Milan Navrátil

* 1930

  • “We came to terms with reality and saw the enormous power of the army that was marching, the tanks and everything. The end, against this... And when they settled here for such a long time, it was only depression. And those were sad years. But we waited. We have seen the dawn. The Velvet Revolution was indeed velvet, but thank goodness for it. Everything fell, everyone... today it is forgotten, forgotten. Even the facts that were the reality of that time are now only in memories or in the records of such organizations as your Memory of the Nation, and thanks for that. Because, although it sometimes sounds incredible that something like this could remain and last, against human nature and despite everything, that it could continue and with such consequences, it really is incomprehensible. It's hard to tell the grandchildren how it was in the 1968s, how it was in the 1948s, the 1950s. The Communist Party looks completely different to us today. Today, the Communist Party decides which government will lead, it is a paradox. We are the country, of those satellites that were the governorates of the Soviet Union, the only country that did not ban the Communist Party."

  • "Smrkovský and all those who realized that it went too far, that communism went too far, that it denies freedom instead of providing it. Back then, the time was such that we were slowly feeling different air, and that hope was somehow close at hand. We were like, 'If this is going to work, it's going to be ideal, without some military coup or things like that.' To gain freedom, that's what we longed for. And so, we congratulated them, not congratulated, but appreciated it. To those who tried to implement this version of socialism with a human face... Unfortunately, the sixty-eighth, the end. When we saw after that, we experienced it personally those Soviet transports that I captured there in those photographs, as they drove through, irrevocably, and then the representatives of the Communist Party, Bilak and all, Smrkovský had to go to Moscow and obediently bend their backs and... So, it really hurt us. That hope. And sometimes we really were... In short, that trust, even though it was close at hand here, we thought to ourselves: 'After all, we have experience.' Hungary, the fifty-sixth year, they wanted to do something similar there, and in the end - how did it turn out. Army, tanks, rifles, machine guns... Massacre.”

  • "The Americans arrived first, my brother and I photographed them. Such handsome guys, one was like an Indian, they had those... And the other was a mulatto, intelligent boys, and that jeep - well, as boys, we could not take our eyes of it at all. So, they came. They went to the townhall in Blovice, the mayor welcomed them and treated them there, and then the girls dressed in our national costumes welcomed them there too. And that was a celebration. The Americans, the vanguard that arrived that day, then left afterwards, and then the American army arrived, and they set up their trucks there at the stadium. We also could not take our eyes of them. And they had it lined up according to a band, one car next to the other. And the line was accurate. They were cooking there. But they weren't there long. I don't remember how long, I think a fortnight at the most, but I don't know exactly. And then the Russians came to us and we became disillusioned. They arrived, one tank, such a ragged one... well, passed through the front.'

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Plzeň, 08.07.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:20:41
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The most important thing is to have character, everything else is only temporary

Milan Navrátil
Milan Navrátil
zdroj: archive of the witness

Milan Navrátil was born on September 12, 1930 in Pilsen. His father František was a non-commissioned officer in the Czechoslovak army and worked as an instructor at a military academy. He lost his job after the Nazi occupation, when the Czechoslovak army was disbanded and the family with four children lost a crucial source of livelihood. Therefore, František Navrátil founded a photography studio in Blovice, a small town located southeast of Pilsen. The whole family subsequently moved to Blovice and lived through the war period relatively peacefully. At its end, Blovice found itself near the demarcation line, Milan remembers the arrival of American and Soviet soldiers. After the war, he graduated from photography school and after graduating, he started working in his father‘s studio. The successful operation of the studio was interrupted only by the arrival of the communists, the studio became one of the nationalized Fotografia cooperatives, and the Navrátils could only remain in it as its employees. In 1951, both Milan and his older brother were called up for basic military service. As the sons of a tradesman and practicing Catholics with a dismissive attitude towards the new conditions, they spent the military service in the Auxiliary Engineering Corps. Their father also received a call-up order to the AEC. After returning from the military service, Milan joined the Pilsen branch of the once famous Langhans studio, he also briefly became a reportage photographer and eventually took over from his father to run the portrait studio in Blovice. Together with his wife, he was managing the studio until he retired. With great interest, he searched for new procedures in photo processing, which he was able to bring to artisanal perfection, for which he was repeatedly awarded at international competitions. He lived a large part of his life in the period of communism, towards which he had a very negative attitude. He had a hard time when Czechoslovakia was occupied by the troops of the Warsaw Pact and he documented the arrival of Soviet soldiers in Blovice in many pictures. He also photographed events in November 1989 and at the same time actively participated in public events. He became one of the founding members of the Civic Forum in Blovice and was also a member of the local government for one term. At that time, the studio was also returned to the ownership of the original owners, and Milan Navrátil continued to run it successfully. He still lives in Blovice, in the family house, where the Navrátils built a new studio, the family tradition is now being carried on by Milan Navrátil‘s daughter.