Zdeněk Prokop

* 1934

  • "Very soon she had to leave Uzhhorod with her parents and they had to flee from the occupation. At that time, Subcarpathian Russia got separated. On the one hand, the Slovak state was established and all Czechs were to be expelled from Slovakia and from Subcarpathian Russia. Part of the Subcarpathian Russians were crammed by Hungarians again, of whom there were also plenty and who were always large-scale and made demands, whether historical... So my father was fired, his job was canceled at the post office and he became an immigrant. My father got us a train ride and we had to go (my mother with little Vlastička wrapped in a bandage) to some place in Poland, where my father got an accommodation with a farmer in a cottage. We lived there for about two to three months before my father obtained permission to cross the Polish border, from that Polish town, to the Czech Republic. There we lived for about two or three months before the father obtained a permission to cross the Polish borders from the Polish little town to Bohemia. So he corresponded with the help of letters with his grandfather Pelc, the soldier."

  • "The gentleman from that office came, and one by one from that class, boys and girls, he took to the table separately and said, 'So what would you like to do, you're finishing school now, so what would you like to be?' And I told him when it was my turn: 'I would like to be an airplane pilot.' He looked at me and said, 'Well, you're still too young for that.' And I told him, 'And what if I went to a pilot military school, just like a cadet?" And he said, 'No, we need people to produce. And what do you like about those planes so much? 'And I told him,' Well, they're machines like that. ' So look, we'll make you a locksmith. You will go to the factory, and since it is here in Holešovice, you will go here to Elektrosignál, here in Holešovice. ‘And there was nothing left for me but to proceed."

  • "We approached them and waved those flags. And then someone gave the command to the soldiers, and they started firing at this group of students. And then I learned, I don't know from whom, that the commander gave the command to fire warning into the air. It flew mostly across the Vltava, to the winter stadium. But one of those idiot soldiers didn't raise it high enough and shot one of our boys. He fell to the ground. So we ran to him, those who dared, not me. But some of the boys ran and dragged him away, all trying to run to the railing by the river. The boys who dragged him soaked the Czechoslovak flag in his blood, and the soldiers started firing again, and the more active ones, who became some kind of leader of this group, said, 'That's terrible, come and protest, they're going to shoot us here. Come on, let's go to Vysočany and call on the workers to strike.´”

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    Středokluky , 05.11.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 02:49:57
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Freedom is an illusion

Zdeněk Prokop in 1964
Zdeněk Prokop in 1964
zdroj: Archiv Zdeňka Prokopa

Zdeněk Prokop was born on October 13, 1934 in Uzhhorod. In 1939, due to growing conflicts in the country, the family had to leave Subcarpathian Russia and settled in Prague in the apartment of their mother‘s father, the former Czechoslovak legionary Josef Pelc. After graduating from primary school, Zdeněk Prokop trained as a locksmith by an official decision and worked at Barrandov Film Studios. At the same time, he attended evening drawing courses, which helped him to be accepted at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1954. After graduating in 1960, he received a scholarship and devoted himself mainly to drawing rehearsals and performing ballet ensembles. In 1962, he won the first contract in the field of restoration of murals, to which he subsequently devoted practically his entire professional life. He also gave lectures in associations and museums on modern art and installed exhibitions. In private, he still devoted himself to drawing, but he was not allowed to exhibit or sell his works because it did not meet the requirements of socialist realism. On August 21, 1968, he took part in protests against the occupation of the Warsaw Pact troops in Prague, but this did not affect his work as a restorer. Likewise, the Velvet Revolution in 1989 did not significantly affect his work. Zdeněk Prokop was married twice, he had two sons with his first wife Eva, and one daughter with his second wife Zdena.