All acrobats are one big family.
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Robert Štipka was born in circus and stayed within its arms for his whole life. He comes from allegedly the oldest provable acrobatic family in the Czech Republic as his ancestor, Ignác Štipka, made his living by doing this art already in the first half of the nineteenth century. Robert Štipka began his training being four years old and had his first performance at the age of five in the Varieté in Karlín. There was no one to follow with the circus tradition in his family and so since his beginnings, Robert Štipka was employed by other circus companies. For most of his childhood and youth, he travelled along with his parents and sister with the circus Henry, owned by three uncles of his future wife, brothers Fialas.Given the fact that they had a show in a different town every two or three days, he frequented quite a lot of schools as well. He brought a big book to the schools so that the teachers in every town and village wrote down how he behaved, what grades he got, what subject matter they learned and when he arrived and left. At the end of the school year, he was given a certificate at the place where the circus was staying at the moment. On his first trip abroad, he went to Germany during the war when their circus was sent there. Despite the worsening economic situation, the circus tents were always full in the Protectorate as well as in the Third Reich. Mr. Štipka explains this fact by three factors: first, there was not much of other entertainment. Second, other culture such as cinema or theater was censored. And finally, there were not many other opportunities to spend money since food was only available in exchange for the food tickets. In 1948, they went to Hungary for their first post-war trip abroad. When they learned about the strengthening of the Communist power in Czechoslovakia, they thought about leaving to Italy. After all, the uncles Fialas decided to return to Czechoslovakia, mainly because of potential problems related to the illegal emigration. Immediately upon their return, they lost everything. The animals, caravans and even tents were nationalized. Only one of the brothers Fialas stayed at circus, but on an inferior position as a supervisor in the stables. Other circus families had the same fate. From then on, all their journeys were planned by the national enterprise Czechoslovakian circuses, varieties and amusement parks. Because the Communists didn’t want the circuses to be called after their founders any more, they changed names of all of them. Thus circus Henry became circus Humberto in 1951 which is now a legendary company. The Communist officials decided about who will go where. Fortunately, they didn’t separate married couples, so Mr. Štipka always traveled with his wife. They visited the whole Eastern bloc and many Western countries as well.Raising up his children in the circus caravans, he brought them to the acrobat career as well. The whole family, including two grandsons, now continues in his steps.
