Founder of Starlet dance school
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Vladimír Buryan was born on 16 February 1929 in Brno. His father worked as an insurance agent for the Slavie bank, his mother was a court clerk and later a cook. During the war, his parents divorced and his father did not see much of his son and his younger sister. At the end of the war, his mother helped the partisans as a liaison. For creating a picture of T. G. Masaryk, Vladimír Buryan was expelled from the town school in Králové Pole, so he finished primary school in Řečkovice. He spent the end of the war with his sister in a cottage outside Brno, where their mother sent them because of the bombing of the city. After returning to Brno, he experienced the expulsion and humiliation of the Germans, as well as looting, robbery and rape of women by Red Army soldiers. After the war, he began to study at a business academy. In 1947, he co-founded the anti-communist Union of Secondary School Students, whose members were subsequently systematically attacked by the communist press. Buryan managed to graduate in May 1948, but he was prevented from further studies. For several months he worked at the Czechoslovak State Farm in Pohořelice as a payroll accountant. At that time, he and his friends founded an anti-state group. They produced a few leaflets and posters, otherwise they were mainly preparing for a possible anti-communist putsch. On September 23, 1949, Vladimír Buryan was arrested in Pohořelice and taken to the detention centre in Orlí street, where he shared a cell with Father Uher from Lanžhot and Colonel Robotka. Interrogations without the use of physical violence took place in Na Příční Street and in Znojmo. The public trial of the eight-member group “Janda and Co.” was held at the State Court in Brno on May 4, 1951. Sentences ranging from 16 months to three years were handed down for treason. Vladimír Buryan got off with three years. At first, he farmed in the Dukla mine in Oslavany, after about a year he was transferred to the Jáchymov region, where he worked as a bricklayer and miner. He went through the camps Barbora and Vykmanov. He witnessed several escape attempts, reportedly only one succeeded when the prisoners were walled up in a room at the construction site and only escaped after a few days. Buryan was released on September 23, 1952. He found work as a turner at the Královopolské strojírny in Brno, later becoming a payroll accountant. In his spare time, he devoted himself to folk dancing in the “Flag of Youth” ensemble. Gradually he switched to ballroom dancing, which he began to teach. In 1968 he founded the Starlet dance school in Brno. As an international dance adjudicator he travelled all over Europe, worked as a choreographer for Czechoslovak television, and founded the tradition of summer dance schools. During his career he became a legend of Czech ballroom dance. The state security once offered him cooperation, which he refused. Vladimír Buryan married three times and had a daughter. He received an award as a participant in the anti-communist resistance. He died on July 8, 2017.