioned as the chairman of one of the Party organisations in the Fine Artists’ Union. All the Party artist associations were active in the reformation movement of the Prague Spring. When these efforts were quashed by the invading Warsaw Pact forces, Czechoslovakia entered a period of normalisation under President Husák, and the regime hunted out “hostile elements” and dealt with them. Jiří Chadima was expelled from both the Party and the Fine Artists’ Fund. Whereas the original Central Union of Czechoslovak Fine Artists, of which he was a member, was dissolved, Chadima was denied membership of the newly established Union of Czechoslovak Fine Artists. He turned to freelance work and succeeded in earning recognition abroad.