“WHEN WE RETURNED WE WERE AMAZED HOW POPULAR WE WERE”: LEGENDARY TRAVELLER MIROSLAV ZIKMUND TURNS 100
The great traveller Miroslav Zikmund turned 100 on Thursday. For Czechoslovaks unable to travel much under communism, the books and radio reports produced by Zikmund and his friend Jiří Hanzelka served as a window to exotic parts of the world. However, the pair were barred from public life following the Soviet invasion.
Miroslav Zikmund and Jiří Hanzelka, who began visiting all corners of the world in the late 1940s, shared their exotic travels with the nation via the airwaves of Czechoslovak Radio.
Given the limited technology of the time, the progammes featured actors reading scripts mailed to Prague by the pair.
Miroslav Zikmund – a remarkable 100 years old on Thursday – recalled their first major trips in an interview I recorded with him in 2005.
“I was travelling with my friend George Hanzelka, or Jiří Hanzelka, for almost nine years. The first trip was through Africa and Latin America, 1947 to 1950.
“That was three and a half years, continuously, non-stop. And then Asia, which was between 1959 and 64, and lasted five and a half years.”
As well as doing radio shows, the pair – who drove distinctive, Czech-made Tatra vehicles – wrote articles for magazines and took photographs.
They also produced books that together sold over 6.5 million copies and were translated into 11 languages.
“When we returned in 1950 we were amazed how popular we were, because we didn’t know, actually. Because the stories were broadcast, everybody wanted printed versions.
“The popularity was so big that the first edition of Africa Dream and Reality was published in 50,000 copies and disappeared in two, three days.
“And what was very interesting – more than two million were exported to the Soviet Union, so when we travelled from the East, from Vladivostok to Moscow, almost every day we had to sign some of our books in Russian.”
Miroslav Zikmund said there was one chief explanation for their enormous success.
“I would say there was some hunger for adventure at that time. When we returned it was two years after the Communist coup d’etat in 1948, and people couldn’t travel out.
“So I think it was not just about popularity, but the closed nature of Czechoslovakia at that time.”
When the normalisation era began Zikmund and Hanzelka were no longer allowed to travel, or even to play a role in public life.
However, the Communists couldn’t excise them from the national consciousness and they again became well-known faces in the 1990s.
Jiří Hanzelka passed away seven years ago at the age of 82. Miroslav Zikmund continues to live in his long-term home of Zlín in Moravia.
“WHEN WE RETURNED WE WERE AMAZED HOW POPULAR WE WERE”: LEGENDARY TRAVELLER MIROSLAV ZIKMUND TURNS 100
The great traveller Miroslav Zikmund turned 100 on Thursday. For Czechoslovaks unable to travel much under communism, the books and radio reports produced by Zikmund and his friend Jiří Hanzelka served as a window to exotic parts of the world. However, the pair were barred from public life following the Soviet invasion.
Miroslav Zikmund and Jiří Hanzelka, who began visiting all corners of the world in the late 1940s, shared their exotic travels with the nation via the airwaves of Czechoslovak Radio.
Given the limited technology of the time, the progammes featured actors reading scripts mailed to Prague by the pair.
Miroslav Zikmund – a remarkable 100 years old on Thursday – recalled their first major trips in an interview I recorded with him in 2005.
“I was travelling with my friend George Hanzelka, or Jiří Hanzelka, for almost nine years. The first trip was through Africa and Latin America, 1947 to 1950.
“That was three and a half years, continuously, non-stop. And then Asia, which was between 1959 and 64, and lasted five and a half years.”
As well as doing radio shows, the pair – who drove distinctive, Czech-made Tatra vehicles – wrote articles for magazines and took photographs.
They also produced books that together sold over 6.5 million copies and were translated into 11 languages.
“When we returned in 1950 we were amazed how popular we were, because we didn’t know, actually. Because the stories were broadcast, everybody wanted printed versions.
“The popularity was so big that the first edition of Africa Dream and Reality was published in 50,000 copies and disappeared in two, three days.
“And what was very interesting – more than two million were exported to the Soviet Union, so when we travelled from the East, from Vladivostok to Moscow, almost every day we had to sign some of our books in Russian.”
Miroslav Zikmund said there was one chief explanation for their enormous success.
“I would say there was some hunger for adventure at that time. When we returned it was two years after the Communist coup d’etat in 1948, and people couldn’t travel out.
“So I think it was not just about popularity, but the closed nature of Czechoslovakia at that time.”
When the normalisation era began Zikmund and Hanzelka were no longer allowed to travel, or even to play a role in public life.
However, the Communists couldn’t excise them from the national consciousness and they again became well-known faces in the 1990s.
Jiří Hanzelka passed away seven years ago at the age of 82. Miroslav Zikmund continues to live in his long-term home of Zlín in Moravia.
Just months before D-Day: T57K in Martin de Fresnay spring 1944
and in July 2018.
I*n the summer of 2018 your editor visited France with the T 57K. Somehow, in the war days, the German occupiers in France used a lot of T 57k’s. One T 57K was spotted in St Martin de Fresnay, in Normandy. After D-Day, the T 57 Ks, mostly used for police and supporting duties by the Germans, suddenly had to fulfil front duties.
As I realised that the scenery in St Martin de Fresnay had hardly changed, it became a challenge to photograph the T57K at the same spot, in 2018, 74 years later! Already present in Normandy after the 2018 TRUK rally, we managed to find the spot and tried to manoeuvre the T57K on exactly the same sport. The result is seen on the photos.
Being in Normandy, it was nice to visit the D-Day beaches and all rememberance sites.
Many German vehicles including the T 57Ks were destroyed by the Allies in the weeks after D-Day, especially in the so-called Falaise-gap.
Some served as booty vehicles for the British and Americans though.
Booty T57K used as an ambulance by the British forces. 1944, South East of Caen.
On the occasion of St Wenceslas Day, the Czech Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, organised a reception where tens of ambassadors from countries all over the world attended. My personal T 87 was invited to give acte de presence. It was parked in the courtyard of the Embassy, close to the entrance and admired by several ambassadors and several Czech and Slovak people, telling me about their childhood in Czechoslovakia and members of the family who owned Tatras, mostly Tatraplans. The Czech ambassador in the Netherlands, Jana Reinišová, was also quite interested, and enjoyed being behind the wheel.
Wenceslas I: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenceslaus_I,_Duke_of_Bohemia
St. Wenceslas’ day: http://www.officeholidays.com/countries/czech_republic/st_wenceslas_day.php
Just one week after the 120 years Tatra rally, the TRD held its annual event, at the last weekend of June, in the valley of River Nahe. About thirty cars were present, some of them just returning from the Czech Rally. Of of the fellow competitors, Raimund Bartl arrived at the hotel just after midnight where he had a drink with other Tatra owners. He, however, had sudden pain on the breast and was reanimated, first by Tatra colleagues with a medical education, then by ambulance personnel and finally by a practitioner. It was to no avail though as he passed away under the hands of his reanimators.
It does not take much imagination that everybody was shocked the next day. Out of respect, the rally organisation provided all competitors with a mourning ribbon and a rose.
The rally itself was nicely organised and the route was splendid.
Silent witness.
Raimund Bartl’s ivory T 603 was left behind, only the flowers witnessing that something had happened.
Raimund Bartl will be buried on July 14th 9.30 at Friedhof Letter(Hölderlinstrasse 6, 30926 Seelze)
