Mila & Eva Rechcigl Research Room

Madam President, Members of My Family, Friends, Guests and other Visitors!

I am delighted and honored to have this Research Room dedicated to me personally and to my late wife Eva, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the National Czech & Slovak Museum and Library. My beloved wife was my faithful companion and there is hardly anything I have done in my life that could not bear signs of her presence or her involvement. You can thus consider this room as our joint legacy.

I wish to also express my appreciation to President Rokusek for making this a reality.

I have known Cecilia Rokusek way back, even before the Museum existed, at the time when I held the position of global President of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, or SVU, as it was known in short.

I first met her in Sarasota, FL, when I accompanied my son Jack to a planning meeting that Bob Petrik organized for the first Miss Czech-Slovak pageant. She impressed me with her enthusiasm and her energy and her interest in and devotion to the Czechoslovak cultural heritage.

Cecilia, fondly known as Cecilka, to her family and close friends, became our SVU member in 1972 and immediately became active in the organization. She became Vice President of both the Florida SVU Chapter and the Global SVU. She and Bob Pertrik hosted, with my participation, an SVU international Conference, in Miami 2005, which was a huge success.

I was hoping that she would become my worthy successor, but she had chosen to put all her energies to academic career, eventually becoming President and the CEO of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, IA.

She was the ideal choice, having been born in the Czech community of Tabor, South Dakota, as the fourth-generation Czech American, who spoke mostly Czech, before entering the elementary school and who was raised in an environment that promoted Czech heritage and culture. She is a true Czechoslovak, having served for a number of years as the Slovak Honorary Consul.

What has been accomplished since she has become the NCSML President, are sheer wonders which deserve our heartiest congratulations. Just look around, and what you see, has been mostly Cecilia’s doings, not to speak about the fabulous program and activities she has been directing. Frankly, I have devoted a whole chapter to her in my personal memoir, A Sequel to Czechmate, showing what a remarkable person she is.

As for her faithful lieutenant, the Vice President of the Museum, Dalibor Mikuláš, he also is a big doer and activist, whom I have known as long, and as well, as Cecilia, i. e., over 55 years. I still remember when he held the position of University Rector and since we jointly organized the SVU World Congress in Ružomberok.

The mission of the NCSML is the preservation of the Czechoslovak American heritage and culture which is also something I have been promoting all my entire life and in my scholarly writings.

I visited the Museum a number of times, and even had a talk here and have always regretted that I could not be here during the groundbreaking of a new building, to which I was invited, while three Presidents, Bill Clinton, Václav Havel and Michael Kováč were in attendance during the ceremony. I could have been the fourth President present.

The Research Room, bearing my and my wife’s names, houses my archival collection and exhibits my personal library, including all scientific and scholarly books I have written, as well as other Reference books, especially those relating to Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovak America. It is intended as a “Shangri-la” (hideout) Center for scholars and students to carry out their research, uninterrupted, in seclusion, bearing on the subject.

So, enjoy and thank you for coming and for listening.