Crow's Rock

This book by Blahoslav Havránek captures the authentic memories of a native of Svatá and a lover of the Křivoklát region. Through the eyes of his childhood, he reveals the events in the Beroun region from 1939, through the war, with an emphasis on the turbulent events of the final years of the Second World War, up to the few free post-war years.

This is not an academic historical publication, but a memoir, in which events are described as seen through a child's eyes. This makes the overall text all the more compelling, as these are undistorted and authentic memories.

The publication does not attempt to evaluate the events – however turbulent and conflicting – politically or to take a firm stance on them.

An important part of the book's content and aesthetics are period photographs from the author's archive, as well as drawings and illustrations by the artist Jiří Vydra, who has been the author's friend since childhood and who also lives in this region. This collaboration between the author of the text and the author of the illustrations completes a symbolic arc of events and destinies: as boys, the two authors promised each other that they would “one day put a book together”, and after many decades, this boyhood promise is fulfilled.

The book is published by the Beroun publishing house Machart (format: 190×190mm, length: 128 internal pages, recommended retail price: 199 CZK incl. VAT).

Blahoslav Havránek

Born in 1933 into a tailor's family as the second son. He grew up in a small family house in the village of Svatá, on the very edge of the Křivoklát forests, close to the nature he loves. The year 1939 was a very important milestone in his life – he started attending primary school in Svatá and began learning to play the violin – but the Second World War also entered his childhood.

He attended secondary school in Králův Dvůr – Počaply, walking six days a week, in all weathers. In 1948, he enrolled at the Business Academy in Beroun, where he passed his school-leaving examination. He was then assigned to the national enterprise Hrudkovny, followed by military service. After his return, he joined the Králův Dvůr Ironworks, where he worked his way up from a warehouseman to a foreman, and after graduating from the Kladno metallurgical technical school, he managed the pressure die-casting foundry. After 1968, he worked for a building cooperative, later returning to his profession at the Iron and Steel Research Institute in Karlštejn. In 1990, he was elected to the municipal council of Hudlice. He was given the task of managing the municipality, a job he held for a full twelve years. He is now retired and lives with his wife in Hudlice.

Jiří Vydra

Painter, sculptor and photographer Jiří Vydra (born 18 October 1938) lives and works in the village of Svatá in the Beroun region. The cornerstone of his work is the landscape in which he lives – with its changing colours and the human destinies that project their indelible mark onto its face.