"Yes, but it was already there, there was an instruction to the regional court, which has sentenced us about three or four times, how to judge already. And they had already been driven into that situation, they could no longer oppose the Constitutional Court. And the Constitutional Court clearly declared that our revolt, that strike and that time was not to excuse on our part, but on the contrary that we stood, as it were, as a respectable and brave struggle for freedom and for new, democratic principles. That our position was respectable at that time."
"Oh no, this is unbelievable, this is really unbelievable. What can I say, I was like, this is terrible, they kept calling us students, yeah, students, we were still students, we were almost 50 years old and we were students, yeah, it was annoying. But the worst thing is that if I said I had a trial somewhere, for example, people didn't take it very positively. Yeah, it wasn't positive. It was really on my nerves, it was like, it was just like I'd done something. It's not normal. That society had a very difficult struggle with itself, to this day it still has a problem coping with the revolution, to this day we can't even cope with communism, to this day we can't cope with the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, like the Munich betrayal and so on."
"Well we were determined not to withdraw because we kept saying that, and one of the main arguments was that the current student academic senate stood up for us, that we were the founders. And even, it was also such a master piece by our attorney that he invited the college to intervene. And it was only then in the next act that they stood up for us as well. We said, that was not our will, that was the will of the student body at the time, that expression of disbelief. And he, Snášel, was saying no, there were private persons signed who wanted to harm me. And the judges were on his side. That there was no organization then and that those private persons were responsible. And they didn't want to hear anything about the revolution!"
“We started to sleep in faculty and people started to come during the first night, for example a man came, and he gave us a cyclostyle with membranes, colour and everything. He gave it to us and he said: ‚I don´t need it now, you will need it.‘ We were excited and we said: ‚How will we return it to you?‘ ‚No, it´s okay, I will let you know, I will come.‘ So we printed posters during the first night of occupational strike. There was a first republic two-tailed lion and under it was written: ‚For our pride.‘ We truly wanted to live a different life, not a hypocritical one, we wanted to live a colourful life that we would be proud of and to be proud of our nation too. The next day in the morning we glued them in the Gottwaldova street, it was so called “Cejl” nobody knows it now. There are many factories and we glued the posters on their doors. A lion ‚For our pride‘. A doorman came out and ripped it. We told him: ‚Sir, why do you rip it? Look, what it says.‘ He looked at it: ‚For our pride‘ He did not know what to do at all because he did not expect it. So, he glued it back and said: ‚All right, boys‘ And he went back.”
“We began to strike on the 20th November in the morning. The day was crucial also in Brno because the emergency regiments in Brno were ready to beat the demonstrators. The mayor from Brno prevented it. I remember it well; we were at the edge of the demonstration on "Svoboďák” (the Svobody square). I saw that the emergency regiments officers of National Security Corps were angry because they could not beat us, I saw them destroying their bus with truncheons, furious, because the mayor prevented them from beating us. Before, when they were waiting for running towards us and beating us, the fear was overpowering. A friend, a classmate who was not able to speak was next to me. He only gave shrieks; fear can do it. The first day I went to the toilet and suddenly I said to myself: ‚It has developed a lot; they will lock me up right at the beginning. It will be horrible, I will finish my studies, who knows if I will be allowed to work somewhere.‘ Something was telling me: ‚Go out from the toilet and do not return to the Faculty.‘ But I surpassed it and returned, because of my family, because of the students with whom I started it. I want to tell you my realization that to be brave is to overcome fear.”
“The hypocrisy of society was horrible because it minded different opinion. It was bothered even with different children´s opinion. It means that when my grandmother wanted us to go to religion class, they were annoyed at school. I even served at Mass in Church of the Holy Mother of God for some time but communist invited my dad, who is not religious, and wanted him to make me stop serving at Mass. Can a nine-year-old boy who helps priest at church endanger the communist regime? It is really twisted; however, they minded those trivialities and they threatened people because of them. They minded when you attended religion class. They belittled faith in classrooms, there were anti-religious tests in civics, and the teacher´s narrations - everyone who attended religion classes, approximately four or five people from the whole class, would stand up and were standing while the comrade teacher was explaining that it was wrong and that their opinions were also wrong. Could that have endangered socialism here in this country? It is completely twisted. The regime naturally fought those issues and of course they were annoyed with any other opinion that was not compatible with the leading role of the Communist Party; such opinions were persecuted, belittled and the people were persecuted.”
Martin Laštovička was born on the 9th of June 1965 in Jihlava. During his childhood he was influenced by his relatives ´s attitudes to life, and mainly by the anti-communist attitude of his grandmother Marie Veverková. He strongly stated his own opinions for the first time when he left the Socialist Union of Youth. Owing to it, he had problems at school, however, he luckily managed to get to the Faculty of Architecture of Brno University of Technology. During his fifth year on the 19th of November 1989 he got to know about a brutal intervention against student demonstration in Národní třída in Prague. He and his schoolmates started to organize an occupational strike and firs of all demanded the end of totalitarian communist government. In the following days they were printing and spreading information leaflets, organizing demonstrations and persuading people to support the change of regime. The students made a statement on mistrust of several teachers after the fall of communism and Laštovička signed it as the chairman of the strike committee. For twenty-three years, he faced a lawsuit brought by a teacher Jan Snášel over the statement before the court ruled in favour of Laštovička. He worked as an architect after the studies and in 1996 obtained an authorization and started his own company Atelier Na Stoupách. He worked mainly on construction and reconstruction of sacral buildings.
Martin Laštovička distributed posters and went to factories to explain people statements of student strike committee of the Faculty of Architecture of Brno University of Technology during the Velvet Revolution
Martin Laštovička distributed posters and went to factories to explain people statements of student strike committee of the Faculty of Architecture of Brno University of Technology during the Velvet Revolution
The dean Ivan Ruller is giving speech during graduation of students of the Faculty of Architecture of Brno University of Technology, the witness Martin Laštovička is standing on the right
The dean Ivan Ruller is giving speech during graduation of students of the Faculty of Architecture of Brno University of Technology, the witness Martin Laštovička is standing on the right
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!
