From the mill to Washington

From an early age I was raised to be patriotic, which I owe primarily to my mother. I knew Czech, or rather Czechoslovak, history as a child and I still keep it in my memory. I remember many Czech proverbs that I picked up from my mother, and I tried to live my whole life by them.

Mladá Boleslav is my hometown, where I spent eight years at a real grammar school. I have fond memories of it. At that time I lived with the patriotic Slaba family, because our village was too far away. František Slaba, the retired principal of the town school, owned an extensive library of Czech and world classics, most of which I read and thus broadened my horizons. I otherwise spent my youth in a mill in the countryside, in the village of Chocnějovice. Life in a mill is an indescribable experience that only a few people have experienced. The famous Bohemian Paradise was nearby, where I often went on trips.

I was amazed by the hectic pace of the city, the constant traffic and frequent traffic jams. I couldn’t understand how cars could stop just a few centimeters in front of a pedestrian without causing an accident. I was particularly impressed by the bright colors of the taxis. I had the feeling that the city was constantly humming and pulsating with life.

It was no coincidence. After receiving a scholarship to Cornell University, the Free Europe Committee set a condition for me that I must pursue a practical field that would be useful to Czechoslovakia after the fall of the communist regime. I decided that nutrition would be the most suitable. While reading the university catalog, I discovered that nutrition was considered a graduate field that required prior study of biochemistry.

I specialized in amino acids, cancer biochemistry, and the enzyme catalase. I consider my greatest scientific contribution to be research into the kinetics of enzyme synthesis and degradation under various physiological and pathological conditions.

When I worked for the United States Agency for International Development, I regularly visited countries where we funded research projects with practical impact. This gave me the opportunity to meet local researchers in places like Thailand and Guatemala. It was a great pleasure to see how successful projects led to improved living standards, reduced child mortality, and cured diseases like malaria.

The SVU was then the most important organization of Czechs and Slovaks worldwide. It was a completely apolitical association whose goal was to preserve historical traditions that were denied and rejected by the communist regime of the time. For more than six decades it promoted the contribution of Czech and Slovak intellectuals to world affairs.

We considered it necessary to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Board of SVU Presidents to discuss the developments and issue appropriate recommendations. The Board — Dr. Jaroslav Němec, Dr. Leopold Pospíšil, Dr. Jan F. Tříska and myself — met on February 2 at my home in Rockville, Maryland, and again the following day, this time expanded by six more people, including Dr. Madeleine Korbelová-Albrightová.

The result was a memorandum calling for a change in the orientation of the Society’s goals towards a new democratic Czechoslovakia and its needs. In addition to supporting the newly established Fund for a Free Czechoslovakia, it recommended sending an official delegation of experts to the homeland to establish contacts with leading scientific and cultural institutions and to map current problems, especially in areas where the SVU had a comparative advantage.

In addition to my professional publications, which numbered around thirty, I wrote another thirty monographs after my retirement in 1996, and two more are currently in print. I have devoted myself to the history of Czechs, Slovaks and Jews who emigrated to the New World, and I have mapped significant figures across disciplines. It is difficult to choose just one, but if I had to answer specifically I would emphasize the importance of Tam za tím mořem piva aneb Naše Amerika, jak ji málokdo zná, published in 2019 by Palacký University in Olomouc; there is also an English version. I would also mention my memoirs, Czechmate. From Bohemian Paradise to American Haven, where the reader will find details about my youth and professional career, and their recent sequel, A Sequel to Czechmate.

The cultural contribution of American Czechs and the preservation of their identity and traditions have been among my long-standing interests. On my initiative the idea arose to create a new umbrella organization called the National Heritage Commission, composed of representatives of leading Czech-American associations. Its goal was to plan and coordinate activities aimed at preserving Czech cultural heritage in the USA. The first phase, which I coordinated with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, consisted of mapping historical sites, monuments and archival materials related to Czech life in America. The result was two extensive publications: Czech-American Historic Sites, Monuments, and Memorials, and Czechoslovak American Archivalia.

In principle, yes. This is reflected in expatriate festivals and other cultural events. Various waves of immigration have generally revitalized Czechoslovak communities and increased interest — especially among young people — in their Czech or Slovak origins, for example through genealogical research or efforts to establish contact with the land of their ancestors. In some communities Czech or Slovak has been preserved for generations, in some even to this day. It is estimated that approximately 550,000 people fled and emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States during the communist era.

Czechmate — which is also the title of my memoirs. Some readers shake their heads in confusion at this title, others criticize me for an alleged grammatical error. For me it is a play on words, inspired by the style of Tom Stoppard. I came up with the title myself. As many have probably understood, “Czechmate” is a Czechized version of the English “checkmate.” Although I am not a chess player, I know very well what it means — to face a challenge and stand firm. I have had to face obstacles many times in my life, but thanks to perseverance I have won most of these battles, often against all odds.

My biggest unfulfilled dream is to clear the name of my late mother, Marie Rechcíglová, who was wrongly accused and imprisoned by the communist regime. In 1960 she was sentenced to seven years in prison by a meaningless verdict for taking animal feed from a mill which the communists had nationalized. As Luděk Navara reported about her in Mladá fronta DNES on 27 January 2012, her conviction was based on a lie — even according to the communist justice system at the time, because when the mill was confiscated it was still her property; the nationalization did not take place until half a year later. My greatest wish is for her name to be cleared while I am still alive.