Conducted by: Luboš Studený and Michaela Šmidrkalová
Interview with: Prof. PhDr. Ivan Hlaváček, CSc. (* 28. 05. 1931 Praha), Doc. PhDr. Ľudmila Hlaváčková, CSc. (* 08. 06. 1935 Praha)
June 29, 2022, Praha, in person (At the interviewees‘ request, the transcript has only been archived.)
The interview with Czech historians Ivan and Ľudmila Hlaváček, recorded in 2022, provides a rich personal testimony about Czech-Polish scholarly relations, academic life under socialism, and the post-1989 transformations of historical and medical-historical research. Professor Ivan Hlaváček recalls his early contacts with Polish medievalists such as Karol Maleczyński, Jerzy Serczyk, and Andrzej Tomczak, which began through professional exchanges organized in the 1950s and 1960s. He describes how cooperation in auxiliary historical sciences and medieval studies developed between Prague, Wrocław, Toruń, and Lublin, emphasizing the generosity and intellectual openness of his Polish colleagues, who often provided access to Western historiography unavailable in communist Czechoslovakia. The conversation highlights both the scholarly and human dimensions of these exchanges, from archival discoveries and conferences such as the “Wiślańskie Symposia” to friendships that continued after 1989.
Dr Ľudmila Hlaváčková recounts her professional path in the History of Medicine Institute of the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, where she began in 1961. She explains how the institute survived ideological pressures, censorship, and the rigid academic hierarchy of late socialism, while maintaining unique collections and research continuity. Her narrative spans from the institute’s foundation and its early directors to post-1989 collaborations with Vienna, Leipzig, and other European centers.