Margita Lázoková

* 1945

  • "The ensemble played folk songs - eastern Slovakian songs and dances. As the name suggests, it was mostly Slovak repertoire - čardáš and čapáš dances and who knows what else. Dance music from various parts of Slovakia was represented there, along with the folk costumes and all. Ever since its beginning in the 1950s the ensemble was composed of sixty people. My father at the request of the musicians brought in a bit of Hungarian and Romani folklore. They were successful, travelling all around the country and the ensemble survived to this day, linked to the Technical University in Brno. Once a generation of students leaves, new students interested in music and culture join in and it carries on. So, that's very beautiful and I like it. During the times of my dad there were plenty of musicians, dancers and singers taking part in it. Luboš Holý was one of the singers, Milan Križo the founder and my dad was the first violinist. I have very nice memories of that time and for several years I was myself a member. Then I had to go study and didn't have as much time but it was a good thing."

  • "My daddy attended the Pol'ana ensemble but he didn't know Czech well. He could speak Slovak, Hungarian and Romani, though. At that time he was asked to help out and to work at the local council. Back then we had the 'National Committees', the system had changed since. We were part of the Brno-center, Brno I district where they had a commission for the gypsy population. The official name was 'Commission for the Re-education of the Gypsy Population'. I saved the invitations to its meetings addressed to my daddy and me. Once, when I was thirteen, he invited me to attend the meeting with him in order to interpret whatever was happening there. He knew what to say, what Roma people needed, but he couldn't tell them in Czech. So I started attending the commission where I then stayed for a long time, both at the times of the Union of Gypsy-Roma, and after it was dismantled."

  • "Our people - my mum, father, grandma - all commuted on foot to the Brzotín village to work at the farmers'. Hungarians had lived there - noble people who owned palaces and who held the Romani people in high esteem. They invited them for work, the musicians to various celebrations. Brzotín was a village renowned for its musicians. Whatever was happening in there or in the nearby Rožňava, they'd invite musicians from Brzotín. Even the women. My grandma from my mummy's side recalled working as a housekeeper since fifteen years of age at a countess in Brzotín. They were trusted and liked."

  • "My parents got a farm. Families which moved there were given a farm house unihabited after WW II. They settled in there, had it furnished with the help of engineers from the village. They came over, helped our people out and our guys went to work at theirs. We cooked, did the laundry there - one could say it was a similar life to the settlements in Slovakia. Several families living together, cooking together..."

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    Eye Direct, 17.02.2017

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I would like to see less of a gulf between Romani people and the majority

Margita Lázoková, Brno, around 1965
Margita Lázoková, Brno, around 1965
photo: Soukromý archiv pamětnice

Margita Lázoková was born in 1945 in south-eastern Slovakia in the Roma settlement of Brzotín into a family of Romani musicians. In 1946 her and her family moved to Czechia - first the south Moravian village of Kutina and later to Brno where she lives to this day. After elementary school she started attending a higher medical school. She suspended her studies due to her father’s serious illness and her taking up his job at the reception desk in hotel Astoria. Here she worked her way up to become a waitress in the hotel restaurant. In 1967 she along with some of the personnel transferred to the newly-opened restaurant Bohéma. While working she undertook vocational training as cook-waiter, brought up five children and at the same time worked in “commissions for the gypsy population”. At times of her youth she was also a member of the folk ensemble Pol’ana. From 1969 till 1973 she took part in the Union of Gypsy-Roma, and after 1989 was engaged in the Roma Civic Initiative and actively collaborated with the Association of Roma in Moravia. Through her work she strives to improve relations between Romani people and the majority.