Jiří Peša

* 1948

  • "It was such inexperienced beginnings for everyone. Not just us, but the whole society was sort of working its way through these things that were new to us. Various things were being skipped over. I was disgusted by some things. In some ways it was somehow different than what one expected. Otherwise, fine. The complications started, it was more of a retrospective thing. I was disappointed that some things were being left out, others were being made too easy for the part of society that had been there before. Some things were just left to melt away. When properties were being returned, I saw that people who used to be powerful by their connections were taking advantage of that."

  • "There were large gatherings here in front of the community centre and cinema [in Veselí nad Moravou] just after it broke out. The Civic Forum started. That first evening I remember it was very ugly weather, it was snowing and raining. The square was crowded with people. There were speeches, there were songs being sung that were sung in Prague and so on. It was interesting."

  • "I enlisted in the engineers. I was there less than a week. When they found out what kind of school I had, they took me to Písek, where I got a job in a field printing plant. There were two of us there, Jirka Šmíd was there with me, a great guy and photographer. I was a graphic designer. So, I changed from an engineer to a copyist. Those two years, 1967 to 1968, were really free. Then it started to get a bit messy after the invasion [of Warsaw Pact troops]. It was an interesting experience. The enthusiasm we felt was mainly through the brass hats. We were a command company, a division in the press, so we were very much together. When the Russians came, everybody was cursing and indignant. But after half a month or a month, characters began to transform and return to what Husák's normalization brought. That was very interesting."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Veselí nad Moravou, 11.11.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:31:42
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - JMK REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Faith is my great strength and hope in life

Jiří Peša, 1973
Jiří Peša, 1973
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Jiří Peša was born on 17 February 1948 to parents Josef Peša and Marie in Veselí nad Moravou, where he spent his childhood. In 1963 he was admitted to the School of Applied Arts in Uherské Hradiště, majoring in graphic arts. Afterwards he went to the compulsory military service as an engineer in Týn nad Vltavou. Soon he was transferred to the field printing department in Písek. During his basic military service, he experienced the occupation of the Warsaw Pact troops and actively participated in the production of dissenting leaflets. In 1970, he became an artist at the community centre in Veselí nad Moravou, where he worked on the creation of promotional materials, the decoration of cultural events and the organization of exhibitions. At the same time, he co-founded Skupina pěti (the Group of Five), an artistic association of five painters and graphic artists from Veselí, which also included Josef Kozumplík, Vladimír Groš, Josef Tomeček and Jaromír Hynšt. After the Velvet Revolution, he became a councillor for the Czechoslovak People‘s Party in his hometown. He served for the next 12 years. In the 1990s, he participated in the reestablishment of the scouting organisation in Veselí nad Moravou, which his friends from the aforementioned Group of Five led him to do. In 2021 he lived in Veselí nad Moravou.