In the story of Klára Hulíková Tesárková, family history intersects with the topic of the present research project. In the female line, Klára is the great-granddaughter of Božena Slavíková, who was the daughter of Antonín Slavík (1869–1948), a member of the Bohemian Diet in 1908–1913 and subsequently a member of the Czechoslovak Revolutionary Assembly (1918–1920) as well as a senator (1922–1925).
The family from which František Soukup descended had belonged to the elites for several generations. František‘s father, the court councillor František Soukup (1854–1919), in 1909, at the end of his judicial career, became president of the regional court in Písek. He thus continued the work of his father, Karel Soukup (1814–1893), also a councillor of the regional court in Písek. At the beginning of the 19th century, Karel Soukup‘s father worked as a pharmacist in Sedlčany. It is possible that Karel‘s decision to pursue a career in law may have been influenced by a somewhat dark family history. According to the death parish record, Jan Soukup (1742–1809), Karel‘s grandfather, a weaver by profession, died of poisoning in 1809. Apparently, it was Karel‘s grandmother Magdalena née Menšíková (* 1748), with whom Jan had been married for more than 36 years, who poisoned him. It is highly probable that she was eventually sentenced to death for this crime.
However, František Soukup Jr. (1887–1947) was not attracted by a career in law. After graduating from the grammar school in Písek, he decided to study philosophy and classical archaeology at the Philosophical Faculty of the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University, from which he graduated in 1911. At first, František Soukup worked as a clerk at the Municipality office, which promised a relatively stable income enabling him to start a family. And indeed, a few days after he was officially promoted to the Xth rank, for which the annual salary was 1100–1400 crowns, he married Božena Slavíková. Beside his uncle Adolf Soukup, the chief councillor of k.k. State Railways, the newlyweds had another important best man at their wedding – Gustav Pley (1878–1945), a café owner who in the 1930s became the owner of the Musical Theatre in Karlín (at that time a variety theatre) and later of the Hubertus Hotel in Jíloviště. The Soukups had two children – a son Zdeněk (1927–1978) and a daughter Milada (1923–2016), Klára‘s grandmother, who later married Antonín Dezort (1915–1976), the owner of a brickyard in Stodůlky in Prague.
However, František Soukup gave up his clerical career relatively soon, although he continued to be employed in an institution administered by the Prague City Hall. He moved to the municipal library, where he became a close associate of its second director, Jan Thon (1886–1976). In his new post, František Soukup took charge of the organisation and establishment of the library for the blind. He stayed in librarianship for good and later became chairman of the Association of Czech-Slovak librarians and published specialized works in this field. His wife Božena was a housewife and did not participate in public life. She and her husband were both very fond of music, and they were also known for organizing small private concerts whose sound was carried far from the windows of their Žižkov apartment. Their marriage was very harmonious and peaceful, providing a good family background for both of their children.
Božena‘s brother Jaroslav was of a more adventurous nature. He was married twice and after a career in Zemská banka he also worked for several years at the Czechoslovak embassy in Paris. His only son Miroslav (1933–2017) was later a prominent Czech orthopedist. The life of Zdeněk Soukup, son of Božena and František Soukup, was partly similar to that of his uncle. Zdeněk worked in the ČKD factory and was married no less than three times. However, he had no children from any of his marriages. Zdeněk died suddenly at the age of only 50, just ten days before the planned wedding of his niece Milada Dezortová (born 1944), at which he was supposed to replace her father Antonín Dezort, who had already been dead for two years.
Zdeněk‘s sister Milada Soukupová married Antonín Dezort when she was only 18 years old. To a large extent, it was due to WW II, as starting a family made it possible to avoid forced labour in the German Reich. Like her brother Zdeněk or uncle Jaroslav, with whom she had very close relations, Milada also was rather cheerful, active and full of energy. At an early age, she successfully managed to move from the urban environment to a farm in Stodůlky near Prague, where she became involved in public life, acting, among other things, in an amateur theatre. Throughout her life she liked to travel whenever possible, and after 1990, when circumstances made it possible, she literally travelled all over the world. Unlike female members of the previous generations in her family, besides working on the family farm she also had several civilian jobs, the longest of which was as a clerk in the State Fisheries in Prague.
Antonín Slavík in a photograph still available at the website of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic
Marie Slavíková née Bauerová and Antonín Slavík in family portraits
František Karel Soukup
Milada Dezortová, née Soukupová, Klára Hulíková Tesárková’s grandmother
Farm and brickyard in Stodůlky, in 1942, when Milada Soukupová and Antonín Dezort married
Baptism of Milada Tesárková née Dezortová (Klára Hulíková Tesárková’s mother), February 1944: in the picture František Karel Soukup and Božena Soukupová née Slavíková, Milada´s grandparents (private family archive)
Milada Tesárková, née Dezortová (Klára Hulíková Tesárková’s mother) with her great-grandfather, Antonín Slavík, Christmas 1944 (private family archive)
Family meeting – From left: Antonín Slavík, Antonín Dezort, František Karel Soukup, Jaroslav Slavík, František Dezort. Stodůlky, 1942 (private family archive)
