I should have been more careful
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Miroslav Maršálek was born on November 9, 1945 into a family of small farmers in Dambořice. His parents went through the war period - his mother Ludmila was totally deployed in Germany and after her return she fought with tuberculosis for a long time, which led to Miloslav and his brother spending some time in an orphanage. After the war, the family moved several times in search of his father’s work in the gardens, eventually settling in Ždánice, where Miloslav Maršálek spent his school years. Gradually he became interested in literature, poetry, recitation and theatre. At grammar school he wrote, recited, won prizes in literary competitions and after graduation unsuccessfully applied to JAMU. He studied at the library school in Brno and moved in the milieu of literati and young artists. He started acting in Theatre X and worked in the Zlín and Otrokovice libraries. He spent his military service as a librarian in a road battalion. After his return, he worked at the Brno SSM youth club on Křenová Street. In 1976, he was summoned by the State Security Service (StB) for interrogation because of copying and distributing literary samizdat and signed, as he says - in his naivety, an undertaking to cooperate, which he later assessed as a mistake in his life. In 1977, he joined the Hanak Theatre in Prostějov, with whom he later travelled to the World Expo 86 in Vancouver - his first confrontation with the West. In November 1989, he actively participated in the protests and spoke as a representative of the actors at rallies in Brno and Prostějov. After the coup, he continued as an actor in HaDivadlo and participated in the transformation of the company in the new conditions. The theatre remained his profession and his life background. At the time of filming in 2025, Miloslav Maršálek lived in Prostějov and still commuted to Brno to perform. He spoke openly and critically about his cooperation with the State Securita, without trying to excuse his own failures.
