In the footsteps of Quido Mario Vyskocil

1.PLZENSKÁ STREET

Quido Maria Vyskočil was born in a small house at the bottom of Plzeňská Street. The old building was demolished in 1961.

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Plzeňská Street looked very different at that time. František Vyskočil, a high school history professor, and his wife Maria moved into the one-storey house on the left behind the intersection with the current Dvořák Embankment. He had just been transferred from Litoměřice to Příbram. Less than a week later, on 18 October 1881, their son Antonín Ludvík was born in this house.

When Antonín graduated from the municipal school, he passed the entrance exams to the real and higher grammar school. The young Vyskočil was then fascinated by the clash of two worlds in Příbram, which led him to the desire to become a priest. This dream abandoned him before he graduated from high school, unlike his literary aspirations and his first literary attempts.

"The colourful, mysticism-infused life of the Holy Mountain and the dark, dangerous and superstition-laden atmosphere of the shafts of the mountain - this crossing of light with darkness, cloud with substance, dream with reality... had a considerable influence on the shape of my character," he later wrote in his novel The Silver City.

2. HOLY MOUNTAIN

In high school, he dreamed of becoming a priest. He was influenced by the festivities on the Holy Mountain and Julius Zeyer's books.

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After graduating from high school, he began to study law at Charles University, but the following year he returned to his native Příbram to enrol in the local mining academy. He was much more attracted by the environment of literary salons. Thanks to his studies at the academy, however, he met, for example, the poet František Gellner or Karel Toman.

However, it was his meeting with Jaroslav Vrchlický in Příbram, at whose instigation he enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prague, that was crucial for him. He completed his studies in modern philology with a doctorate.

He became a high school teacher of Czech and worked as a clerk during the First World War. He also took part in the resistance and helped organise protests. After the war he was a librarian and ended his career as head of the library department of the Ministry of Commerce.

3. BIRCH MOUNTAINS

He was inspired by the fascinating world of ghostly miners, the dark underground and fairy-tale gnomes.

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He published his literary works under the pen name Quido Maria, and was one of the first to explore the mining environment and mining themes in them - he is said to have often gone to the pubs of Příbram among the old miners to record their stories. Among the most famous works with this theme are, for example, the aforementioned The Silver City or The Shaft.

Vyskočil was the author of many novels, short stories, plays and fairy tales, one of his works became the subject of a film and he himself wrote the screenplay for two films. He also published several books a year. "Wherever he goes, he always thinks that his works are the ornament of Czech literature," Jaroslav Hašek wrote about him in his satirical book The History of the Moderate Progress Party within the Limits of the Law.

He was involved in many associations, including in Příbram. He was made an honorary citizen of the town, and a part of Zahradnická Street was named after him. Gradually, health problems began to plague him, atherosclerosis of the lower limbs and inflammation of the vertebrae of the spine kept him bedridden for a long time. He died on 14 August 1969, his tombstone is located in the set of memories in Na Hvězdičce.

4. HŘBITOV

Quido Maria Vyskočil died on 14 August 1969, his tombstone is located in the set of memories at Hvězdička in Příbram.

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Václav Bešt'ák with contributions from Josef Fryš
photo: Karolina Ketmanová