Jan Vladislav (1923–2009) was a Czech poet, translator and signatory of Charter 77; he was forced to emigrate from Czechoslovakia in 1981 and later lived in France. He was visited there by a film crew from the Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature in the summer of 1992, as part of the Authentic project and the Independent Documentary Centre of Aleš Záboj. On this occasion, a video recording of Jan Vladislav being interviewed by Petr Kotyk in his study was made on 6 August 1992. Jan Vladislav recalled his activities in Czechoslovakia before his emigration and also mentioned the importance of translators, whose work made it possible to “promote both classic and modern authors, whose work was liberatingly defying the official Czech cultural politics through its spirit, content and mission”. He was talking also about the cultural repression in Czechoslovakia after 1948, de-Stalinization, the Prague Spring and role of intellectuals in the twentieth century. Apart from this video recording of the interview between Jan Vladislav and Petr Kotyk, the recordings of Vladislav’s own public appearances as well as conferences concerning him are also deposited in the video and audio library of the Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature.
Location
Strahovské nádvoří 1, 118 38 Praha 1 - Hradčany, Czech Republic
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Kotyk, Petr. 2011. "Projekt Authentic: časosběrná natáčení Literárního archivu PNP v letech 1990-2009 jako literárněhistorický pramen." PhDr. diss. (rigorózní práce), Fakulty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.
Badatelna.eu. 2018. "Literární archiv Památníku národního písemnictví - Videotéka a fonotéka literárního archivu PNP." Accessed September 7. http://www.badatelna.eu/fond/3393/zakladni-informace/.
Kotyk, Petr. 2008. Deset tisíc změn se znovu mění - Dno všeho vrchol prázdnoty: rozhovory a promluvy českých literátů z let 1990-1995. Praha: Cherm.
Kotyk, Petr, interview by Kůželová, Michaela, May 24, 2018. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection
