I was born in circus, it is where my cradle was. Living there was natural for me as my mother, father and everybody else stayed there for. Growing up, I was learning the circus craft as doctors learned their job. Since when did you train and how did it get along with your school attendance? As an acrobat, I used to work since I was five. My first performance took place in the Karlín variety theatre, which is a normal theatre these days. And then it went on and on. Concerning school, we were going to those that were in the towns we had our shows in. We had a record book in which, upon our departure, the directors wrote where it was, what we studied, what grades we had. For example, it said that my behavior was very good. The same thing happened in the next city as well. As long as we went to school, it was like that. The successes I had started already when I was five in the Karlín variety theatre. At the time, it was international! Later on I performed with great circuses that took us abroad as well. The important thing is that this life was everything for me. I lived for the circus, as well as my parents and grandparents. In our kin, we all are circus performers and acrobats.
What happened when you arrived at the České Budějovice train station after returning from Hungary in 1948? Some white-collars came to us, they came by car from Prague. We unloaded all our caravans. The men from Prague told my wife’s uncles that they had to come to Prague in a week in order to deal about something with the ministry. Nothing happened right at the station but when my uncles arrived from the meeting in Prague, they had to give everything away. So the Communists nationalized our circus. They took everything: caravans, animals and even the tent. Then, they sent somebody from the ministry who lead the whole circus. Did the nationalization limit you in any way? No, we didn’t have anything to do with it. We got a permanent job so we were paid during summer and winter alike. It didn’t affect the acrobats, but only the directors. All of them fled in different directions. One uncle was doing a supervisor in the stables and the two others left circus for all. Those three were the directors of the Henry Circus. When it was nationalized, it still worked under the name Henry. But because the Communists didn’t want it to be named after some private person, they changed its name to Humberto. There was a whole wave of changing names of circuses. All of them had to go through it.
From your perspective as an acrobat, was there any difference between the Western and Eastern bloc during your travels? There was. When we traveled around the Eastern states, we couldn’t get anything as it was the same as in Czechoslovakia. But in the West, there was a totally different world for us. If you had the money, you could buy everything. Later on, when I was going there more often, I wasn’t so shocked anymore but for the first two years, it was a different world. All acrobats are one big family. Only the language differs. No matter whether it was a Frenchman, an Italian, a Bulgarian, a Czech, or a German, they all had one kind of thinking: we are acrobats and we work for circus. That’s it. As Czechs, we didn’t avoid others. Rather, they respected us because they knew we were a small nation but we had great acrobats known throughout the world. For our size, we had a pretty big name.
How did you go to school since you travelled all the time? It was really hard as we had to stay everywhere for two or three days only and the learning materials were different in every school. Most of the time, the kids were ahead of us. When we arrived in somewhere, our dad or mum brought us to school. Usually there was around five or six acrobats’ kids. Every one of us had a big book of records where it was noted where we went to. For example, there was written that Robert Štipka visited a school there and there from this to that date and that he left after three days. Then they noted what grades we got and how the teachers were satisfied with us. In the end, they deregistered us and we moved on. We visited two or three schools a week. We attended school until the fifth grade as we couldn’t visit high school. Although there were acrobats, that made it, I didn’t. I made it up to the fifth grade and in order to have something extra, I repeated it twice. So I had it like my sixth and seventh grade. And at the end of the year, we got our certificate in the school that we were actually in at that time. The teachers examined us and gave us the certificate. And in the very end of our studies, we got the final certificate. We were about fourteen at the time.
Robert Štipka was born in circus and stayed within its arms for his whole life. He comes from allegedly the oldest provable acrobatic family in the Czech Republic as his ancestor, Ignác Štipka, made his living by doing this art already in the first half of the nineteenth century. Robert Štipka began his training being four years old and had his first performance at the age of five in the Varieté in Karlín. There was no one to follow with the circus tradition in his family and so since his beginnings, Robert Štipka was employed by other circus companies. For most of his childhood and youth, he travelled along with his parents and sister with the circus Henry, owned by three uncles of his future wife, brothers Fialas.Given the fact that they had a show in a different town every two or three days, he frequented quite a lot of schools as well. He brought a big book to the schools so that the teachers in every town and village wrote down how he behaved, what grades he got, what subject matter they learned and when he arrived and left. At the end of the school year, he was given a certificate at the place where the circus was staying at the moment. On his first trip abroad, he went to Germany during the war when their circus was sent there. Despite the worsening economic situation, the circus tents were always full in the Protectorate as well as in the Third Reich. Mr. Štipka explains this fact by three factors: first, there was not much of other entertainment. Second, other culture such as cinema or theater was censored. And finally, there were not many other opportunities to spend money since food was only available in exchange for the food tickets. In 1948, they went to Hungary for their first post-war trip abroad. When they learned about the strengthening of the Communist power in Czechoslovakia, they thought about leaving to Italy. After all, the uncles Fialas decided to return to Czechoslovakia, mainly because of potential problems related to the illegal emigration. Immediately upon their return, they lost everything. The animals, caravans and even tents were nationalized. Only one of the brothers Fialas stayed at circus, but on an inferior position as a supervisor in the stables. Other circus families had the same fate. From then on, all their journeys were planned by the national enterprise Czechoslovakian circuses, varieties and amusement parks. Because the Communists didn‘t want the circuses to be called after their founders any more, they changed names of all of them. Thus circus Henry became circus Humberto in 1951 which is now a legendary company. The Communist officials decided about who will go where. Fortunately, they didn‘t separate married couples, so Mr. Štipka always traveled with his wife. They visited the whole Eastern bloc and many Western countries as well.Raising up his children in the circus caravans, he brought them to the acrobat career as well. The whole family, including two grandsons, now continues in his steps.
