Martina Špinková

* 1959

  • "I remember that we came to school and the class teacher, the Czech teacher, who was also a bit of a revivalist, she also took us to different theatres, she said we had to stand up and sing the national anthem. We all sang the anthem in class. Then she said that we could sit down and that she wanted one thing from us - if we knew when the Russians occupied us, when they came. And Martin Smolka came forward, I remember, he's a composer today, quite famous. And Martin said the 21st of August, and she praised him, because he was the only one in that class who knew. And she said, 'Now you all have to remember this date for the rest of your lives. Because this is where history is made.' That's what she told us, and I remember being very embarrassed that I didn't know the date. So I've known it ever since."

  • "And then I had this friend who emigrated and who, when we used to go to Mr Nedved's together to draw nudes and heads and things, I remember in '77 - right after the Charter was published - he took me... I didn't even know that there was anything like that, because it was really a week after that, and then there were the self-declarations and stuff, where we had to listen to something on the radio at school. But he took me to the bridge awfully soon after that, when I didn't even make the connection. We always went home together and he took me to the bridge to the Zofín and he briefly talked to me about it there and told me if I wanted to sign it. And I remember I didn't know anything about it, I didn't know what it was to sign something. And then, about two days later, there was some commotion at the school where we had to sort of call it off. We didn't have to recall it, they just told us on the radio and then they wrote that the whole class was against it or something like that. But I remember that's how I met with Charter, in a semi-loving sort of way, where I didn't really know what the guy wanted from me. And it wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I realized what he actually wanted from me, and that these things are normal to think about, not to say, 'Sign here, you don't even have to read it.' So that was kind of a memory."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha , 19.05.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:58:20
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha , 12.06.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:10:08
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
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We live life in every moment

young Martina Špinková, 1983
young Martina Špinková, 1983
zdroj: Archiv pamětnice

Martina Špinková was born on 26 June 1959 to Jiří and Zdeňka Pilk in Prague. Her parents met in the Kruh scouting community and have been committed to its principles all their lives. Her father was imprisoned for half a year in the 1950s for this activity. They were both musicologists and this determined the life of the family. Martina Špinková was close to music and dance, but her greatest passion was painting. Despite difficulties with admission to high school and university, she managed to graduate from the University of Applied Arts in Prague. Already at high school she met her husband Štěpán Špinka, later a doctor and philosopher. Together they raised seven children, five of their own and two adopted. In the 1980s, they participated in demonstrations and housing seminars and later began to organize them themselves, often with lectures by the priest Josef Zvěřina. After the Velvet Revolution, Martina Špinková worked as an art editor at the Portál publishing house and also devoted herself to her children. Already at that time she was taking care of her seriously ill father and others who were dying. With her husband and friends, they perceived the needs of people at the end of life that could not be met in the hospital. This eventually led them in 2001 to found the home hospice Cesta domů, where Martina Špinková served as director until 2012. From 2014 to 2021 she ran the publishing house Cesta domů, whose main aim is to raise awareness, i.e. to bring dying back into our lives and to stop fearing it. She has written several books on the subject, mainly for children. She is also the author of a number of illustrations and would like to do more freelance work in the future. At the time of filming (2021) she was living in Prague.