Marta Stehlíková

* 1950

  • "Once it happened that after three years of activity we were to go to Vienna and it was approved that children could go with us. Two were the Pospíchal boys, two were the Gromych girls and two were the Stehlík children. There were two married couples in the group: the Gromychs and the Stehlíks, there were other children, too. There were eight or nine in total. We had to send all the papers [applications] to the Ministry of the Interior in Prague. We called it "Jáchym, throw it into the machine" [it was a film “Jáchyme, hoď ho do stroje”, trans.]. It had to be sent a month in advance, when they were probably checking us out and asking party members in Znojmo whether or not we were suitable [for travelling abroad, trans.]. If someone was to join the army for six months, he absolutely could not go abroad. So we sent it to Prague and everything seemed fine. We still played under the patronage of the city public education centre. We were to meet at the city hall, where we were supposed to get the certificate that we were allowed to go to Vienna. The day before the departure, we gathered there with the children. They were looking forward to it, for the first time, such young children! Now it's quite natural for everybody. Nowadays people travel with one-year-old children or younger. But back then! Had anyone ever been abroad? We're ten kilometres far from being in Austria but nobody had been there. They were all so happy with the repertoire and music. There was a decision made that the kids weren't going. The reason: because two complete families might emigrate there. So we had to leave the kids at home. You can't imagine how the kids cried unhappily."

  • "We had to play at various festivities of party members. There were big receptions and membership meetings at district level. When a government delegation visited Znojmo, it was under the patronage not only of the Znojmo district, but also of the District Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which organized everything. [The committee] managed the assembly if there was a government delegation or a foreign visit. Everybody was curious about agriculture in Znojmo, everybody wanted to get to know Znojmo region. There were conferences and peace celebrations where we played. Prime Minister Korčák also came to the cooperative farm Mír Práče. At that time, it was famous, the best cooperative farm in the Czech Republic led by Mr. Švrček, whom I respected because he was a hard worker. [The concerts] took place under those circumstances in those places, in a beautiful cultural house with all the service, with a big reception. We played there for free, of course."

  • "Those people who played somewhere now settled in Znojmo for work: Dáša Gromychová was from Znojmo and played in Znojemčan [band], but her husband came from Zlín and used to play in two cimbalom bands there, Zdenek Puček came from Kyjov region, Honza Vajčner played at Milták's [band] and came from Strážnice. It was in all of them. They said they would bring their songs to Znojmo and spread folklore there. Or they would introduce people to folklore. It's not that easy. First we wanted to focus on Podluží region. Then, when we got costumes from Horňácko, the guys tried to play folklore music from Horňácko [the area around Velká and Věličkou, trans.], but it's based on something else there. There are wonderful male choruses. I've always been a fan of Wallachia. Because of the fact that so many people from Wallachia moved to Nový Šaldorf, so I pushed through to have Wallachian costumes made. It was at the time when Nový Šaldorf got separated from Znojmo. So now the feast is celebrated in Wallachian costumes and with the customs that used to happen before. Even though it is half Moravian Slovakia, half Wallachia."

  • "I was eighteen years old. On that day, the twenty-first, I was picking cucumbers with my mum behind the ash trees, that is, at the end behind the cellars. We had been picking from four o'clock in the morning, because it was so hot. It was a kind of a hill. And suddenly, from the bottom of that hill, our housemate, Anička Holzbauerová, was running. She's still alive, [she was] the one who dreamed of the cherries from Wallachia. And she shouted: 'Girls, the Russians have occupied us.' We all stood still, we were all in a daze. I couldn't imagine what it was like to be occupied. My parents could, because they lived through the war. So we stood there and one of us said, 'Well, girls, we have to pick the cucumbers, they would rot here.' I was going to meet my student love from secondary school that day. It was a beautiful, crazy love, we met at hop-picking. That day he was supposed to come. So I was waiting for him, and he didn't come. He'd been studying in Brno for a year, and he didn't let me know. I don't even think that post offices and TV worked. That was the terrible thing. It was so sad. We used to go to discos at least once a week, but not that time. I haven´t heard from my boyfriend since then. So in that year 1968 I lost my love and we have never seen each other again."

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    Brno, 08.12.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 02:29:53
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
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I tried to live every day in a way to make it nice

Marta Stehlíková in 2021
Marta Stehlíková in 2021
photo: Post Bellum

Marta Stehlíková (née Palátová) was born on 7 April 1950 in Nový Šaldorf near Znojmo. This village was inhabited solely by a German-speaking population until 1945. After their expulsion, the area was settled by people from various parts of the country, mostly from Moravian Wallachia [Valašsko], Moravian Slovakia [Slovácko] and Vysočina region. Marta Stehlíková’s parents came from Vysočina region and moved in Nový Šaldorf in the autumn of 1945 with the prospect of being able to farm in a more fertile region. However, due to the collectivization of agriculture, they were forced to join a cooperative farm in the second wave. During the invasion in 1968 she took the entrance exams for secondary school. Due to the general chaos in the country, it was quite difficult to attend the exams. Finally, in 1971, she successfully graduated from the Secondary Pedagogical School in Třebíč and started teaching in a kindergarten in Hevlín and later in Dyje in the Znojmo region. In the early 1970s, she joined Znojemská desítka brass band as a singer. There she met her future husband Antonín Stehlík. They got married in 1973 and together raised their son Antonín and daughter Martina. In the second half of the 1970s, both spouses joined a cimbalom band called Polajka, Antonín Stehlík as a violinist and Marta Stehlíková as a singer. In 1989, she became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. After the Velvet Revolution she and her husband returned their party membership cards. At present (2022) she continues to devote herself to folklore, collecting and art creative activities.