“I was quite open also during the Stalinist Gottwald´s, and Husák´s regime even at the Television. Unfortunately, at the Television (I am saying unfortunately, although I could say fortunately) they perceived me as: 'Oh, Ernest has always said that!' I came to the Television and said: 'Excuse me, but Bacílek is…' I don´t want to repeat that. Bacílek was back then something like KGB and ŠtB in one, really a great force. When I was walking down the Television halls, I didn´t mind saying: 'Only a real bastard can do what Bacílek did yesterday!' And nothing happened to me. So then I dared even more. Maybe that´s why this openness dwelled in me.”
“As an external employee I began working at a Radio. Back then people would take common voice exams and those who succeeded, what was a great number of students, would be hired in the live broadcasting. For example the radio news was broadcasted live. Let´s say they needed ten entries, so they called ten of us they had chosen and they handed us a paper to prepare the reading. The first one was a bit disadvantaged as he had to be ready in half an hour, but for example you would have time, because you knew you would take turn as the sixth of seventh. So we switched by the microphone, the broadcaster announced the entry, you read what you got and went home. You got let´s say sixty or hundred crowns, I don´t remember how much they paid exactly, but it was awesome. It was great, because almost everything was being broadcasted live. We didn´t record anything. We also later worked this way at the Television. I have only very few records of my first big programs as everything was broadcasted live. Those were sometimes big things, even two hours long. For instance, I directed the Knieža Rastic work (Duke Rastic). It was a huge thing, in a scenic as well as acting sense. Two and a half hours. Live. Július Pántik acted the duke Rastic. Wonderful, but live. Mária Kráľovičová used to work with me a lot and it all went live. So it wasn´t easy at all.”
“The main benefits of that broadcasting were inspiring contributions and comments, such a mapped life in the United States. We had a great response. Many letters used to come from abroad, from Slovakia, but via foreign countries as people were afraid to send them during the communist regime. We had positive as well as negative acceptance. Some people even told us off to be in service of imperialism. I don´t know whether we were in the service of imperialism, when having such a freedom of choice. Erik Stražan during the revolutionary events of 1989 played a joke that he found somebody in Slovakia and asked him: 'Please, put your phone in the window so that we hear what´s happening on the street.' And the man, really being at the square, put his phone in the window. 'And please, turn up the volume,' he said. They turned it up so much that we were able to record it. We recorded the atmosphere, voices, chanting, speeches… It was fantastic. We recorded it and broadcasted in the evening.”
Ernest Stredňanský was born on April 4, 1930 in Čadca. During his childhood he was an amateur actor, later he studied acting on the State Conservatory in Bratislava. After the graduation he worked in Žilina Regional Theatre for a year and then he was drafted into the army for two years. After completing the compulsory military service, Ernest along with his wife and daughter moved to Nitra, where his parents lived at that time. He applied for work at the Nitra Regional Theatre. Since 1948 he externally cooperated with the Czechoslovak Radio. In years 1955 - 1968 he worked in the Czechoslovak Television as a scriptwriter, director and the main director of an artist‘s program; he even helped to found the Bratislava Studio. Few days after the invasion of Soviet troops in August 1968 he emigrated through Austria to Munich, where he got employed in the Radio Free Europe (as a director he was in charge of the cultural redaction). Approximately five years later he left from Munich to America, where he became a teacher of the Slovak language for eight months. He taught diplomats at a language school in Washington. Subsequently he worked night shifts as a shop assistant of a trade network Seven-Eleven in Fairfax. He managed to get a job in American television KNTV in San José, where he was during his activity awarded by Emmy Awards. After ten years he left back to Washington, to the Voice of America, and stayed there until his retirement in 1999. He came back to Slovakia in 2005. His son and daughter from the second marriage that emigrated with him in 1968 stayed in the United States up to present. He died in march 2017.
