Osobní vzpomínání historičky umění na zapomenuté ženy
Personal Recollections of Forgotten Women from the Pen of an Art Historian

Summary/Abstract: The well-known art historian Milena Bartlová presents the fates of three women with whom she is connected by family ties and who are nowadays largely forgotten. All of them joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia due to their leftist beliefs and were later expelled from it. The author’s paternal grandmother, Vlasta Müllerová (1900–1983), from 1945 Mlynářová, worked in lower party positions after the war and later became director of a retirement home in Prague. Bartlová’s maternal grandmother, Hana Budínová (1903–1965), born in Ukraine as Chana Kojfman, was active in the Zionist movement, worked as a journalist in interwar Czechoslovakia and spent the war years in exile in the U.S. After her return to Czechoslovakia, she made a living mainly as a translator. Her husband was the journalist Bencion Bať, known under the pseudonym Stanislav Budín (1903–1979). The most famous is the author’s mother, economist and diplomat Rita Klímová (1931–1993). In her youth, Klímová was involved in youth and party functions. Later, in the 1960s, she worked as a lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prague. During the normalization period, she joined the dissent and made her living as a translator. She then served asambassador to the United States from 1990 until her death. Her first husband was the reformist communist politician and political scientist, dissident and exile Zdeněk Mlynář (1930–1997). In her book "Ženy, které nechtěly mlčet: Tři československé příběhy" [Women Who Would Not Be Silent: Three Czechoslovak Stories], the author finds reasons why these women are forgotten, mainly in the patriarchal structure and mentality of society, as well as in the lack of interest from contemporary historians in ex-communist personalities. The reviewer partly challenges these answers, reflecting critically but with empathy on the author’s complex position as a personally engaged biographer and appreciating her inspiring approach.

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