Leoš Duda

* 1964

  • There were maybe 110,000 people. They slept in... Even the Minister of Culture came there... Klusák! Incredible! We had arrived the evening before and spent the night there, it was amazing. There were the usual cymbalom bands and folkies too. All you could see were just sleeping bags and tents. The weather was fine too, the sun was shining, it was warm at night, so that night was also amazing. Then everybody gathered and the square filled up. There was a stage and - you won't understand the Bolsheviks - Hradiště's chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia or the municipal National Committee got onstage and gave that classic Bolshevik salute. People would boo here and there, well, okay. But when Klusák came in, the first thing he said was, 'Welcome comrades!' A terrifying roar rose up. I thought people were going to knock the stage over, it was terrible. They booed him off, and when Cardinal Tomášek came in and started the liturgy, everyone went quiet. People got on their knees on the ground... Jesus, it was amazing! That was such a powerful moment when Cardinal Tomášek came on stage after that Bolshevik and everyone went silent and people knelt down. Even now, when I think about it, it gives me shivers... As we were leaving the ceremony, we were all thinking, 'This is it for the Bolsheviks.' Velehrad. That's what it was."

  • "For example... Václav Havel used to come to Zlín in 1988. For one, he has roots here because his grandfather, I think, was Hugo Vavrečka, an employee of Bata. He used to come here to Zlín to his grandfather's birthplace. Second, he was friends with the traveler (Miroslav) Zikmund and they would meet at Zikmund's villa, at his home, and Standa Devátý thought we could do a meeting with Václav Havel. So we did it at the Šenk pub in Vizovice. By then, the police had already seized my car because of certificate of roadworthiness, so I borrowed a car for the weekend from my friend Čurda who worked with me at the studio. He lent it to me, I drove people to see Havel, and gave it back to him on Monday. Later that week, he came up to me and said: 'What the heck were you doing, dude?' I said: 'Why, I was driving people.' He said: 'I know where you were!' I eventually found out that his father was the chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the farm cooperative in Březůvky. Turns out, I was driving people to see Havel in the car that belonged to the local chairman of the Communist Party."

  • "Those guys were a lot older, you could say, but we were close in opinions, we understood each other, and I started visiting Standa with a friend about these matters. We tried to help him. At that time, Devátý was still working in Slušovice, before his escape and trials and so on, and before Čuba and the StB went after him. In fact, the information that Staňa used to divulge or supply to the Voice of America and Free Europe - we picked him up somewhere in Zlín in the evening and drove to Slušovice where he worked. I think he worked at the IT section of JZD Slušovice, where his office was. I think that since he had been a radio operator (in the military) - he never told me and I never asked him about it - he always somehow connected the wires and managed to do it. He always called the Voice of America directly and reported from Slušovice. I used to drive him there, like I said, and kept watch outside. If the cops were coming, I was supposed bant on a certain window so he could get away."

  • Full recordings
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    Zlín, 27.03.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 01:30:53
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
  • 2

    Zlín, 04.04.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 01:53:26
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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We were all on the bandwagon of The Plastic People of the Universe

Leoš Duda in 1987
Leoš Duda in 1987
photo: Witness's archive

Leoš Duda was born in Gottwaldov on 20 August 1964 to mother Anna Dudová, née Řezníčková, and father Antonín Duda. Both came from Svárov, a village in between Zlín and Uherské Hradiště, from peasant families. The father’s family had lost their property during collectivisation. Leoš Duda played ice hockey from the age of six and practiced every day in his childhood. In the sixth grade, he entered a sports school. He began to take interest in music, attending record fairs at age twelve. He never loved the regime and none of his family was in the Communist Party. He trained as an auto mechanic, gave up hockey during his apprenticeship and started playing the clarinet. In 1981 he and his classmate Pavel Knap formed the band K-pank, with which they soon performed at illegal events. He joined the Gottwaldov dissent movement in the latter half of the 1980s and his main activities included the distribution of samizdat. He got married in 1986 and with his wife Alena, née Přibylová, they raised two children. He took part in many anti-regime actions, signed petitions for the release of political prisoners, and in 1987 signed Charter 77. In the same year, he founded the SPUSA organization with other Gottwaldov dissidents. Over time, he worked at ČSAD, Gottwaldov Film Studio, DRUEXPO (cooperative exposition), and then he trained as a shoemaking machine repairer. Following 1989, he worked in Germany, and founded his own shoe company Leon Shoes in 1998. He suspended his business for a while due to health problems. In 2024, at the time of filming, he was living in Zlín, still involved in music, playing the clarinet with Kochta Band. He received the award for the participants in the Third Resistance for his anti-regime activities.