"Karel Pavlištík then very soon became the spokesman for the Zlín Civic Forum in Zlín. Miroslav Zikmund also came there. Petr Bartoš's father was there. There were several doctors, older ones. Older doctors from Zlín. Interesting, then there were other people around Pavlištík and Ludvík Vaculík. They were acquaintances of Ludvík Vaculík, who when he came here and went to Zlín, he also had such a group of acquaintances there. So, I would say that, in Zlín, it was so balanced. That there were the younger boys, but also the older generation. And I kind of felt very good about it. And then he went back there, I don't know exactly when, Standa Devátý. He came from Poland, there was no danger anymore. Well, I , so I went to Zlín. Because I was going to work and then not to work, but to the Civic Forum. And once in the second half of the first week, Thursday, Friday, I remember coming from Zlín earlier. And I went to Mariánské square in Hradiště, where I knew that these people were already meeting, where it also started. And it was already like a theater there. There's the acting house. And from the first floor, where there were microphones and speakers, people were talking to those standing in the square below. And I went from the other side and suddenly I heard my son through the speakers. I remember that. "My name is Jan Gogola, I'm a student at Charles University and I declare here that the Red Law is lying!" And now the people there howled. I thought, 'Well, it's already here.' And I saw the StB stepping around and so on. Well, I went to that acting house then and I stayed there. Radek Kunz already let me. He put it all together there, and others, so on. I came to the Hradiště forum at the end of the first week."
"Mr. and Mrs. Vaculka were people whose significance far exceeded the region and they were somehow recognized; they were recognized abroad. And Ludvík Vaculík was a great friend mainly with Vladislav Vaculka. He was going to visit, he was going to visit them. And we, as the younger generation, used to go to the Vaculkas, we used to go to the studio. It was amazing, because Vaculka was sitting in such a giant armchair, smoking half of the box of the cigarettes, and I have one beautiful memory of him. He had the radio Free Europe turned on. And they were jamming it so much that I didn't understand a word. And Vaculka was trained that he recognized it, he somehow recognized it. So, we were sitting there, there was a hum and Vaculka says, "That's not possible, imagine that..." and he translated it for us. Well, I remember the funeral, the area around the grave, it was occupied by the StB. It was disgusting what they were doing there. And Hradišťan played there at the grave. And of course, the Vaculíks came and a lot of those artistic friends, the house was then completely surrounded by them. They photographed everything. So Vaculka had a huge influence on us. "
"I started going to school in 1950s. I finished that eight-year high school in the year fifty-eight, and I had only As all the time. And then I enrolled in an eleven-year high school and I, or we, received a message that I was not accepted and that I should join the apprenticeship center of the national company Mikrotechna. So, my father went to see his friend, who was a lawyer, Dr. Hruška. By the way, a founding member of the Communist Party in the year 1921, as a very young boy who came from a very, very poor situation. And Dr. Hruška wrote an appeal for my father. That's what my mother explained to me. Roughly that my father appeals against the non-admission of his talented son Jan, who was not accepted to the school because the father is of Slovak nationality. And my mother then told me that she went there, because my father worked outside of Hradiště. She went there to deal with it at the district national committee, the education department. And she said there was such a vain clerk who almost had a foam leaking from his mouth. And he said, 'We'll accept your boy. But you will tell us who advised you on this! 'Well, I got to the eleven-year school."
Jan Gogola during the filming of the interview in 2019
photo: Taken during the filming of the interview in 2019
photo: Taken during the filming of the interview in 2019
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Jan Gogola was born on February 24, 1944 in Uherské Hradiště. From his childhood, he was strongly influenced by Masaryk’s and Baťa’s ideals, which were passed on to him by his parents, Jan and Františka Gogol. Because, as a small boy he served in the church, he had a problem with the admission to the eleven-year school in Uherské Hradiště, similar to today’s secondary grammar schools. However, after the appeal, he was finally able to start the school. After the graduation, he unsuccessfully applied to the Faculty of Arts in Brno. He enrolled at the Pedagogical Institute in Gottwaldov, where he studied Czech and Russian language. Already during his studies, he became involved in the organization of the International Film Festival for Children and Youth. A meeting with later recognized personalities, such as Zdeněk Strmiska, Alois Pytela or Jindřich Glogar was very essential for him. During his pedagogical practice, he started teaching at the Elementary School in Kunovice, where he taught until 1977. After the invasion of the Soviet troops in August 1968, he had to be present as a member of the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement (ROH) in the inspections that followed the invasion. He did not feel well in normalization education, and therefore in 1972–1977 he studied cultural theory at the Faculty of Arts in Olomouc. Furthermore, his professional steps were connected exclusively with a theater and later with film, when he worked as a literary manager at the Slovácko Theater in Uherské Hradiště, the Gottwald Film Studio and after 1989 in Prague’s Barrandov. As a literary manager, he participated in the films Smoke, The Need to Kill Sekal and Requiem for a Doll, and he has over thirty all-evening films to his credit. During the Velvet Revolution, he co-founded the Civic Forum in Uherské Hradiště and became its spokesman. Since 1995, he has worked as a freelance film and television dramaturg, teaching at the Prague FAMU and at the Brno JAMU, where in 2011 he was awarded the title of university professor. According to him, the important thing in life is when someone is willing to make their own talent and ingenuity available to the whole.
The procession of the Corpus Christi in Hradiště in the mid-1950s, from the left: the highest mayor Petr Hrobař, Jan Gogola, on the left the director of the grammar school František Minařík, in front František Konvalinka, next to him doc. Ludvík Prášil and the sexton Ladislav Kaška
The procession of the Corpus Christi in Hradiště in the mid-1950s, from the left: the highest mayor Petr Hrobař, Jan Gogola, on the left the director of the grammar school František Minařík, in front František Konvalinka, next to him doc. Ludvík Prášil and the sexton Ladislav Kaška
Basketball team Spartaku Uherské Hradiště, for his accuracy was his hand honored with the name "golden hand", mid-60s (Jan Gogola the bottom row on the left)
Basketball team Spartaku Uherské Hradiště, for his accuracy was his hand honored with the name "golden hand", mid-60s (Jan Gogola the bottom row on the left)
Easter, we went whipping with Hudecka music, from the left: Jiří Charuza, Ivan Blaha, at the bass Jiří Masařík, behind him note person František Vyhlíd, on his left Jan Gogola, in the front Charuz twins, Pavel Marek, behind him Jan Maděrič, on the right the first violinist Josef Kučera, probably in the years 68-70.
Easter, we went whipping with Hudecka music, from the left: Jiří Charuza, Ivan Blaha, at the bass Jiří Masařík, behind him note person František Vyhlíd, on his left Jan Gogola, in the front Charuz twins, Pavel Marek, behind him Jan Maděrič, on the right the first violinist Josef Kučera, probably in the years 68-70.
The football team Uherské Hradiště back from the left: Zdeněk Pilát, Miroslav Potyka, Jan Gogola, Zdeněk Gogola, Boris Brázdil, at the bottom: Josef Kučera, Jan Jurek, Milan Šácha
The football team Uherské Hradiště back from the left: Zdeněk Pilát, Miroslav Potyka, Jan Gogola, Zdeněk Gogola, Boris Brázdil, at the bottom: Josef Kučera, Jan Jurek, Milan Šácha
With Hradišťan at a performance in Uherský Brod, on the left the first violinist and the singer of the CM Olšava from Brod Luboš Málek and Jura Pavlica on behalf of CM Hradišťan, early 80s
With Hradišťan at a performance in Uherský Brod, on the left the first violinist and the singer of the CM Olšava from Brod Luboš Málek and Jura Pavlica on behalf of CM Hradišťan, early 80s
In the jury of the Czech Film Comedy Festival in Nové Město nad Metují - prof. Elmar Klos and Zdeněk Svěrák, Czech film screenwriter M. Forman and the director of Homolkovi Jaroslav Papoušek, the director Zdeněk Podskalský, the film historian Pavel Taussig, around the middle of 1980s
In the jury of the Czech Film Comedy Festival in Nové Město nad Metují - prof. Elmar Klos and Zdeněk Svěrák, Czech film screenwriter M. Forman and the director of Homolkovi Jaroslav Papoušek, the director Zdeněk Podskalský, the film historian Pavel Taussig, around the middle of 1980s
