“At a conference, I came up with an idea of a book called The Children of the World, because I wanted our children to understand how children in Denmark live and children in Japan to understand the life of children in Russia. Stories about how children lived. It is quite characteristic that these stories were published in Russian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak but not in Czech. No one is a prophet at home. I think it is the international quality, which I always cared about so much, is very important for peace in the world, so that people do not perceive citizens of another country as enemies, someone we don’t want to speak to and have nothing in common. Whenever I went abroad I went to see people. Naturally I went to a museum, a gallery, but always it was mainly about meeting people I felt close to.”
“There are two phases of communism in this country. The 1950s, bloody, with show trials, yet on the other hand those that did it, really meant it in a genuine way. People such as Zápotocký and Kopecký… They felt it, although sometimes they did horrible things. It was their creed. Then came the 1970s and 1980s when people entered the Communist Party only because of their personal gain, because of money. I could see no genuine communists or socialists. These people were the opportunist who just replaced those that had to leave. Not all of them, naturally, but as far as I can judge from those I saw around myself. This period, it was the counterfeit 1950s. The executions were no longer physical but spiritual. Many people died prematurely, as they had to leave jobs they loved, they did well and they found their vocation in them. Now they worked as night guards, boiler operators and in similar jobs.”
“I started writing Three Bananas, the first of my books which gained a kind of cult status. I started, stopped, started again… and when I came to it for the third time, I knew this was it. It was published and Karel Heger read the book on the radio (What year was it?) It was in 1962 or 1963. Well, the fact is that it was awarded, an editor at Literární noviny published a scathing review, saying this was not the way to write and that I had written something which was never to be published (What was so unacceptable about it?) That I made stuff up. She may have found my imagination too wild. That I came up with a talking lotos, that there were the Grác brothers who quarrelled all the time. I do believe that fairy tales of this kind should not be too focused. That they should speak to fifteen-year-old readers, same as fifty-year-old ones. That fantasy, humour, mystery and suspense should address as many people as possible. At that time the fairy-tale phenomenon in Czech literature was gaining momentum. Authors such as Čtvrtek, Macourek, Hejna, Drda… this was a sudden explosion of fairy tales at that time. But even people abroad saw that something unusual was happening.”
“Even through children’s literature we can give children much for their future. I received a letter from a reader in Siberia, saying that I have changed their outlook on life, and I think that a book which inspires and – as an old saying has it – is man’s best friend, can give much to the future generation. We just must not replace books by computers, smartphones and things like that. I don’t think the excess of technology, including computer beat them ups and all-day TV, contributes to the development of children into nice and friendly people. This is a task that is before us. It is not up to my generation any longer, but on the younger ones how they manage. It is said that every generation can cope with anything, or that capitalism can cope with anything. No, they can’t.”
“In the 1950s cartoons were seen as a product of imperialism. At Zlatý máj we started mapping what were good series and what poor ones and had a discussion about it. The result was that cartoons or comics were not to be dismissed – that there were good ones and poor one. I and my wife Dagmar Lhotová wanted to create a Czech cartoon. We invited the artist Věra Faltová, whose characters we liked, and invented the tomcat named Vavřinec, a daring sportsman, a dog girl named Otylka, slightly spoiled, the pig Mojmír, a poet and a dreamer, and the goat Spytihněv, an angry guy. And we launched it fifty years ago. The response was huge and children loved it. It was the first series after Lada and Sekora. The third chapter in the history of comics for children.”
Zdeněk Slabý was born on June 9, 1930, in Prague into a well-to-do family. He joined the boy scout organisation and in 1944 he got in touch with Jaroslav Foglar who accepted him into Prague’s Dvojka unit. Even as a child he was strongly interested in music and literature. After the war he started contributing to Foglar’s journal Junák, writing mainly reviews, and he then continued in the journal Vpřed. On secondary school graduation in 1949 he went to the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, where he read Czech and Russian literature and literary history. He established Divadlo poezie (Theatre of Poetry), which gathered young poets who defined themselves against communist authors. He was to be sent to labour in the mines because of his criticism of the communist poet Ivan Skála, but his teacher spoke in his favour and the forced labour punishment was avoided. He kept refusing entering the Party and thus did not expect he would be able to make a career in the academy. In the late 1950s he accepted the position of an editor in Zlatý máj publishing house, which focused on children’s literature. He himself started writing for children. He has written over thirty books, known all over the world. In 1968 he joined the Communist Party in the hope that he would be able to contribute to the democratisation of the society. During checks in 1970, however, he was expelled from the party, professionally degraded and banned from publishing for the next twenty years. At that time he turned to music. He built a vast archive of musical recordings and texts on jazzy and alternative music from all over the world. Eventually he used his knowledge in three books, the first of which was published – despite the ban – as early as the 1980s in Albatros publishing house. Zdeněk Slabý died on March 11, 2020.
