Return Ostrava Arrivals
Radovan Lipus: Ostrava was shaped by its arrivals

“As history passed, Ostrava didn’t grow by layers, it exploded. In several waves, tens of thousands of new residents arrived here — no other city has experienced this in such massive proportions,” says film director Radovan Lipus. As a member of the preparatory team which wants to carry the regional metropolis to the title of European Capital of Culture 2015, he is behind the project Ostrava Arrivals. The project asks Ostravans to describe their own roots or the roots of their forebears.

How and when was the idea for Ostrava Arrivals born?
It was my idea. I was approached by Čestmír Kopecký (head of the preparatory team for the project Ostrava 2015 - ed.) in June 2008. Paradoxically, the offer came at a time when I already had in my flat two hundred banana boxes that were gradually being filled for a move to Prague, so it struck me as very curious and nostalgic, but on the other hand it was like a sign, a message that I shouldn’t leave Ostrava for long, that I shouldn’t sever my ties.

What did you speak about with Čestmír Kopecký?
About what Ostrava could offer as a European Capital of Culture and about how it differs from the other candidate cities, Plzeň and Hradec Králové. I said that it is exceptional in, among other things, immigration and arrivals. It is a city that was created by new arrivals. There are very few traditional patrician families who have lived here for centuries. As history passed, Ostrava didn’t grow by layers, it exploded. In several waves, tens of thousands of new residents arrived here — no other city has experienced this in such massive proportions. What’s more, many of the arrivals were special cases in that they were in some way tied to the political situation.

Why did people come to Ostrava?
Lots of people came as punishment, many even by court decisions to the forced labour camps, many of them came on a so-called relocation order. Very significantly represented were arrivals influenced by the political situation elsewhere, such as arrivals from Greece or the Vietnamese community. Plzeň or Brno probably haven’t experienced that; no one went there as punishment or for relocation. A number of people came to Ostrava seeking easy profit or accommodation. It wasn’t only blue-collar workers who came here and in whom the city had an interest but also top experts.

Which professions do you have in mind?
Top doctors, engineers, technicians, scientists, artists all came here, so did people whom businesses and institutions needed and were able and willing to remunerate. These top experts were already coming here back in the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and during the First Republic, in connection with the coal boom and the explosive development of Ostrava. It isn’t an accident, for example, that in the area of architecture and urban planning Camillo Sitte realized his finest buildings in Ostrava before World War I, and between the wars Erich Mendelsohn and Marie Frommerová came here. Architects of European renown and quality came to Ostrava just for one-off commissions and remained in the region for the long term, such as Camillo Sitte, for example. And Paul Kupelwieser, as its general director, created Nové Vítkovice. Similarly, it was in the economic and intellectual interest of the city to invite Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith and Oskar Kokoschka here.

Let’s go back to Ostrava 2015. Did you have a clear vision from the beginning about how Ostrava Arrivals would work?
One of the main criteria in assessing applications to compete for the title of European Capital of Culture 2015 was the broadest possible involvement of the public. Through institutions, but also of individuals and civic organizations. Truly everyone can participate in Arrivals, from schoolchildren to people of their grandparents’ generation. One group we’re hoping to reach, for example, is lonely individuals in senior homes who would happily share their stories but for various reasons don’t have contact with their grandchildren.

Let’s then tell grandmothers and grandfathers concretely what they should do if they wish to participate in Ostrava Arrivals. Do they need to take a pencil in their hands and write their stories?
Certainly they may write their stories themselves, or they can ask someone else in their surroundings if they would write down the stories or capture them by some other means and then send them by mail, e-mail or deliver them in person to the offices of the project Ostrava – European Capital of Culture 2015. It is ideal when the reminiscences are highly personal, if people can recall how Ostrava smelled at the time of their arrival, how it tasted, what colour it had, how it sounded, what music was played on the radio at the time …

It should be as specific as possible.
Yes, they should try to describe their most tangible memories, their first impressions, exactly how the streets to which they moved looked, how their buildings looked, what caused the greatest difficulties for them, what surprised them the most, what delighted them the most, if they can remember perhaps what they first saw at the cinema in Ostrava, where they went to dance, if they remember their colleagues and friends. It should be really specific, personal and individual, because it is precisely from these individual stories, these individual fates, that the living fabric of the city is created. It is shaped by human stories that are like single unreproducible cells.

Every story is for interesting for you then.
Yes. Every story is a unique spotlight that can illuminate a single point on the map from a different angle. It is not at all a question of whether someone has or hasn’t got literary talent. Someone can sing his story, someone can draw it, sculpt it, the means of expression are very wide. It’s about not being afraid to share your story with others.

It is in any way limited by the age of the contributor?
No, it isn’t. Nor is it limited by form or content. Someone might write half a page, someone else thirty pages. The website of this project has quite a large capacity, stories there can vary, they can have differing shapes, differing forms.

So it’s enough then just to have a recollection and to somehow note it down.
Exactly. No one else can do it for us. It can be fantastic, for example, to imagine how someone’s grandmother was born near Athens, but her grandson grew up around a courtyard in Poruba, but he still has within himself Greek blood and Greek roots. Someone else came from Vietnam, from the other side of the world.

And are you interested in completely ordinary fates? My grandmother, for instance, has forebears from Větřkovice.
Of course that interests us. Distance isn’t only geographical, but also of type, mentality, civilization. For example, people who in the mid 19th century came to Ostrava from Halič experienced a huge civilizational leap. Before their move they were living like in the Middle Ages. They knew no such thing as running water, toilets, and suddenly when they came to Vítkovice, even to the most humble of boarding houses, to workers’ housing, it was instant luxury for them. The same was also true of the highlanders from the Beskydy Mountains, for example from Morávka or Košařiska. After moving to Ostrava they suddenly found themselves in a different world, full of noise, rumble, racket. They came here on siding trains, on trains, on trams, on top of coal cars, it must have been unreal for them. These people were tied to the land, they kept animals, so even in Ostrava they lived a rural lifestyle, they did homesteading on a small scale, pigs, rabbits, garden beds. Baťa in Zlín, for instance, later prohibited these customs.

It was possible in Ostrava?
Here it functioned. Mainly one saw this in miners’ colonies. There would be wood sheds, tool sheds, dovecotes. It was a particular lifestyle, no longer a village way of life, but it wasn’t quite an urban lifestyle either.

Can you reassure people that if they devote the time to writing down their stories it won’t be in vain?
Absolutely. So far on the website for Ostrava 2015 we are putting up all contributions. It’s possible that as more stories come in, which we are hoping for, we will gradually modify them, but for now we guarantee everyone who sends a story that we will publish it on the internet.

From what kinds of places did people come to Ostrava?
One the one hand, from all corners of the Habsburg monarchy, from Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Hungary, the Balkans, northern Italy, but as I already mentioned, many times also from Halič, where there was a significant Jewish community. These people often came to Ostrava with only nap sacks on their backs, and later they very successfully asserted themselves here, becoming respected merchants — let’s recall, for example, the Bachner or Borger families. With the development of the metalworks came lots of German mining and metallurgical engineers, in connection with the expansion of the railway infrastructure came a number of Italians, there were French engineers, a sizeable community of Slovaks, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Roma, after the war came Greeks, Vietnamese, and certainly for centuries there was a large German enclave here. Just one minor detail which I think characterizes the importance and cosmopolitan flavour of Ostrava between the wars: A First Republic guidebook to Ostrava contains the addresses of five consulates — French, Italian, German, Polish and Yugoslav, which today is an unbelievable number.

Today in Ostrava there is probably only the consulate general of the Polish Republic.
Yes, and as far as I know Russia, Ukraine and Slovakia also have some consular office here, but since the inter-war period the map of nations has obviously changed and diplomatic representation has generally dwindled. Even today, however, Ostrava retains a cosmopolitan character, because in addition to the previously mentioned Greeks, Poles, Bulgarians, Hungarians, new groups are coming today that were never here before. For instance people from France, Spain, America, Britain and Italy, who work as teachers at various types of schools, and, mainly for business purposes, people are coming from Korea and India, and there is a not completely insignificant community made up of Africans, people are coming also from Scandinavia …

I think that regarding arrivals quite an important role is played for instance by air quality, which is not good in Ostrava.
Definitely. Arrivals and departures are related to the economy but also to ecology, how people will breathe and live here. But it’s also connected with culture. It is simply naive and mistaken to think that qualified and educated people will want to stay in the city just because they have work here. That’s complete nonsense. Every top manager today wants not only professional fulfilment, but also needs good schools, to be able to go to the opera or the symphony in the evening, to play golf, and also for work purposes needs a high-quality research library …

… have the regional representatives shelved the planned library?
It’s important to realize that a research library isn’t something that’s outdated, musty, something that’s already been made obsolete by the internet; that would be a rather delusive and amateurish idea. And people who pronounce that a library is unnecessary have no clue about what today’s modern libraries provide, support and offer. In a certain sense it is truly the brain of the city. Its memory as well as its inspiration. Nothing can replace a good library.

Can Ostrava hope to earn the title of European Capital of Culture 2015 if its representatives clearly and plainly won’t get behind the construction of a research library?
 If they don’t do it, it will be strange, to say the least. I know that it has to do with the investment of the region, but if Ostrava wants to call itself a modern metropolis, a university and students’ town, it can’t do so without a research library. The fifty-year provisional facility located in the New City Hall is disgraceful and shameful. Top-rate modern research libraries have recently appeared in Liberec, Hradec Králové and Brno; even Havlíčkův Brod, a town of 50,000, will have a new research library before Ostrava does. That is, I think, very telling.

There is also no proper concert hall, municipal art gallery … could the Ostrava – European Capital of Culture title help to resolve these shortcomings?
 Should Ostrava succeed — and all who are taking part in this effort believe that it will succeed and are doing everything possible to make it happen — it would on the one hand be a stamp of quality, which would present the city to the outside world and draw the attention of Europe. It’s the same with UNESCO monuments: The title doesn’t directly lead to funding from some institution, but it can generate publicity, income and primarily further development in the city.


Markéta Radová
Regional edition of Mladá fronta Dnes – North Moravia and Silesia

Radovan Lipus, a native of Třinec, completed his studies in film directing at Prague’s DAMU, the theatrical school of the Academy of Performing Arts. For a short time he worked in the Činoherní klub (Drama Club) and he was employed by the National Theatre of Moravia-Silesia in Ostrava. Since 2008 he is the main director at the Švanda Theatre in Prague. With David Vávra he created the successful television cycle “Šumná města” (Comely Cities).