Viktor Stoilov: A Conversation with James D. Le Sueur

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05/22/2018 Added

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Director of the University of Nebraska Press, Donna Shear, presents Czech publisher, Viktor Stoilov, in "A Conversation with James D. Le Sueur" for Prague Spring 50. Friday, April 6, 2018 - 9:00 - 10:15 am https://praguespring50.unl.edu/welcome

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[99:59:59.999]Hi, I'm I'm Donna Shear directors University of Nebraska Press and James gave me the honor of introducing
[99:59:59.999]Victor Stoilov of who is going to join James in a conversation
[99:59:59.999]First I want to apologize if I mispronounce any of the check names. I'm about to say
[99:59:59.999]Second I want to thank James for putting together this phenomenal week in this program
[99:59:59.999]To mark a truly momentous historical event I also want to thank him for inviting me to dinner tomorrow night to a black-tie event
[99:59:59.999]I have pulled three black dresses from the back of my closet, and I hope and pray that one of them fits
[99:59:59.999]You'll find out tomorrow night
[99:59:59.999]It's my pleasure to introduce fellow publisher Victor Stoilov off whose going to engage with James in conversation
[99:59:59.999]Victor graduated from Charles University in Prague with a major in
[99:59:59.999]Ethnography and folklore and I was thinking to myself this morning
[99:59:59.999]Those bygone days when you could just major in the humanities and get as narrow as you wanted
[99:59:59.999]But in 1988 and through to 1989 he began photographing a series of portraits of band writers
[99:59:59.999]after the Velvet Revolution he presented these portraits at several exhibitions
[99:59:59.999]And then he published them the first book to come from his new publishing house tourists
[99:59:59.999]Since then tourist has published over 600 books
[99:59:59.999]including the writings of Vaclav Vaclav Havel
[99:59:59.999]yvonne martin yarosh the photographic books of
[99:59:59.999]joseph code
[99:59:59.999]Elka and of course Josef Sudek
[99:59:59.999]Many many others as well and James said probably the most important publishing house in the Czech Republic
[99:59:59.999]And I'm assuming with the rich history and beauty of the Czech Republic. There's no end to that
[99:59:59.999]the potential of the publishing house
[99:59:59.999]in my own publishing career
[99:59:59.999]I’ve been honored to publish some of the greatest check writers in English particularly when I was at Northwestern University
[99:59:59.999]Press in our European classics series
[99:59:59.999]For those of you who remember closely watched trains
[99:59:59.999]By Havel that was published first published in English at Northwestern
[99:59:59.999]And I really admire the rich traditions of Czech literature and with that I also know more
[99:59:59.999]And I'll give the mic over to Victor and James.
[99:59:59.999]It's an honor to be on the stage with Viktor today.
[99:59:59.999]This is the second time I've had an opportunity
[99:59:59.999]to interview Viktor.
[99:59:59.999]The last time was in Prague.
[99:59:59.999]Today we're gonna focus on a couple things.
[99:59:59.999]I'd like to have him walk through his career as a publisher,
[99:59:59.999]and then we'll talk about some specific things
[99:59:59.999]that he published.
[99:59:59.999]I’d like to start with the word Torst.
[99:59:59.999]Can you just give us a little background
[99:59:59.999]on how you developed that name and where they came from,
[99:59:59.999]how you created it?
[99:59:59.999]Good morning.
[99:59:59.999]I just want to apologize for my English but James said
[99:59:59.999]that no good English is better than translations.
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]So, Torst is a small private publishing house
[99:59:59.999]and the name Torst is from my first name.
[99:59:59.999]The last two letters and the beginning,
[99:59:59.999]the last three letters.
[99:59:59.999]Torst, Viktor, and the first two letters
[99:59:59.999]from the second name.
[99:59:59.999]Paul, didn't know it (chuckles).
[99:59:59.999]So you want to say how I start to publish?
[99:59:59.999]Yeah, let's start there.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, I have to go back to the 80s.
[99:59:59.999]As you told at the time, I was kind of photographer
[99:59:59.999]because I like reading and I am happy
[99:59:59.999]that I have a good connection to people.
[99:59:59.999]They have, samizdat at home,
[99:59:59.999]so I was a big fan of reading, and I read a lot
[99:59:59.999]and in the samizdat, that's the books which typing
[99:59:59.999]on the typewriter and there are no pictures inside,
[99:59:59.999]any photos, so I was thinking that
[99:59:59.999]maybe I met these authors in Prague but I don't know
[99:59:59.999]how they looks like because I don't know his face.
[99:59:59.999]So I have the idea that I will visited them
[99:59:59.999]and making a portraits of them.
[99:59:59.999]I have one connection to Ludvik Vaculik.
[99:59:59.999]I don't know anybody before that, and call him
[99:59:59.999]and he invite me to his house,
[99:59:59.999]and I started like photographing banned authors.
[99:59:59.999]After revolution, after revolution,
[99:59:59.999]I have a exhibition from this portrait
[99:59:59.999]and I was looking for the for the publisher,
[99:59:59.999]and I make it shortly.
[99:59:59.999]I publish it myself.
[99:59:59.999]It was beginning of 90s and everybody started something new,
[99:59:59.999]so I think that would, I think will be a good idea
[99:59:59.999]but I don't know what will be next.
[99:59:59.999]It will be just my book of photography,
[99:59:59.999]like self publisher.
[99:59:59.999]You are important
[99:59:59.999]for being among the most important publishers
[99:59:59.999]in the Czech Republic, but you're also important
[99:59:59.999]because you're part of history of publishing
[99:59:59.999]in the Czech Republic.
[99:59:59.999]Can you walk me through a little bit
[99:59:59.999]about the publishing world during the First Republic,
[99:59:59.999]during the German Protectorate after 1948
[99:59:59.999]through after '68?
[99:59:59.999]A little bit about the history of publishing
[99:59:59.999]in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, so very roughly, from the beginning
[99:59:59.999]of Czechoslovakia, 1918 till 1989,
[99:59:59.999]we have from this period, we have one-quarter of this time
[99:59:59.999]in which we could publish books without censorship.
[99:59:59.999]It was from the beginning, from 1918 till 1938.
[99:59:59.999]It was like normal times, and at the time, for me,
[99:59:59.999]I have influence of a small publishing houses,
[99:59:59.999]which was established at that time, for example,
[99:59:59.999]Josef Florian and his publishing house, Opus Bonum.
[99:59:59.999]So these books was published in the number of copies,
[99:59:59.999]like 500, and even in the 60s, or 70s, or 80s,
[99:59:59.999]these books has influence to the readers all the time.
[99:59:59.999]So in the '38, starts German occupation, till the end
[99:59:59.999]of the Second War, '45, so during this time,
[99:59:59.999]exist censorship and wasn't possible to publish everything.
[99:59:59.999]After the Second War, from the '45 till the February '48,
[99:59:59.999]there is 2 1/2 year of freedom publishing,
[99:59:59.999]but it stops very, very roughly when communists came
[99:59:59.999]and banned all the private businesses,
[99:59:59.999]especially publishing houses.
[99:59:59.999]It lasts till the '89, in the mid of 60s,
[99:59:59.999]during the Prague Spring.
[99:59:59.999]It was a little bit better situation to publish translation
[99:59:59.999]and also Czech novels, but for example,
[99:59:59.999]we are publishing diaries of Jan Zabrana,
[99:59:59.999]Czech well-known translator, and you can read these diaries,
[99:59:59.999]how awful is the time for him.
[99:59:59.999]The books was quite okay.
[99:59:59.999]Very good books was published, but he must go through the,
[99:59:59.999]even in the Prague Spring, censorship exist,
[99:59:59.999]and so it was better, but still communist regime.
[99:59:59.999]So it will, from the end of 60s, my influences
[99:59:59.999]is by this publishing house or the owner,
[99:59:59.999]and of course in the 70s and 80s, it was impossible
[99:59:59.999]to publish freely and most of books
[99:59:59.999]were published in samizdat.
[99:59:59.999]So samizdat is, samizdat also influenced me,
[99:59:59.999]and the publishing houses which exist abroad,
[99:59:59.999]like in the Canada, in Toronto,
[99:59:59.999]Josef Skvorecky established 68 Publishers.
[99:59:59.999]I have a couple questions about the books of photography
[99:59:59.999]but I'd like to just ask a question
[99:59:59.999]about what you just said.
[99:59:59.999]The samizdat, the shift from samizdat publishing
[99:59:59.999]to open publishing.
[99:59:59.999]Can you tell me a little bit about what that was like,
[99:59:59.999]moving from a world where the press was underground,
[99:59:59.999]to a world where the press was in public.
[99:59:59.999]Try to recruit some of the same authors
[99:59:59.999]who were publishing underground,
[99:59:59.999]how did you think about this transition?
[99:59:59.999]Yeah, of course, the samizdat publishing houses
[99:59:59.999]continue, for example, Revolver Revue exist
[99:59:59.999]as a samizdat, and after revolution,
[99:59:59.999]they became a normal publishing houses,
[99:59:59.999]and they had, or each publishing house
[99:59:59.999]has his own crew of authors.
[99:59:59.999]And I was lucky because I know these people
[99:59:59.999]as a photographer, so I visited them.
[99:59:59.999]These authors and I know what the manuscript
[99:59:59.999]they had at home, but in the 1990,
[99:59:59.999]I published only one book,
[99:59:59.999]and I don't think, at the time,
[99:59:59.999]that it will be normal publishing all this,
[99:59:59.999]publishing house, Torst.
[99:59:59.999]But after one year
[99:59:59.999]of after revolution of free publishing houses,
[99:59:59.999]the big state publishing houses, has financial problems,
[99:59:59.999]because they don't manage the transformation,
[99:59:59.999]and the books which I like most, like diaries, memoirs,
[99:59:59.999]books about photography, these big publishing houses
[99:59:59.999]may throw these books away because of budget,
[99:59:59.999]so I start this publishing house, my publishing house,
[99:59:59.999]to be, I cut all the costs, so at the beginning,
[99:59:59.999]first ten years, I don't have any office.
[99:59:59.999]I do myself, my publish, desktop publishing,
[99:59:59.999]and till now, we don't have any employees.
[99:59:59.999]You do have an office now.
[99:59:59.999]I've been in your office.
[99:59:59.999]Yeah, I have because I have three small kids,
[99:59:59.999]so I need the office.
[99:59:59.999]Can you talk a little bit about Sudek,
[99:59:59.999]how you became involved in publishing Sudek's work,
[99:59:59.999]his photography?
[99:59:59.999]And other photographers.
[99:59:59.999]Maybe I will start with Koudelka
[99:59:59.999]because the slideshow is, it starts from Koudelka.
[99:59:59.999]Okay.
[99:59:59.999]I met him in the '88 in (mumbles) agency in Paris,
[99:59:59.999]and as other authors, I knew him personally before,
[99:59:59.999]and I don't know that I will be publisher at the time,
[99:59:59.999]but we, I can say that we was friends.
[99:59:59.999]Koudelka is well-known for his gypsy series,
[99:59:59.999]mostly from Slovakia, Moravia, and so also Czech Republic.
[99:59:59.999]This book, I also published.
[99:59:59.999]It's very famous.
[99:59:59.999]I think most of you knows these pictures, but yeah,
[99:59:59.999]here, because of spring, '68, it ended by the invasion
[99:59:59.999]of Russians in August 21st, and we published these books.
[99:59:59.999]We published 10 years ago, and I think that it's not usual
[99:59:59.999]for Czech publisher that we prepared the book
[99:59:59.999]in Czech language.
[99:59:59.999]Invasion 68, and then we sold the rights to 12
[99:59:59.999]foreign publishing houses, included Thames and Hudson
[99:59:59.999]in Britain or Aperture in the United States.
[99:59:59.999]So that's the books, in the middle, all the variation
[99:59:59.999]of languages.
[99:59:59.999]Koudelka, of course, want to publish the books
[99:59:59.999]in the Russia language, but it was, I told him
[99:59:59.999]that if he don't find a Russian publisher,
[99:59:59.999]I will publish it in Russia myself.
[99:59:59.999]So it happens because nobody in Russia was interested in it,
[99:59:59.999]so on the right side, you will see the cover
[99:59:59.999]of the Russian language, published by myself.
[99:59:59.999]Only these books, so here the famous photos
[99:59:59.999]near the Prague Radio on Vinohradska Street.
[99:59:59.999]So he's photographing during only seven or eight days,
[99:59:59.999]and like it's more than 20 films a day.
[99:59:59.999]He did, so it there was a thousand of photos,
[99:59:59.999]and we have to choose.
[99:59:59.999]But this, what you see, that's the big, the best one,
[99:59:59.999]but in the book, there is more than 250 photos.
[99:59:59.999]If I show to the children, they can they cannot imagine
[99:59:59.999]that it will happen in Prague.
[99:59:59.999]It's hard to imagine, even for me.
[99:59:59.999]I was in the first class at school at the time.
[99:59:59.999]Do you remember it?
[99:59:59.999]We live in the suburb of Prague,
[99:59:59.999]so I remember just my mother said that there will be war
[99:59:59.999]and came to the shop, and there was nothing inside.
[99:59:59.999]Did you have a camera then?
[99:59:59.999]Pardon?
[99:59:59.999]Did you have a camera then?
[99:59:59.999]In the first class? Mm-hmm.
[99:59:59.999]No.
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]So, and what happened next with the Russian book,
[99:59:59.999]that it's like a miracle
[99:59:59.999]that together with the Czech Embassy,
[99:59:59.999]Czech Center in Moscow, he did the exhibition
[99:59:59.999]of the '68 photos in Moscow, so it's like an invasion back.
[99:59:59.999]And on the left side in the middle is Natalia Gorbanevska,
[99:59:59.999]is one of seven person who demonstrate
[99:59:59.999]against the Russian invasion in Prague.
[99:59:59.999]So, Koudelka was met with her for the first time
[99:59:59.999]and they said that they was heroes, these seven people.
[99:59:59.999]That's another photographer, Bohdan Holomicek,
[99:59:59.999]and I published him a book, Album Vaclav.
[99:59:59.999]It's about Vaclav Havel.
[99:59:59.999]He is closely related with Havel but he knows him
[99:59:59.999]from the 74.
[99:59:59.999]He knows him as a neighbor because he lived
[99:59:59.999]near the Havel summer house.
[99:59:59.999]So this his first visit in the '74.
[99:59:59.999]That's with Olga Pavlova sitting on the porch.
[99:59:59.999]Czech, (mumbles)
[99:59:59.999]Czech actor.
[99:59:59.999]Jan Triska.
[99:59:59.999]He was emigrate to Los Angeles in the end of '70s.
[99:59:59.999]And of course, Holomicek was,
[99:59:59.999]he's used his camera as a diary,
[99:59:59.999]so it's not the same photos like Koudelka.
[99:59:59.999]It's the photos of his relationship with these people.
[99:59:59.999]All this Pavel Kohout and and Alexandr Kliment,
[99:59:59.999]all these was Czech authors which sign Charter 77
[99:59:59.999]and at the time, was banned.
[99:59:59.999]That's very rare photo, Vaclav Havel with his brother,
[99:59:59.999]Ivan Havel, and father.
[99:59:59.999]I think that only one, this photo altogether.
[99:59:59.999]And this is Havel's 50th birthday party.
[99:59:59.999]It means that it's year 1986.
[99:59:59.999]It's three years till revolution, and it's important
[99:59:59.999]to see that on this photo are two playwrights,
[99:59:59.999]which happened, and two play writers,
[99:59:59.999]which are normally played in the Czech theater in this time.
[99:59:59.999]So it was very beginning of something unusual.
[99:59:59.999]Madeleine Albright, is after revolution.
[99:59:59.999]Madeleine Albright visited Havel's house in '94.
[99:59:59.999](mumbles) was, at the time, ambassador in New York,
[99:59:59.999]Czech ambassador in York, and that's Holomicek
[99:59:59.999]with Havel together.
[99:59:59.999]And third author which I pick is Josef Sudek
[99:59:59.999]because he is related with Lincoln.
[99:59:59.999]you have a nice exhibition upstairs, and for me,
[99:59:59.999]it's important author also, and I am preparing.
[99:59:59.999]I published him like 10 books altogether.
[99:59:59.999]The first monograph in 1995, and then this series
[99:59:59.999]of his books,
[99:59:59.999]it published in Czech and English.
[99:59:59.999]You have it also here.
[99:59:59.999]Portraits, advertising, some (mumbles), Mionsi Forest.
[99:59:59.999]So I will pick just few pictures.
[99:59:59.999]You can see the better one, original, upstairs,
[99:59:59.999]the Saint Vitus's Cathedral.
[99:59:59.999]These photos are made because of 10th anniversary
[99:59:59.999]of Czech Republic in the 1928,
[99:59:59.999]and the Saint Vitus was in reconstruction.
[99:59:59.999]This is still-lifes.
[99:59:59.999]Advertising photography, now it looks like art,
[99:59:59.999]but at the time, it was normal advertising photography.
[99:59:59.999]And the window of my studio.
[99:59:59.999]So Sudek live and photographing during,
[99:59:59.999]like all the Communists and Nazist regime,
[99:59:59.999]and you can see, anything like with (mumbles) Holomicek,
[99:59:59.999]but of course, if you look carefully,
[99:59:59.999]this series of window of my studio,
[99:59:59.999]he made from the the 40s till 50s, the worst time,
[99:59:59.999]and he took these photographs 15 years,
[99:59:59.999]or more than 15 years, and just,
[99:59:59.999]he focused only on one window or two windows of his studio.
[99:59:59.999]Do you think that he did that
[99:59:59.999]because he didn't want to photograph outside,
[99:59:59.999]like in the streets as much,
[99:59:59.999]or what do you think he was doing
[99:59:59.999]with those window photographs?
[99:59:59.999]I think that he don't want to go out from his studio
[99:59:59.999]to communicate and to cooperate with
[99:59:59.999]publishing houses at the time.
[99:59:59.999]So his move inside to the interior of his house?
[99:59:59.999]Yes.
[99:59:59.999]Because these are very famous photographs.
[99:59:59.999]It was his artistic--
[99:59:59.999]Inside of his head--
[99:59:59.999]Artistic response to the German occupation.
[99:59:59.999]It's like first conceptual art ever, in the 40s.
[99:59:59.999]That's him.
[99:59:59.999]That's the book of his interviews from the newspapers
[99:59:59.999]and magazines.
[99:59:59.999]The audience may not know the whole story
[99:59:59.999]but he became a photographer after the First World War.
[99:59:59.999]He was wounded, lost an arm, and he began
[99:59:59.999]to do photography from the First Republic,
[99:59:59.999]photographed all the way through to early 70s when he died,
[99:59:59.999]and the University of Nebraska has an exhibition upstairs
[99:59:59.999]because we own some of the really famous Sudek photographs.
[99:59:59.999]Can you talk a little bit about the photographs
[99:59:59.999]you might have seen before we talk about publishing?
[99:59:59.999]Have you had a chance to see the photographs upstairs?
[99:59:59.999]What do you think of them?
[99:59:59.999]I think that it's a nice small selection,
[99:59:59.999]but this selection is made by him because he was clever
[99:59:59.999]and he sent the photos not only to (mumbles)
[99:59:59.999]and to other friends, or for example,
[99:59:59.999]Sonya Pilate he she was from New York and she
[99:59:59.999]knows him from Prague and she exchanged
[99:59:59.999]his photo he was not selling them and
[99:59:59.999]the time he exchanged his photo for
[99:59:59.999]gramophone records because he has a big
[99:59:59.999]fan of listening of music and Kodak
[99:59:59.999]photo papers which he need and it was
[99:59:59.999]impossible to find it in Czech Republic
[99:59:59.999]at the time so it was like exchange market.
[99:59:59.999]Yeah that's an interesting thing
[99:59:59.999]that's come up in some of the
[99:59:59.999]discussions I've had with people.
[99:59:59.999]There's a, you have Sammy sat press and the
[99:59:59.999]underground press but you also had film
[99:59:59.999]and photography paper, or chemical,
[99:59:59.999]et cetera were difficult to have especially--
[99:59:59.999]You can check photographic
[99:59:59.999]paper but the quality wasn't so good as a Kodak.
[99:59:59.999]How do you think the three
[99:59:59.999]photographers you've chosen to to show
[99:59:59.999]today speak to us about the history of
[99:59:59.999]the of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic?
[99:59:59.999]What do you think they say in those photographs?
[99:59:59.999]Three different illustrations,
[99:59:59.999]three different ways of seeing the world.
[99:59:59.999]How do you think that they what do they say to to you?
[99:59:59.999]And then what might you ask us
[99:59:59.999]to take from those photographs?
[99:59:59.999]As I said I picked
[99:59:59.999]these three because for me they are the
[99:59:59.999]best from the 20th century and his
[99:59:59.999]topics are related in the 20th century
[99:59:59.999]like invasion, that's Vaclav Havel
[99:59:59.999]and the Sudek, his icon.
[99:59:59.999]About Havel I want to ask you a few questions.
[99:59:59.999]We'll come back to some
[99:59:59.999]more photography, but I want to ask you
[99:59:59.999]about your relationship with Vaclav Havel.
[99:59:59.999]Can you tell me how you met
[99:59:59.999]Vaclav Havel how you began to?
[99:59:59.999]Because you published, as he showed,
[99:59:59.999]he published the entire collected works
[99:59:59.999]of Vaclav Havel I think in--
[99:59:59.999]These books, yeah.
[99:59:59.999]So, can you talk to a little bit about how those
[99:59:59.999]books came about and how you created them?
[99:59:59.999]And then what was Hovel's role in
[99:59:59.999]the publishing of those books?
[99:59:59.999]It became,
[99:59:59.999]everything start for me in the 80s.
[99:59:59.999]I visited some concert or theater shows
[99:59:59.999]which was from time to time good ones in
[99:59:59.999]Prague and of course all culture Prague
[99:59:59.999]was, even Vaclav Havel was
[99:59:59.999]there but I don't know him personally.
[99:59:59.999]So, but I was reading his text at the time.
[99:59:59.999]So, I was young and excited
[99:59:59.999]about all the things so I try to
[99:59:59.999]speak to him but there was a crowd of
[99:59:59.999]people every time I was shy.
[99:59:59.999]So, I wrote him a letter like three pages of
[99:59:59.999]what I have in my mind, and in a few days
[99:59:59.999]I got invitation to his apartment to visited him.
[99:59:59.999]It was, today it's like sounds strange,
[99:59:59.999]but it was normal so it was in 1986 I think.
[99:59:59.999]so I knew him from the
[99:59:59.999]time and I'm grateful to him because
[99:59:59.999]what it was it was good that he puts
[99:59:59.999]people together so in he introduced me
[99:59:59.999]to other people and it works.
[99:59:59.999]These people was my friends and I some of them
[99:59:59.999]I published still today.
[99:59:59.999]But after revolution our works was published very
[99:59:59.999]very quickly because it was necessary
[99:59:59.999]in in several publishing houses.
[99:59:59.999]But when it is so quickly there was a,
[99:59:59.999]it wasn't prepared properly,
[99:59:59.999]So, in 1995, he asked me
[99:59:59.999]because we published collected
[99:59:59.999]or selected volumes of Czech authors in this time.
[99:59:59.999]So, he knew that we are able to
[99:59:59.999]do it so he asked me to prepare him
[99:59:59.999]collected volumes of his work.
[99:59:59.999]So, it took two and a half years and of course I am
[99:59:59.999]not preparing it I am a publisher.
[99:59:59.999]So, each volume as each editor and it was
[99:59:59.999]more than eight thousand pages.
[99:59:59.999]It's a lot of work.
[99:59:59.999]I want to go back to that
[99:59:59.999]that how you met Havel, you wrote him a...
[99:59:59.999]Can you talk about that letter that
[99:59:59.999]you wrote to Havel?
[99:59:59.999]Because it must have
[99:59:59.999]been a good letter because he replied in three days.
[99:59:59.999]He was a very busy person at
[99:59:59.999]that point, so talk a little bit about
[99:59:59.999]maybe the well if that letter was like.
[99:59:59.999]What did he find attractive about your letter?
[99:59:59.999]I know a little bit about this
[99:59:59.999]'cause I talked to Viktor about this before.
[99:59:59.999]I will show you their letter
[99:59:59.999]but I don't remember what (laughs).
[99:59:59.999]Yeah but it was a good
[99:59:59.999]letter right yeah, right, and he liked it.
[99:59:59.999]And so, you were a young person,
[99:59:59.999]this was made a big impression on you, right?
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]I don't know.
[99:59:59.999]I remember you talking about it before
[99:59:59.999]that's why...
[99:59:59.999]So, okay well I'll let you
[99:59:59.999]think about that for a second.
[99:59:59.999]But the publishing of these books took
[99:59:59.999]you two and a half years you said.
[99:59:59.999]So, some of text wasn't published
[99:59:59.999]never liked his poems.
[99:59:59.999]That's the first volume
[99:59:59.999]and he was shy to publish these poems and
[99:59:59.999]we must ask his friend Josef Topol to
[99:59:59.999]to approve it.
[99:59:59.999]So, but Josef Topol, know these poems.
[99:59:59.999]He said just to the phone
[99:59:59.999]tell him that the poems are okay and (laughs).
[99:59:59.999]And that's also, there are essays from the 50s and 60s.
[99:59:59.999]This part of his work was published at that time.
[99:59:59.999]In any books, it was hard to find
[99:59:59.999]it and Havel was sometimes surprised what he wrote.
[99:59:59.999]And sometimes said that only once.
[99:59:59.999]He said, "Don't publish
[99:59:59.999]"this because I have to it it was easier
[99:59:59.999]"for me to wrote this text then regret
[99:59:59.999]"the people who asked me to write it."
[99:59:59.999]So, it's a text about one photographer and he
[99:59:59.999]pushed to offensively.
[99:59:59.999]So, he wrote a short text about he meant,
[99:59:59.999]but he, Havel want to publish it in the in the book.
[99:59:59.999]Can I ask you a couple of questions--
[99:59:59.999]The the speeches there are
[99:59:59.999]the last two volumes, presidential speeches but of
[99:59:59.999]course he wants to have inside only the
[99:59:59.999]speeches which he wrote himself and not
[99:59:59.999]only speak by mind but which is written speeches.
[99:59:59.999]Could you maybe pick out a
[99:59:59.999]couple things your favor Havel pieces
[99:59:59.999]that you published since you've
[99:59:59.999]published a collected work of Havel?
[99:59:59.999]You have a couple of things that you
[99:59:59.999]really like in his work, well you
[99:59:59.999]probably liked all of it, but is
[99:59:59.999]there something really that jumps out at you?
[99:59:59.999]For me it was very interesting to
[99:59:59.999]see his poetry as a (speaks in foreign language),
[99:59:59.999]visual poet.
[99:59:59.999]hmm.
[99:59:59.999]So, it was published in the 60s at the end
[99:59:59.999]of the 60s and this I like.
[99:59:59.999]Why do you like his--
[99:59:59.999]I pick this one because
[99:59:59.999]don't want to talk about this famous essays.
[99:59:59.999]And so.
[99:59:59.999]Uh hmm.
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]So, you found the poetry surprising?
[99:59:59.999]You have better people to speak about it.
[99:59:59.999]But you found the poetry surprising maybe?
[99:59:59.999]I like it.
[99:59:59.999]Okay okay, alright.
[99:59:59.999]What is it about publishing that you like the most?
[99:59:59.999]Somebody asked me about if I publish the
[99:59:59.999]books more than 25 years it's more than
[99:59:59.999]quarter of century.
[99:59:59.999]So, it's I never imagined that it will last so long and
[99:59:59.999]somebody asked me about burning out,
[99:59:59.999]but I think that I have no time to burn out.
[99:59:59.999]Because it's like adrenaline sport.
[99:59:59.999]I published the book and I never know
[99:59:59.999]what happens, it's hard to...
[99:59:59.999]How have you seen--
[99:59:59.999]For example, Petra Hulova, sitting here.
[99:59:59.999]My author, I published her in her age of 22 years and nobody
[99:59:59.999]knows her at the time.
[99:59:59.999]She studied Mongolian language.
[99:59:59.999]And his first novel I like it and I think I will
[99:59:59.999]publish it in 800 copies or 1,000 copies.
[99:59:59.999]So, until today it's our Torst's bestseller book ever,
[99:59:59.999]it's more than 25,000 pieces sold books.
[99:59:59.999]So, that's good, adrenaline (laughs)
[99:59:59.999]but sometimes it's opposite.
[99:59:59.999]I think that it will be...
[99:59:59.999]It must be fun to discover people
[99:59:59.999]like Petra Hulova, right?
[99:59:59.999]Yeah it was fun (laughs).
[99:59:59.999]No, I like it.
[99:59:59.999]What other authors writers come to mind that
[99:59:59.999]you're looking for?
[99:59:59.999]Is there, do you see shifts in publishing?
[99:59:59.999]As a you know after 1989
[99:59:59.999]there was a lot of euphoria after the
[99:59:59.999]revolution after '89 and
[99:59:59.999]after the Velvet Revolution.
[99:59:59.999]Do you see shifts in the history
[99:59:59.999]publishing now?
[99:59:59.999]Are there trends that you're looking at
[99:59:59.999]as a publisher?
[99:59:59.999]What's on the horizon?
[99:59:59.999]My horizon, no--
[99:59:59.999]Publishing's horizon if you will.
[99:59:59.999]Now every decade has its own problems.
[99:59:59.999]So, in the 90s it was it was a distribution.
[99:59:59.999]Now I think it's a number of copies which is a
[99:59:59.999]available number of not copies but number
[99:59:59.999]of published books it's in this year in
[99:59:59.999]Czech Republic was published.
[99:59:59.999]17,000 books per year.
[99:59:59.999]So, it's it's a small market and
[99:59:59.999]sometimes I was wondering how it works
[99:59:59.999]that for readers it's it's okay you can
[99:59:59.999]go to the bookshop and choose what you
[99:59:59.999]like but I think there are a lot of good
[99:59:59.999]books and less time to focus on them and
[99:59:59.999]read them and talk about the topics.
[99:59:59.999]I would imagine that after '89 a lot of the
[99:59:59.999]interest was in political, focused on
[99:59:59.999]political issues.
[99:59:59.999]In other words, it was a tremendous issue in politics.
[99:59:59.999]Have you seen--
[99:59:59.999]There are big gap that we not only
[99:59:59.999]my publishing house but all
[99:59:59.999]publishers have to fill because as I
[99:59:59.999]told about the censorship.
[99:59:59.999]So, in the like
[99:59:59.999]for example in the in the beginning of
[99:59:59.999]90s some authors have I don't know 10 or
[99:59:59.999]15 manuscript which wasn't published.
[99:59:59.999]So, they want to be published quickly but if
[99:59:59.999]you published a lot of books by one
[99:59:59.999]author I don't know what but that's good.
[99:59:59.999]That's interesting because it must have been difficult
[99:59:59.999]to choose which of the 10 books that were not
[99:59:59.999]published before which ones to publish first.
[99:59:59.999]Did you have any criteria that you looked
[99:59:59.999]for in publishing those books?
[99:59:59.999]Yeah I speak here by myself but I have
[99:59:59.999]Ian Schulz, I have to talk about him, he's mine
[99:59:59.999]editor and if we are doing the editorial plans we
[99:59:59.999]are doing it together but we have our
[99:59:59.999]view what what we want to do or not but it's
[99:59:59.999]very hard to explain it.
[99:59:59.999]Uh hmm, and how long is he been your editor?
[99:59:59.999]The whole time or?
[99:59:59.999]The whole time, yes from the beginning.
[99:59:59.999]I knew him from the Faculty of philosophy from the 80s.
[99:59:59.999]And he's, is he the same age as you?
[99:59:59.999]Is he your age the same age or?
[99:59:59.999]Yes just a few years younger like
[99:59:59.999]two or three years younger.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, so a couple more questions about
[99:59:59.999]this and I think I'll like to open it up
[99:59:59.999]to the audience to ask questions.
[99:59:59.999]We can use the time to let you, I'm sure the
[99:59:59.999]audience has a lot of questions you'd like to ask.
[99:59:59.999]Well you know what, I will let the audience
[99:59:59.999]ask the next couple questions.
[99:59:59.999]I've got a list of questions but I've already gone
[99:59:59.999]through most of them.
[99:59:59.999]Do you have any more photographs you'd
[99:59:59.999]like to show?
[99:59:59.999]No (laughs).
[99:59:59.999]That's the first time when Vaclav Havel
[99:59:59.999]was looking at the book in the 1999,
[99:59:59.999]I have the date here, first of December.
[99:59:59.999]Uh hmm.
[99:59:59.999]And I choose on one wine photograph if
[99:59:59.999]it's from the it's from the May of a
[99:59:59.999]1988 or 89.
[99:59:59.999]Now, I'm not sure.
[99:59:59.999]It's a home coming parity when Vaclav Havel
[99:59:59.999]came from prison and that's the
[99:59:59.999]first meeting with Alexander Dubcek
[99:59:59.999]first secretary of Communist Party in '68.
[99:59:59.999]But they never met before.
[99:59:59.999]Uh hmm.
[99:59:59.999]I do have one question if we're
[99:59:59.999]before hand over the mic.
[99:59:59.999]What was it like to have an intellectual or an author
[99:59:59.999]as a president?
[99:59:59.999]It's it's not only a question about him, it's a
[99:59:59.999]question of most of my authors.
[99:59:59.999]So, I wrote them before and I never think that
[99:59:59.999]I ever meet them but later on
[99:59:59.999]I will publish them.
[99:59:59.999]So, I think that's sometimes I can imagine that it's true
[99:59:59.999]because they will ask me how to do it.
[99:59:59.999]Uh hmm.
[99:59:59.999]So, if they ask I have to answer
[99:59:59.999]something and
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]it works (chuckles).
[99:59:59.999]It does.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, I'm gonna hand over the mic to you and, Martin.
[99:59:59.999]By the way thank you for the
[99:59:59.999]amazing concert last night.
[99:59:59.999](audience applauding)
[99:59:59.999]Thank you.
[99:59:59.999]Until recently I was a chairman of the board
[99:59:59.999]of the big bond on conglomerate which
[99:59:59.999]had few radio station and publishing
[99:59:59.999]houses and mostly music production studios, etc.
[99:59:59.999]And among those publishing
[99:59:59.999]houses Albatross was the best biggest one
[99:59:59.999]major one the biggest one for the
[99:59:59.999]children in literature and there was a
[99:59:59.999]board meeting you know every other weekend.
[99:59:59.999]So, we looked at the editorial plan and
[99:59:59.999]75 percent 90 percent we just had to
[99:59:59.999]skip because there was no way how to
[99:59:59.999]make profit or how to at least break even you know.
[99:59:59.999]And Viktor was very often called it or because
[99:59:59.999]everybody said how come that Torst can
[99:59:59.999]do it you know and we cannot you know
[99:59:59.999]release poetry or you know nice books?
[99:59:59.999]So, it was amazing.
[99:59:59.999]I think Viktor must be a saint
[99:59:59.999]or he must have a very rich bank
[99:59:59.999]or somewhere in in this country or maybe
[99:59:59.999]Israel or somewhere wherever he would sponsor his
[99:59:59.999]books because if we just made it,
[99:59:59.999]it's just impossible from if you look at the
[99:59:59.999]numbers you know you go to you sometimes
[99:59:59.999]you weep the great books cannot go out.
[99:59:59.999]But this is the decision you've
[99:59:59.999]gotta make unless you want to go under.
[99:59:59.999]Then later it was barely we released the
[99:59:59.999]Harry Potter which will bring some
[99:59:59.999]substantial money so with which you can
[99:59:59.999]then do things like I don't
[99:59:59.999]want to close to Viktor because I could
[99:59:59.999]like poetry and photography and beautiful books.
[99:59:59.999]It's really hard to,
[99:59:59.999]it was really hard to it was really hard to do.
[99:59:59.999]So, this is the first question.
[99:59:59.999]How do you do it?
[99:59:59.999]And the second is more personal.
[99:59:59.999]When I was in the Editorial Commission
[99:59:59.999]myself at Supraphon Records which was
[99:59:59.999]the major music publisher in our country,
[99:59:59.999]and I had to express my tastes to what we should release,
[99:59:59.999]it was always disaster you know,
[99:59:59.999]absolute disaster.
[99:59:59.999]So, then if you are a chairman of the board,
[99:59:59.999]you cannot really blame the people you know,
[99:59:59.999]Sooner or later I've seen the conflict
[99:59:59.999]of interest very big and I go to withdrawal because I forced
[99:59:59.999]them to release something to my taste.
[99:59:59.999]And then that it was a flop you know,
[99:59:59.999]so that was a terrible disaster.
[99:59:59.999]So I've got to leave this function and not to
[99:59:59.999]talk into what's going out in Supraphon,
[99:59:59.999]which some of my friends' friends reproached.
[99:59:59.999]They said well this is the guy who said
[99:59:59.999]you do great jazz music and all his reason
[99:59:59.999]you know like blast music from southern Bohemia,
[99:59:59.999]or things like this.
[99:59:59.999]So this is the second question.
[99:59:59.999]How do you manage that you release the
[99:59:59.999]things you personally like and you are
[99:59:59.999]still living and doing so well?
[99:59:59.999](audience applauding)
[99:59:59.999]I don't know if I understand the
[99:59:59.999]question properly how how do I like?
[99:59:59.999]How are you able to release books
[99:59:59.999]that you like as a publisher because he
[99:59:59.999]was expressing sometimes publishers
[99:59:59.999]father their instincts and it doesn't
[99:59:59.999]work in publishing.
[99:59:59.999]How are you successful at releasing some
[99:59:59.999]of the books that you like?
[99:59:59.999]First off, I think, I thought about, I like
[99:59:59.999]it I like the book and I have to do it
[99:59:59.999]everything to be on the market,
[99:59:59.999]to be, to have a choice that
[99:59:59.999]the reader will read it.
[99:59:59.999]How do you do it financially?
[99:59:59.999]Financial, first of all is this
[99:59:59.999]and the second is I have no employees,
[99:59:59.999]first ten years I have no office.
[99:59:59.999]First like 10 or 15 years I do my desktop publishing.
[99:59:59.999]So I cut the budget to the to
[99:59:59.999]the roots so that's that's the basic.
[99:59:59.999]And what is it about the (mumbles), how many copies?
[99:59:59.999]So, it's a similar with Petra Hulova.
[99:59:59.999]Sometimes I did something because I
[99:59:59.999]love it like Zabrana, it was in 1994.
[99:59:59.999]It was a big success but it was huge
[99:59:59.999]diaries like more than thousand pages
[99:59:59.999]and nobody wants to publish it, like wife
[99:59:59.999]of widow of young Zabrana gave it to the two
[99:59:59.999]publishing houses and they don't want it.
[99:59:59.999]How many copies (mumbles)?
[99:59:59.999]This question is very often but there is
[99:59:59.999]not only one answer.
[99:59:59.999]If it's books about photography, it's different if it's
[99:59:59.999]poetry, and it's different.
[99:59:59.999]What's the fee for the author?
[99:59:59.999]Sometimes it's as for example in the poetry,
[99:59:59.999]it's very hard to pay the fee for the other author.
[99:59:59.999]So, sometimes it's 500 copies and
[99:59:59.999]sometimes it's 1,500 but of course
[99:59:59.999]that we are yeah we have to find support
[99:59:59.999]especially for the books about
[99:59:59.999]photography which is difficult to
[99:59:59.999]prepare all the scans and retouching and re-press.
[99:59:59.999]I'm really enjoying this conversation
[99:59:59.999]and I just had a question.
[99:59:59.999]I wonder if you could give a little bit more context
[99:59:59.999]and I hope I understood the photograph
[99:59:59.999]correctly when you pointed out from I
[99:59:59.999]think 1986 to sort of official published
[99:59:59.999]playwrights and samizdat published playwrights.
[99:59:59.999]Did I understand that correctly with Havel in the photograph
[99:59:59.999]with the four playwrights together?
[99:59:59.999]I want to apologize not only for my English
[99:59:59.999]but also for my bad hearing, especially because.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, I'm sorry.
[99:59:59.999]No, I hear, if you get a little closer.
[99:59:59.999]I'll be super clear
[99:59:59.999]and uncomplicated.
[99:59:59.999]I didn't understand what you said.
[99:59:59.999]Okay, sorry, I wonder if you
[99:59:59.999]could give a little context for the
[99:59:59.999]1980s about the relationship in
[99:59:59.999]Czechoslovakia between official culture
[99:59:59.999]and unofficial culture.
[99:59:59.999]The idea that for in East Germany for example at the time
[99:59:59.999]or Poland there would be official
[99:59:59.999]artists who were officially published
[99:59:59.999]with state-sponsored publishers and
[99:59:59.999]presses with a samizdat author,
[99:59:59.999]these would be adversaries and there would be
[99:59:59.999]no common ground for them to talk to each other.
[99:59:59.999]But I wondered if you from your perspective
[99:59:59.999]as a psalmist publisher could talk about the relationship
[99:59:59.999]between the unofficial artists and official culture.
[99:59:59.999]Does that make sense?
[99:59:59.999]in the 80s.
[99:59:59.999]Especially because
[99:59:59.999]in theater because it was public.
[99:59:59.999]No, no, no.
[99:59:59.999]One good example is the famous Czech writer
[99:59:59.999]Bohumil Hrabal because he published in
[99:59:59.999]the 80s in all three channels all kinds
[99:59:59.999]of publishing house in the state publishing house ,
[99:59:59.999]in the samizdat, and of course in the
[99:59:59.999]exile publishing houses like Goreski,
[99:59:59.999]Publisher 68.
[99:59:59.999]Even especially at the end of the 80s it was
[99:59:59.999]much (speaks in foreign language).
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]I don't know even in Czech.
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]Okay, I do have a question.
[99:59:59.999]I think, and that's Patti Simpson.
[99:59:59.999]So Patty Simpson's question,
[99:59:59.999]it's interesting because you have in the
[99:59:59.999]mid-80s you have this competition between official,
[99:59:59.999]and unofficial right, the repressed authors
[99:59:59.999]who are gonna become official, in fact
[99:59:59.999]president right, and then you have this
[99:59:59.999]these other authors that were sponsored
[99:59:59.999]by the regime right and there's a
[99:59:59.999]competition in the publishing world over
[99:59:59.999]who's gonna win this right and but what
[99:59:59.999]Patti's question was they're both
[99:59:59.999]together so that the way that we usually
[99:59:59.999]review these authors is they're completely
[99:59:59.999]separate but they're still friends.
[99:59:59.999]That's what's interesting I think about
[99:59:59.999]Patti's question right they're still
[99:59:59.999]friends and even though they might be
[99:59:59.999]officially condoned or applauded you know,
[99:59:59.999]or you know censored bands et cetera,
[99:59:59.999]they're still friends and they realize
[99:59:59.999]that they are still operating in a system together.
[99:59:59.999]And maybe they used each other I think that's probably what
[99:59:59.999]you're kind of suggesting right,
[99:59:59.999]in an interesting way right.
[99:59:59.999]I think Paul Wilson has another question.
[99:59:59.999]If I can just comment on that
[99:59:59.999]question I mean I know a little bit
[99:59:59.999]about about the way Havel especially in
[99:59:59.999]the 1980s maintained very strong
[99:59:59.999]relations with with people who were able
[99:59:59.999]to publish and people have their their plays.
[99:59:59.999]He kept his relationships open with people who were
[99:59:59.999]functioning officially.
[99:59:59.999]And that was part of his, and there were a lot of
[99:59:59.999]people who disagreed with him about that.
[99:59:59.999]They thought they should you know if
[99:59:59.999]you're official you're bad.
[99:59:59.999]I mean there was a a group of people that I knew in
[99:59:59.999]in Prague, actually burned I mean, Ivan Yuros.
[99:59:59.999]And my next question will be about him,
[99:59:59.999]actually burned books
[99:59:59.999]in (speaks in foreign language) in the 1970s.
[99:59:59.999]It was a terrible thing that he did but to
[99:59:59.999]express his disapproval.
[99:59:59.999]Havel never went that that way.
[99:59:59.999]He kept his relationship with his theater friends
[99:59:59.999]and his actor friends open and that was
[99:59:59.999]part part of his his ability was to sort
[99:59:59.999]of bring people together.
[99:59:59.999]But I have a question, I have a
[99:59:59.999]couple of white questions.
[99:59:59.999]There was there was a moment in December of
[99:59:59.999]1989 when a huge bus arrived from the
[99:59:59.999]West full of checkbooks published abroad
[99:59:59.999]that had to be smuggled in at one point
[99:59:59.999]and we're now brought in.
[99:59:59.999]There was a bookstore near I.P. Pavlova (mumbles)
[99:59:59.999]that kind of sold these books or help to distribute them
[99:59:59.999]somehow under the counter I'm not sure.
[99:59:59.999]Are you aware of this bookstore?
[99:59:59.999]No.
[99:59:59.999]No, you weren't so you weren't there.
[99:59:59.999]I'm not sure.
[99:59:59.999]I helped unload these books because I happen to be there.
[99:59:59.999]It was famous Czech bookshop called
[99:59:59.999]Chopik book shop.
[99:59:59.999]That's right, yes okay.
[99:59:59.999]So how was he able to, I mean
[99:59:59.999]he was famous for, I mean was he able to sell sandwich that
[99:59:59.999]book sort of under the under the counter or what was his
[99:59:59.999]relationship with the unofficial writers?
[99:59:59.999]Because it wasn't at that time possible to be a
[99:59:59.999]private bookshop.
[99:59:59.999]But the the chief of this bookshop was idle
[99:59:59.999]after evolution, he had his own own bookshop
[99:59:59.999]but he was good.
[99:59:59.999]So, for example when John Updike came to Prague.
[99:59:59.999]So, he has book signing there and other,
[99:59:59.999]there was a and it wasn't some is
[99:59:59.999]that it of it was a little bit
[99:59:59.999]officially but they published also good
[99:59:59.999]books and the chief took place
[99:59:59.999]also in the 80s, but they invite lot not lot of but
[99:59:59.999]Philip (mumbles) will come to Prague and
[99:59:59.999]they will go to this bookshop.
[99:59:59.999]So, I think that they'd run this bookshop perfectly.
[99:59:59.999]So, this was possible in in the 1980s?
[99:59:59.999]That there was it was--
[99:59:59.999]And because of that they have
[99:59:59.999]contacts and it's like a snowball.
[99:59:59.999]Right, I wanted to ask you another question about
[99:59:59.999]one of your recent publications was a
[99:59:59.999]book called Magor which I think
[99:59:59.999]has been very successful and I wonder if
[99:59:59.999]you could talk a little bit about
[99:59:59.999]this is other I think a very
[99:59:59.999]important person in in Czech culture of
[99:59:59.999]the 70s and 80s, Ivan Yuros.
[99:59:59.999]And the this book apparently from what you told me
[99:59:59.999]yesterday was that it had become
[99:59:59.999]like a best-seller almost.
[99:59:59.999]It's a new book they got the price just on Tuesday
[99:59:59.999]Magnesia Litera.
[99:59:59.999]I published this book last year.
[99:59:59.999]It's a biography of Ivan Martin Jirous called Magor,
[99:59:59.999]the leader, a person of Czech underground movement.
[99:59:59.999]It's the same as I told before that I
[99:59:59.999]published it I think that biography has
[99:59:59.999]a strong potential to be not only
[99:59:59.999]commercial potential but to be read.
[99:59:59.999]I published 3,000 copies and I sold until
[99:59:59.999]Christmas, until today it's 9,000 copies sold.
[99:59:59.999]But what's the funny that
[99:59:59.999]Shiva Hala, who wrote this (speaks in foreign language),
[99:59:59.999]who wrote this book wrote the article to
[99:59:59.999]Respect Magazine like six years ago when at that
[99:59:59.999]time was (mumbles) celebrate I don't know
[99:59:59.999]60 years or something like that.
[99:59:59.999]And I call Shiva Hala and ask him that I like
[99:59:59.999]this I like this article and I ask
[99:59:59.999]him to to wrote the biography.
[99:59:59.999]And at the beginning he said no and year after he
[99:59:59.999]said yes maybe I'll try it.
[99:59:59.999]And they after five year, I got the first chapter of my new
[99:59:59.999]script but I forgot it.
[99:59:59.999]So, I told him that's good idea to wrote my course
[99:59:59.999]biography and he said that was your idea.
[99:59:59.999](laughing)
[99:59:59.999]So.
[99:59:59.999]Alright.
[99:59:59.999]So, I would have sort of a
[99:59:59.999]follow-up question and you know it's
[99:59:59.999]sort of known that now CIA is leaking
[99:59:59.999]that when they were leading their sort
[99:59:59.999]of warfare you know to tip the scales
[99:59:59.999]over before the iron curtain fell down
[99:59:59.999]they did it through the books and they
[99:59:59.999]said the biggest advantage was that
[99:59:59.999]all of central and eastern Europe were
[99:59:59.999]huge readers yeah.
[99:59:59.999]And we all remember that even so the Czech authors were
[99:59:59.999]heavily censored you know I think they
[99:59:59.999]were pretty good publishing houses which
[99:59:59.999]were able to you know have large volume
[99:59:59.999]translation books especially American
[99:59:59.999]authors which were actually widely
[99:59:59.999]spread and they you know it was
[99:59:59.999]published in so very many copies.
[99:59:59.999]So, saying this is we had a nation which was
[99:59:59.999]you know heavily reading whatever they
[99:59:59.999]could have their hands on and then you
[99:59:59.999]know 1989 came and you've been you know
[99:59:59.999]through all the sort of transition times
[99:59:59.999]and my question is following.
[99:59:59.999]So, now we have a different market.
[99:59:59.999]We still have a very solid base of readers.
[99:59:59.999]Torst became brand, you have you know different
[99:59:59.999]publishing strategies.
[99:59:59.999]But do you have to cater to the sort of a diversified you
[99:59:59.999]know cultural sort of landscape I mean
[99:59:59.999]in changing readership?
[99:59:59.999]And what do you thing is now the sort of a key to your
[99:59:59.999]success obviously.
[99:59:59.999]You know I have a group which sort of follows your brand
[99:59:59.999]but on the other hand they are so very
[99:59:59.999]many tiny tiny tiny publishers which come and go.
[99:59:59.999]So, do you sometimes like feel pressed by
[99:59:59.999]the sort of general moods or sort of
[99:59:59.999]readers expectations if that makes sense?
[99:59:59.999]I'm not sure if I question properly but
[99:59:59.999]there are I think that that's a Czech
[99:59:59.999]specialty that there are a lot of small
[99:59:59.999]private publishing houses.
[99:59:59.999]It's not usual we can say in the West.
[99:59:59.999]And everybody start at the beginning of 90s so we are
[99:59:59.999]thinking what what will happen things in
[99:59:59.999]the few years with us because I think
[99:59:59.999]that Torst will quit with me as I quit it.
[99:59:59.999]Because it's not possible to
[99:59:59.999]run it as a normal
[99:59:59.999]business because most of the relationship with the author is
[99:59:59.999]is very very private.
[99:59:59.999]It's like a big family sometimes.
[99:59:59.999]I don't have agreement or the agreement
[99:59:59.999]is only by phone or in
[99:59:59.999]the pub or some so there are big
[99:59:59.999]publishing houses and they are now and
[99:59:59.999]they are selling the small one.
[99:59:59.999]It's like everywhere but I don't have
[99:59:59.999]anything to sell.
[99:59:59.999]Maybe the the logo but that's all what I have.
[99:59:59.999]If I published for example, Jachym Topol,
[99:59:59.999]and I sell the publishing house, I don't
[99:59:59.999]have the rights for him to to sell his
[99:59:59.999]rights due to another.
[99:59:59.999]Man I have a question about the, or two
[99:59:59.999]questions about the Invasion '68 book.
[99:59:59.999]This history might be known to the Czech
[99:59:59.999]audience but I'm curious about the
[99:59:59.999]history of the photos immediately after '68.
[99:59:59.999]I assume they weren't
[99:59:59.999]published in the Czech Republic or were
[99:59:59.999]they did they were they smuggled out?
[99:59:59.999]So, that's the first question.
[99:59:59.999]The second question is I'm intrigued by these seven
[99:59:59.999]Russians that him that that they met
[99:59:59.999]later on they did with any repercussions
[99:59:59.999]for them when they demonstrated against Prague '68?
[99:59:59.999]The first question is about Kodelka's photos from '68.
[99:59:59.999]His photos was signed as an unknown photographer till 1984
[99:59:59.999]because he stayed in the West.
[99:59:59.999]He emigrated but his father lived in Moravia.
[99:59:59.999]And he don't want to have a
[99:59:59.999]trouble to him so till his
[99:59:59.999]father died til 1984 all these photos
[99:59:59.999]was published by AP unknown photographer.
[99:59:59.999]And it was it was wasn't smuggled
[99:59:59.999]because they send it, a view of a few
[99:59:59.999]of films he sent it to to Vienna to
[99:59:59.999]agency in just these days.
[99:59:59.999]He gave it to somebody and he run to the car and
[99:59:59.999]this this photos was published very, very soon.
[99:59:59.999]What was interesting I saw these
[99:59:59.999]prints that all Czech people has black,
[99:59:59.999]yeah over the eye not to be recognized
[99:59:59.999]because Czech police could arrest these people,
[99:59:59.999]because they knows how they look like.
[99:59:59.999]And the second question is
[99:59:59.999]about this seven or--
[99:59:59.999]Russians.
[99:59:59.999]Did those Russian
[99:59:59.999]demonstrators that that he met later on after the
[99:59:59.999]publication of the Russian
[99:59:59.999]version of the book?
[99:59:59.999]Only Natalia Gorbanevska was at that time at this
[99:59:59.999]exhibition because most of them
[99:59:59.999]at that time was was not alive.
[99:59:59.999]What happened, do you know what happened to
[99:59:59.999]them after when they--
[99:59:59.999]The demonstration?
[99:59:59.999]Yeah.
[99:59:59.999]It was like one month after August
[99:59:59.999]and they treat them very badly.
[99:59:59.999]They got to the prison,
[99:59:59.999]on psychiatrist hospital.
[99:59:59.999]But he published also a book about
[99:59:59.999]'68 protesters because not only in Russia
[99:59:59.999]was this protest.
[99:59:59.999]Also in Poland, Bulgaria,
[99:59:59.999]East Germany but it's sometimes they have
[99:59:59.999]stories that are not well known that
[99:59:59.999]because for example in Poland one person
[99:59:59.999]burned themselves in the football stadium.
[99:59:59.999]But Polish police said that it
[99:59:59.999]was an accident and 20 years nobody knows
[99:59:59.999]that it happened because of the invasion.

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Viktor Stoilov: A Conversation with James D. Le Sueur

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