Doc. Karel Cudlín

* 1960

  • "Of course there were differences between them, it was the Soviet army. I remember we talked to some [soldiers], they were a little bit afraid, soldiers from Lithuania, Latvia, who said, 'We would like it in our contry to be like in your country too. We don't want to be there [in the Soviet Union] with them anymore.' So there were obviously differences between those individual soldiers. Well, and then the officers were a special case, mostly, I think, they still wanted to grab what they could. They didn't know where they were going, they didn't know if they were going to get flats, what it was going to be like, they already knew that the economic situation in the Soviet Union was terrible. The Soviet Union actually started to fall apart at that time, so [they wanted] to sell something, buy something. So the fear of being photographed was there, so that you wouldn't take a photo of somebody black marketeering, selling, I don't know what, oil, power generators or I don't know what all could be sold or not, I had no experience with that. So that's what the army officers were actually a little bit afraid of. But the ordinary soldiers didn't care, cigarettes made the communication easier."

  • "I visited the Jewish community several, two or three times. And I wanted to take photos there. At that time, Daniel Majer was also to be inaugurated as rabbi after a long time. And some people who had already had the experience pointed it out to me. If you go to the Jewish community, I was there for some holidays, sooner or later you will find yourself somewhere at state Security. Which is what happened, in fact, you received some paper, somebody threw it in your letterbox, [that you should] show up with your passport to give an explanation. So of course, scared, I ran to Bartolomějská Street, with my passport, they took your passport away from you, your ID. Someone took you in there, two gentlemen were sitting there and they started... one a bit nice, the other a bit... but they didn't torment me, just mentally, right... asking you questions about things. Which meant, first of all: Poles at school, if they bring literature, how it is going at FAMU and so on. Then some things about... what I take photos of, why I take these photos, and so on. Then, of course, they came up with the Jewish community, with one saying, 'It would be good if you took pictures there, just to show us some things from time to time, and so on.' I wasn't there [at the Jewish community] from then on, from about eighty-six until Sidon came, basically, until the year ninety, because I was afraid. I didn't want to do that."

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    Praha , 19.04.2023

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I was interested in the contrast between what was being said and the reality

Karel Cudlín
Karel Cudlín
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Karel Cudlín was born on 28 June 1960 in Prague. His family lived in Žižkov and it was there that Karel‘s interest in photographic documentary began to awaken, when he started to capture life on the street. His father, Miroslav Cudlín, M.D., who worked as a factory doctor, then took him to the factory where he photographed workers. Nevertheless, his parents hoped that Karel would follow in his father‘s footsteps. However, he tore up his application to medical faculty and after graduating from grammar school he continued his studies at the so-called two-year follow-up study at the Secondary Social and Law School. This, as well as his subsequent employment, allowed him to take photos at other interesting places. Eventually he managed to be admitted to Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), majoring in artistic photography, from which he graduated in 1987. In 2016 he was appointed a senior lecturer there. Karel Cudlín has been a freelance photographer for most of his life, and is the author of many documentary photographic cycles, such as those of the removal of Soviet troops. He is also the recipient of many awards. From 1997 to 2003 he was one of the official photographers of President Václav Havel. Other photographic cycles were created in places he repeatedly returned to, mainly in Ukraine and Israel. At present (2023) he is still engaged in documentary photography and teaches externally at FAMU and Michael Academy in Prague. He lives in Prague.