“We were surprised because the people who got in touch and helped us were ones we didn’t expect to. We organised the first meeting in the square on Wednesday; I think it was around 20 November or so. We went to Prague on Monday and Tuesday; I went one day and the husband went the next, the other one of us staying with the children. Then we said, we cannot keep going to Prague like this, we don’t have the money, so we organised our very first demonstration in Rychnov on Wednesday. There was a stage still there, left after the October Revolution celebrations, so we used it. Our stoker friend passed a power extension cable down from the first-floor window, we plugged in the megaphone, and took turns speaking on stage. A guy from the museum, a manager from a firm, and other people we didn’t expect to actually took part. We delivered those speeches, and some people yelled nonsense and swearwords at us, saying we were crazy. I was posting leaflets from Prague in Rychnov one day. A pensioner lady was walking by and started cursing me for being stupid, wanting to invoke war and capitalism. It wasn’t generally accepted at all [at the time].”
“As I said, I sometimes went to these meetings – to ‘glean some wisdom’ – where Charter signatories came over from Prague and we got together. One of these meetings was held in Pardubice in April 1989. Alexander Vondra came, as did the Stibics, Inger, and Mr Malý who I had met before; I spoke about him with Tigrid. We met in a pub, as if for a ‘birthday party’. Then the cops raided us in the middle of it. We had various stuff and leaflets with us and were discussing matters such as how to organise demonstrations. They caught us in the act. A few people ended up in prison; I think Oldřich Bašta was sentenced to two years in prison; then there were some suspended sentences. I was only accused six weeks later. They arrested some and released them again; actually, I didn’t really pay attention afterwards. They accused me of unauthorised gathering and inciting sometime in late May. They took my passport and gave me the notice of accusation.”
“I loved stenography; I like learning new things. I actually represented our school in stenography competitions. It made for a funny story. One day in 1980, communists summoned a big meeting during the unrest in Poland and sent a message to my school, asking for the best stenographer in the house to take the minutes of their meeting. The school sent me [laughs]. I wore a chequered shirt; we were forbidden to wear jeans so I was wearing these worn corduroy trousers, plus like a kilo of jewellery, around my neck and all. I came to this auditorium of theirs; they just had a new ‘palace’ built and opened recently. As I entered, everybody went quiet, staring at me. I sat down in the first row and took the minutes of their entire meeting. It was outrageous! I got the job done, but usually, two or three people write down stuff like that, taking turns every twenty minutes, but I was writing it all alone for five hours… In addition, when people speak, they rarely do so concisely, in sentences: a sentence; full stop; next sentence, A to Z. The comrades were speaking a bit like I am now, hopping back and forth. That’s very hard to record by stenography. So, I said I’d retype it after like five hours of recording it. Two hours later, I had about two pages typed – but there was a total of fifteen pages full of my stenographic record! A comrade walked in and said it was taking too long. So, he dictated it all over again for me to type and they kept the records. Then they drove me back home to my village on their Tatra 603 limo – I was hiding so nobody could see me [laughs].”
Miroslava Havelková, née Kociánová, was born in Šternberk on 16 June 1963. She grew up in Oskava near Rýmařov where her father Miroslav worked as a gamekeeper and mother Zdena as a worker at Moravolen and Družspoj plants. In the aftermath of 1968, her father did not pass the CPC screening and was expelled from the party, due to which Miroslava was forbidden to study at a grammar school. Having completed the business high school in Šumperk, she worked briefly at the Hotel Rudá hvězda (Red Star) in Rychnov nad Kněžnou and then managed a greengrocer’s shop. She was in touch with people in the Czechoslovak underground and dissident movement from the 1980s and was interrogated several times. She initiated and helped organise a meeting of Czechoslovak émigrés and non-émigrés in Budapest in 1988. During the Velvet Revolution, she took part in demonstrations in Prague and organised civic protests in Rychnov nad Kněžnou. She left the country for Germany in 1990, returning to the Czech Republic for good five years later. She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University after 2000, and published the book, Milan “Plukovník” Kubes in 2015. She was living in Prague in 2022.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
