Interview with the author of the book

Markéta Dočekalová has been writing since childhood. As a little girl, she regularly published in children's and youth magazines, won literary competitions, collaborated with the radio program Domino, which at that time took children's journalists under its wing, and already then she had a clear plan in her head that she would one day devote herself to writing full-time. She mainly wanted to write TV series, books seemed to her to be not adrenaline-pumping enough. However, it was with books that she settled in 2011 and she is still there...

Why did you eventually settle on writing books, when your dream since childhood was to write TV series?
My dream has not changed. Writing series is still my passion, and the opportunity to be at the birth of the TV series "Ulice" and to participate in its first 700 episodes was a dream come true for me. Then I was lucky enough to work on a few other series projects. It's just that my idea of working on a series is a bit different from what is usually done today for economic reasons. Money plays a much bigger role in TV production than in writing books. People think that screenwriters can't come up with a good story. But that's not true at all. We have talented screenwriters in the Czech Republic, but writing on commission means fulfilling a brief. The one who pays, decides. A screenwriter can't even write actors into the series as they please. Some actors are financially more advantageous for television than others. Characters can't be sent wherever they want, because the idea of the crew going to shoot on the other side of the country, for example, can be tempting, but it may not fit into the budget. Ideas and imagination are important, but a screenwriter must be able to combine them with fulfilling a relatively precise brief. When I write a book, I have the fate of the characters and the whole story in my own hands. If I decide to let a character die or be born, it's up to me. I can have as many animals and children in the story as I want (shooting with children and animals is very demanding, so many productions avoid it, editorial note), the story can take place anywhere, even on another planet or in another world, as an author I am simply a god for my book world, I am the creator and no one tells me how to do my job. In return, I go out on a limb for myself, which may not be easy for every author. Mistakes are more visible, because the author can't make excuses. There are no circumstances that could prevent me from writing something the way I want to write it and the way I believe in it. That was my main reason for going to write books. I needed to take a break from the pressure of money that exists in television production.

You worked on your last TV project in 2010. That's quite a long TV break, isn't it?
You know how it goes, man proposes... life changes. I enjoyed working on books, other projects came along, like a literary agency, a publishing house, but also my teaching, which I really enjoy. But if there was an offer for me to participate, for example, in the filming of my book about František Škroup, I would jump for joy. I would be happy to collaborate on the screenplay and dramaturgy.

Just collaboration?
So far, such an offer has not come, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. I have a lot of different work commitments, that's probably the most accurate answer I can give at this point. If the offer came, I would start to deal with it then. But my interest would be great.

That brings us nicely to František Škroup and your book about him. Why Škroup? How did you come up with the idea?
When my novel "Rychle a bezbolestně" was published in 2012, which is a genre of magical realism that I love very much, I said many things in that book that burdened me and annoyed me about the contemporary world. Suddenly it seemed to me that I had nothing more to say. An author should only write when he feels he has something to say. If an author wants to make a living from writing books today, he needs to publish one, preferably two books a year. I didn't leave the series to start a new factory and start churning out one book a year. I love writing and I want to be free in it. I'd rather go to work and write in my free time, but I'll be able to write books at the pace I want to write them, not at the pace I have to write them to make a living. So I told myself that I would simply wait for the topic to come to me. Over the years, I started writing about three things, but I stopped very soon, it wasn't it. After six years, in 2018, I decided to start looking for the topic actively myself. I already felt that I was missing writing a fiction book and there was a growing pressure of desire in me. I felt rested from writing fiction and I already missed it a lot. However, I didn't want to come up with another amazing story, of which there are hundreds, maybe thousands, on the shelves of bookstores. I could do it, it's not a problem to come up with a good story, but does it still make sense with the huge overproduction of Czech and foreign books in the field of literary fiction? I was looking for something deeper, something in which I would see the meaning. Well, I remembered a promise I once made. Readers can read about it in my book about František Škroup. It is related to my stay in the Netherlands during my studies, which is more than 30 years ago. I knew that František Škroup worked there and that he also died there. In fact, it all happened in the same city where I lived at the time, in Rotterdam. Then, by pure chance, I found out that the anniversary of the first public performance of the song "Kde domov můj" was approaching, that the Year of Czech Music was approaching, that there would also be an anniversary of the first Czech opera that Škroup wrote, and even then the 160th anniversary of his death was on the horizon. Well, I didn't make it in time for the death, that was in 2022, the pandemic prevented me from doing so. But even so, there are still enough anniversaries, and moreover, František Škroup deserves our attention even without those anniversaries.

So were the approaching anniversaries what motivated you to start working on Škroup's life?
The anniversaries only motivated me to take a closer and deeper interest in the topic. First, I found all the books and biographies that had ever been published about him here. Because if I found out that everything had already been written about him, there would be no point in writing another book about him. But I was surprised that for someone who is the author of the Czech national anthem and also the first Czech opera, there was really very little published about him. There is only one proper biography, by Josef Plavec in 1941. Then there are rather smaller books intended for children and young people. And wherever I looked, his stay in Rotterdam was summarized in two sentences. Mostly I read that in 1860 he accepted a job offer from Rotterdam, where he went and died in February 1862. That was it for me. He lived in the same city as me. He moved in the same places. What was his Rotterdam story? What did he experience there? I suddenly wanted to uncover the whole story and map it out in detail. So I got down to it and I believe I mapped it out honestly.

How long did you work on the book?
Almost three years. The work was greatly complicated by the pandemic, if it hadn't come, I would have been finished a year and a half earlier. I had planned my study stay in the Netherlands for the summer of 2021, but the Covid-19 pandemic was far from over by then and the Dutch still had their archives closed to the public in the summer of 2021. So I had to postpone the trip to the summer of 2022. I went there to sit in the archives, because not everything could be solved remotely via digitized sources.

But why is the book not being published until 2024?
Of course, it took some time to find a publisher who would be willing to publish the book, and once we agreed, the idea prevailed that it would be a good idea to wait with the publication for the Year of Czech Music and the anniversary of the song "Kde domov můj". So that it wouldn't just fizzle out and people would notice it. Today, the hardest thing is to let readers know about the book.

On the website of this book project, you write that you received a creative grant from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic to write the book. What role did this play in your work?
Writing this book was not exactly cheap. When you follow the footsteps of history, research sources and try to stick to the facts, it is a completely different job than when you fabricate a story. I obtained many facts and information on Czech territory. However, I was also interested in František's stay in Rotterdam, so I had to go there and research directly in the place where he lived. This involved travel and accommodation costs, which were not exactly small, even though I tried to live modestly in Rotterdam. The creative grant covered my airfare and part of my accommodation costs. Every crown was a help to me, so I am grateful for this help.

You say that you had to stick to the facts. Doesn't that go against what you said is the best thing about writing books? That you can decide who is born, who dies, where the story takes place and so on? You couldn't really do that here, could you?
You got me there. The absolute freedom of the author is really what makes writing books so great. I didn't have that here, because I was mapping out a story that really happened once and somehow already took place. If I didn't want to fabricate another supposedly perfect and original story, I didn't have many other options. This was one of them, and I have to say that I enjoyed this work even more than just standard literary fiction.

So you went to Rotterdam, which you probably know well, because if I have the right information, you once wrote a guide to the Netherlands. How many years after Škroup did you actually get there?
162 years later.

I can't imagine it at all. You arrived there and what happened next?
Well... I had planned my stay in great detail in advance. I knew it wouldn't be cheap, because I would be living and paying in euros in Rotterdam, which is not what I earn in. I couldn't afford the luxury of waiting until I got there to start planning my next steps. At the time, I had already done a lot of preliminary work on the book, I knew what I needed to verify, what I needed to find, what I was completely missing, where there were completely blank spots on my map, and so on. I had made appointments with the archive in advance for specific days and times, you can't just show up there. They have to prepare things for you. I had been communicating very intensively by email with the staff of the Rotterdam City Archives for months before my arrival, and we had sorted out a lot of things remotely. I consulted with them on a lot of things. If something got stuck, it immediately went on the list of things I knew I would have to deal with in Rotterdam. They were incredibly helpful and accommodating, I am really grateful to them. I also communicated by email with a number of other experts. These were mainly people from Dutch universities who specialized in what everyday life was like in the 19th century in the Netherlands. Some of the sources I obtained from them I still needed to verify from other sources, or they were incomplete and I needed to supplement them with specific needs that I had for writing the book. This had to be done in person and on site. I also needed to visit museums, talk to experts there in person, and also see some of the exhibits with my own eyes. Not everything can be written down in an email.

Can you explain that to me? What, for example?
Well, for example, it was very important to me to know what Dutch education was like between 1860 and 1862. František had minor children and from the very beginning of his stay he tried to get his wife and children to come and join him so that they could all live together as a family in Rotterdam. It is clear from many surviving sources that František was very eager for this and hoped that his family would soon join him. However, what is not recorded is what was going through his mind when he was trying to get his family to come. What was he going through and what was worrying him? Was the decision to move his family and children to Rotterdam an easy one for him? The decision may have been easy, because he missed them terribly, but how easy would life have been for the children in Rotterdam? What would their move involve? What would František have to prepare and arrange for them? I needed to empathize with František in order to get all of this right. In our country, compulsory schooling had already been in place for a long time (since 1774, editorial note), but in the Netherlands it was not introduced until 1900! František's children spoke German just as well as Czech, not only because their mother was German, but also because German was the language of instruction in schools in our country at that time. It is also clear from many surviving sources that František was extremely concerned about the education of all his children. He wanted them to speak several languages, play musical instruments, and so on. He was attentive to the education of not only his sons but also his daughters, which was far from a given at that time. Such a man would certainly have addressed the question of his children's further education. Incidentally, for example, there is information that he had already arranged for a private piano teacher for his daughters in the orchestra he conducted. I had to go to the National Museum of Education in Dordrecht, which is a short distance from Rotterdam. There I was able to not only look at many exhibits and actually transport myself back in time and find out what schools were like in the Netherlands at that time, but I was also able to talk to an expert about everything, which was important for me. There's nothing like being able to let someone tell you a story and just listen quietly. That can't be compared to email communication.

How did you communicate? In English? And in what language did you study the sources from the archives? The costs for translations must have been quite high, right?
In Holland I communicated in Dutch, because since my student days there (in the 1990s, editorial note), I still speak and understand Dutch. I won't deny that it took me some time to get used to 19th century Dutch. That wasn't exactly easy, but after a few months it didn't even occur to me anymore. Knowing the language saved me a lot of money, that's for sure. Nevertheless, I did pay some money for translations, because some of the texts were in German and I never learned German.

How much did you have to fabricate when you were writing the story in its final form?
Very little, mostly insignificant details. I tried to stick to the facts as much as possible and rely on the facts I found. There was only one really big question that I wasn't able to solve, so I decided to admit it in the book and not make anything up.

Will you tell me what it is?
It concerns František's last Christmas in 1861. He then died on February 7, 1862, so it was relatively shortly before his death. He thought that by that time he would already have his family with him in Rotterdam. He longed to spend Christmas with his wife and children.
The question is whether or not he came to Prague for Christmas to be with his family. The second option is that he would not go to Prague, but that his wife and children would already be waiting in Cologne, Germany. The third option is that he stayed in Rotterdam. There are several different things that speak for each of these options.

Why is this important?
Because it happened shortly before his death, and if he had actually gone to Prague, it could even have been one of the causes of his death. František had been suffering from pleurisy since May 1861. When he came to Prague to be with his family after the end of the first season, he practically moaned all summer. His condition was quite serious and when he returned to Rotterdam for the second opera season, he was far from being well. He didn't have time to finish his treatment and then in Rotterdam he didn't have time for it anymore. He was very busy with work. The trains were unheated at that time, and it was cold in them in the winter months. If he had taken the difficult journey to Prague, he could have caught a cold, which would then explain why his health started to deteriorate so rapidly from January onwards.

How did you find out about this?
The first thing I did was to look up all the opera performances he conducted between December 20th and the end of the year. Then I looked into whether someone could have replaced him if he had wanted to arrange to go home. When it turned out that it would theoretically be possible, and that it would only be a quick trip, the question was whether he would actually go home for a quick visit. Would he undertake a several-day journey just to spend a day or two with his family? I know he would. He missed them so much! I know this from his surviving letters and from various other sources. He would have done anything to see his family again. He would have gone home even for a quick visit.
So the next question was whether it was even possible. Were there connections that would allow him to get there as quickly as possible and then return to Rotterdam in time? To find out, I had to request the train timetables of that time in Germany. I was quite surprised at how complicated the request was. I never would have thought that I would have to explain in such detail why I needed these 19th century train timetables. But in the end I did receive copies of them. They show that it would have been possible. It would have been a quick trip, but it would have been possible. In addition, I found an article in the Czech press from that time stating that František was at home with his family for Christmas 1861. However, I also found an article in the Dutch press stating that he already had his wife and children in Germany at that time and was taking care of them from Holland. When you think about it, moving the family to Germany instead of Rotterdam, which was quite difficult for many reasons, would make sense. If his wife and children lived in Cologne, František would only be 300 kilometers away by train. They could see each other several times a month. In addition, the family had friends in Cologne, Mrs. Škroupová would not be alone there, and the children could attend German schools and continue their education. It would be quite a good solution to the whole situation. However, there is no evidence for this other than the single newspaper article, and it may not be true. Even journalists make mistakes. I simply couldn't confirm or deny it from any other source. There is indirect evidence to the contrary, such as the fact that if the family lived in Cologne and the children went to school there, it would probably be possible to find some traces in the Cologne archives. However, the largest archive that kept these documents burned down some time ago. I looked for traces here in the Czech Republic, because the family's move from Prague would certainly not have gone unnoticed. But I couldn't find any evidence here either. A surviving letter from December 15, 1861, which František wrote to his wife, also argues against František going home. In it, he worries that he will not be able to send the children Christmas presents. Why would he write that to her on December 15th if he was planning to go home for Christmas? But what if he was overcome by longing and decided impulsively? When I put all the direct and indirect evidence, all the pros and cons, side by side, it still comes out that nothing is certain and everyone can choose to believe what they want. So I presented the evidence I found to the readers and admitted that I don't know. I don't know if he went home for Christmas, got even sicker from the journey than he already was, and then died in early February, or if his health deteriorated so much because he couldn't go home for Christmas. That is also possible. I could have leaned towards one of these options and closed the story based on what I believe most. But I didn't do that. If there is any value in my book, it is precisely that I followed the facts and tried to stick to them as much as possible. That I tried to reconstruct the story and fabricate only minimally.

What do you believe? Did he go home for Christmas or not?
The answer to that question is in the book, so if you'll excuse me, I'll keep it to myself. The readers will find the answer in the book.

Did you encounter any other major problems?
I wouldn't call it a major problem, but during all my research I uncovered the story of his grave. It took me a while to understand it all, because the grave was overgrown with grass and no one knew where it was on the cemetery. František was buried in a mass grave in the Catholic section of the cemetery in the Crosswijk district of Rotterdam. It was a mass grave for poor artists associated with the Rotterdam theater. There was no monument or tombstone with inscriptions. Just ordinary tiles on the ground, nothing more. No wonder the grave eventually became overgrown with grass. I won't go into detail about the story here, but I will add that the grave was eventually identified in 1921.
In 1935, however, no one knew where the grave was again. At that time, a group of Czechs came to the cemetery and asked the cemetery manager, Mr. Bleecke, where Škroup was buried. They claimed that they had heard that he had a grave there. However, the manager was unable to find the grave, he had never heard of such a thing and was very sorry. He decided to find the grave and searched for it for several years, until he finally found it. He then took care of it voluntarily and free of charge for many years and reportedly became a great expert on Škroup's life. However, when he retired in 1953, the grave was forgotten again and no one took care of it for a long time. It disappeared from sight again, swallowed up by nature. It was not until 1961 that the grave was restored and a monument with the name "Česká hudba" was installed, which is still there today. This was already easier at that time, because there were written records of the location of the grave, all that had to be done was to remove the grass and vegetation. This story is described in detail in the book.

Isn't it strange that no one knew where the mass grave was located? Wasn't anyone there at the funeral?
Yes, there was, it was a big funeral. The entire funeral procession went through the city, people in Rotterdam loved František and he had a great reputation there. His son Alfred was also personally present at the funeral. He lived until 1914, so it shouldn't have been a problem to ask him where his father's grave was. However, the truth is that it was raining heavily on the day of the funeral and Alfred was so emotionally distraught that he was unable to say a word at the funeral. His father's death had completely devastated him. So it wouldn't be at all strange if he didn't remember where the grave was located on the cemetery. He was there for the first time in his life.

How do you know it was raining on the day of the funeral?
I checked the weather quite often, the Dutch fortunately have those records. I also checked when there was a full moon and when there was a new moon.

Why the full moon and the new moon?
Because there are moments in the book when I describe, for example, František lying in bed before falling asleep and looking at the moon. As an author, I would have liked to be able to write that it was a full moon, or that the moon was already just a small crescent. It happened on a specific day and I wanted to be sure that it wasn't nonsense and that the full moon or new moon was actually there.

These are such small details and I probably wouldn't have thought that you would have dealt with them. Can you give some other examples of what you researched from these small details?
It may not seem like it, but it's often these little things that take up a lot of time. For example, when did the umbrella come into existence and how did it spread across Europe? The Netherlands is still known for the fact that the locals don't use umbrellas. It's very windy there and any umbrella will break after a while. You can usually recognize a tourist by the fact that they use an umbrella for a while in the rain before they lose it. The Dutch have simply always preferred waterproof jackets, coats and raincoats. However, by saying "always" I am actually only talking about modern history, about what I know myself or have read and know has been happening for the last fifty years or so. If I exaggerate, then eighty-five years. But was it the same in 1860? František suffered greatly from the Dutch weather (frequent rain and wind, editorial note) and the constant presence of humidity in Rotterdam at that time. Rain was definitely a topic for him to deal with, and so he would certainly have dealt with protection from it. I had to find out how it was with umbrellas, raincoats and similar amenities at that time.

And how were they?
I can't reveal everything, that wouldn't be very tactical. Read the book, you'll find it there.

I understand, it took you a lot of work, you can't reveal everything. Besides the weather, full moons, new moons, umbrellas, do you remember anything else?
Take these as just examples, because there was really a lot of it. For example, you are writing about how František arrived in Rotterdam, had a little time to settle in, rest, and then immediately went to a meeting with his superior, the chairman of the theater cooperative Van Baalen. He must have offered him something, probably a drink. I knew exactly what František had to eat after he settled in...

Wait a minute, you knew what he had for lunch?
Yes, because František described everything in great detail in his letters to his wife Karolina. This particular letter, where he describes his arrival, how he settled in and what he ate, has survived. If any facts have been preserved, I have stuck to them. So František ate a soup that resembled vegetable broth. For the main course he had a piece of beef, veal ribs and beans with some kind of casserole as a side dish. The staff recommended red wine to him, so he ordered a small bottle. However, he later found out that it was quite expensive and that he would not be able to afford to drink wine regularly on his income. So he was considering drinking Dutch beer instead.

It's an incredible idea to me that someone could know what I had for lunch over 150 years ago. But let's go back to that visit to the chairman of the theater cooperative Van Baalen. You said he would probably consider what to offer František to drink. What then?
One thing is what he would probably offer him and the other is what František would feel like having. The Dutch were not and are not the English, who are known for their tea at five o'clock and their overall relationship with tea is simply not so sacred. Van Baalen would either offer him wine, which would be socially appropriate, or if František refused, he would certainly offer something that he was convinced was typically Dutch or popular on home soil. Cocoa came to mind, because it is inherently associated with the Netherlands. František would certainly not have another wine. He drank exceptionally and preferred beer to wine. So I had to find out how things were with cocoa in 1860. In Prague and Vienna, it was already being drunk regularly at that time, so it was nothing new for František. What was new was the fact that men also drank it in the Netherlands. In Prague and Vienna it was rather a drink for ladies and children and was very expensive, only the social elite could afford it. That's why it was also drunk from small cups in our country, it was an expensive rarity. In the Netherlands, however, cocoa was drunk from larger cups, often decorated or enhanced with cream or whipped cream. It was simply a much more affordable and very popular drink there. Well, as I said, you are writing and suddenly you stop for an hour or more to think about what they were probably drinking and whether you can write it like that.

How do you know Škroup preferred beer over wine?
He drank beer more often, he used to go to regular meetings with friends in the Prague pub U Primasů. If he had preferred wine, he would have met rather in a wine bar.

Wouldn't it be more appropriate for Van Baalen to offer František beer?
Of course, he could have offered Dutch beer and it is very likely that he would have done so. The Dutch have always been proud of their beer and are happy to let foreigners taste it. I could have chosen. That's the extent of the author's fabrication. As you can see, it is quite harmless. Cocoa seemed more interesting to me, so I chose it. And also because the Dutch still have drink called "Chocomel" as one of their most popular drinks and they drink it both chilled and warm with whipped cream.

Can you think of any other seemingly trivial thing that took you a lot of time?
There would be a lot of them! Okay, here's one more example. This was something I had to research in several countries at the same time, namely the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands. František wrote home often and regularly. I needed to know how much it cost to send such an ordinary letter from Prague to Rotterdam and from Rotterdam to Prague at that time, and also how long the letter traveled. Mail was very complicated at that time, I write about it in the book because it's interesting. When I had to get an idea of František's budget, I needed to know how much he was spending on postage, because he wrote letters to Prague very often. In the end, I obtained the information with the help of the Prague Postal Museum.

When did you start having to study Škroup's life? Did you start only when he left Prague for Rotterdam, or some time before that?
I started with his birth. You can't map someone's life at a certain stage and not know how he got there. My goal was to map his stay in Rotterdam, because that's the piece that was missing from the puzzle. But to do that, I needed to know František well. What happened before he left? What paths in life did he take that led him to such difficult times? I needed to understand all of that first, and only then could I start researching his Rotterdam life.

What kind of difficult times are you talking about?
That would be a long story, there were many such moments in his life. On the one hand, he experienced many times what we today call "his five minutes of fame". For a relatively long time he belonged to the high society, he was successful, he lived in large Prague apartments at prestigious addresses, which was really not common at that time, because the average size of a Prague apartment at that time was one room. He lived in six- and seven-rooms apartments. From this you can imagine that at certain times he was a really successful and well-positioned man. On the other hand, he experienced difficult times already with his first wife, when he was still a relatively young man. Their second-born daughter Johanka did not live to be even one year old. After her death, his wife started having health problems and was wasting away, disappearing before his eyes. Nobody knew what was wrong with her, but it was probably related to the death of her daughter on a psychological level. Less than three years after her death and after less than seven years of marriage, František became a widower. His first-born daughter Josefina was not even six years old yet. Later he experienced the loss of several more of his children, but he took the worst the death of his musically very talented son Oldřich (he had him from his second marriage, editorial note). He had great plans for him and believed that his son would surpass him in his career. Then he experienced a huge career slump. He was fired from the Stavovské Theatre, where he had worked for thirty years as a conductor. This dismissal was talked about by a large part of Europe at the time, because František was known throughout Europe as an excellent conductor and composer. Prague journalists literally hounded him. It was a deliberate attempt to destroy him both professionally and socially. It can basically be said that from the death of his son Oldřich he received one blow after another, he lost his social status, he lost his job, his income plummeted, he started having problems supporting his family, in short, bad times came upon him.

What did he do wrong that he was fired from the Stavovské Theatre?
I spent a lot of time trying to find out the clear reasons for this dismissal. In Czech sources, no one has ever really dared to name it. It was only in Dutch and German sources that I found mentions that it was a Czech political order at the time. In the eyes of the then National Revivalists, František was what we would probably call an old structure today.

That's not very nice to hear when it comes to the author of the music of our national anthem.
He's not the only one we haven't treated well in the past. Look at how many artists and scientists had to go into exile. Or they had to work abroad to even support their families. You don't have to go far from František, just look at the fate of his great admirer, Bedřich Smetana. The Czechs gave him a bombastic funeral, but how did they treat him? What did that man suffer? Czech envy can be very cruel and Smetana really "enjoyed" it at the end of his life.

What was the relationship between Smetana and Škroup?
Smetana was a generation younger, by a whole twenty-three years. That means a lot in music, he simply composed in a completely different way than the generation before him. However, he was very wise already at a young age and even though many people in the music industry considered Škroup to be a kind of second-rate composer at that time, Smetana looked up to him. He was well aware of what Škroup had done for Czech culture and music. He was a very frequent visitor to the performances that Škroup conducted as a conductor and he also went to listen to his original work. Smetana did not follow what was being said or written by Prague journalists, but he had his own head and his own opinion. This is very likeable and František appreciated it.

Were they friends?
I wouldn't say they were friends. But I think it was more than just collegiality. They had great respect for each other and Smetana, especially in his younger years, looked up to František as an older, experienced teacher. He also visited him personally in Rotterdam and spent several days with him. His visit was like a medicine for František, it gave him energy, he came alive completely. Readers can read about Smetana's visit to Rotterdam in quite some detail in the book.

Did you have to be interested in Smetana too?
I had to be interested in everything that had to do with František's life. Smetana could not be left out of it, because he was an important part of František's professional world. Among other things, I read through Smetana's private correspondence from the time he visited František in Rotterdam. From the surviving sources, I knew how František perceived his visit, but I also needed to know how Smetana perceived it. However, in his letters to his wife Bettina, he was not nearly as talkative as František was when he wrote home to his wife. Nevertheless, he mentioned his stay and I drew from it. Smetana had only one remark about František himself, he wrote to his wife that Škroup did not look well, he seemed tired and ill to him.

You said that you also communicated with experts on the 19th century from Dutch universities. What did you need from them?
It was with experts on the so-called everyday life, what it was like in the Netherlands when František was there. When you have to process the story, you have to be able to imagine a lot of things that we take for granted today, but I didn't have that idea from that time. For example, if someone tells you today that he earns 20,000 crowns net and lives in the capital, you have a perfectly clear idea of the standard of living of such a person. You can guess what he can afford. But when I tell you that František had a salary of 2,400 guilders (gold) per year at the German Rotterdam Opera and 90 guilders per year for travel expenses, you have absolutely no idea how much that was. Was it a lot or a little? How much did conductors earn at such a place at that time? What did daily necessities, food, accommodation and other things cost? From the surviving letters to his wife, I know approximately how much money he sent her, and therefore how much he had left. But in order to understand how well or badly he lived in Rotterdam, I needed to get information about the prices at that time. It was not easy at all, but there are really great people at Dutch universities, and in the end they found the information for me. Once you have a comparison, you know the local prices and salaries of other professions, it's a completely different story. You can imagine it and empathize with it. This was very important for processing the whole story.

Was František Škroup alone in Rotterdam the whole time?
As I said, he had planned and had been promised by the chairman of the theater cooperative Van Baalen that his wife and children would soon join him there. However, it kept being postponed. František had musicians and singers in the opera orchestra whom he knew personally, either from Prague or from elsewhere. There were also some Czechs there, because we had many musicians in orchestras all over the world. It is not for nothing that they started saying, "What a Czech, what a musician." After all, when you met a Czech somewhere in the world, he was often a musician and played an instrument in an orchestra or theater. So he was not completely surrounded by strangers, but he did not have his closest friends in Rotterdam. After a while, his colleagues from the opera, the Kainz couple, arranged a job for his son Alfred in Rotterdam. He spoke French and German very well and could start as a translator and interpreter in a trading office in the Rotterdam port. František reproached himself for depriving his wife of the only male force she had at home, but after some hesitation Alfred finally came to his father and stayed with him in Rotterdam until his death. He was also the only family member who was present at his death.

So his wish for his family to join him was never fulfilled.
Unfortunately. The saddest thing about it is that he died on February 7th and the family was supposed to arrive in March.

Did Škroup have any close friends in Rotterdam? Just a friend with whom he could go for a beer, chat, or maybe spend his free time with?
František had very little free time. Once you read in the book how many performances he had to rehearse and play with the orchestra and singers each month, you will understand. Or rather, your jaw will drop. However, he had a friend. He built a very close, friendly relationship with the director and singer Adolf Grimminger. He was a generation younger than František, in the so-called Christ's years. He had such a Renaissance personality, he wrote poetry, he was very artistically oriented, far beyond singing, even though he sang brilliantly. He was interested in the cultural and political world, he was a free thinker, he loved to travel, he loved freedom. He liked to enjoy life and was in no hurry to get married. In many ways, he was what František could not be, but he admired it immensely and loved to observe it. František was the responsible one, bound by morality and duty, conservative, he tried to be exemplary as much as he could. Adolf was his tempter and constantly tried to bring some joy into his life. František loved him and the relationship was mutual. That's why it was Adolf who, after František's death, took care of the benefit performance, he conceived it, wrote it, directed it and rehearsed it. Thanks to him, the surviving wife received some money. Adolf arranged the funeral and everything around it, Adolf organized a financial collection for the surviving children.

Why not the son?
As I mentioned, Alfred collapsed. He looked up to his father very much, and besides, he had been promised that he would soon be able to start playing the violin full-time in his father's orchestra at the opera. He didn't enjoy the office work. He was looking forward to working at the opera, like his father. His whole world came crashing down around him. Suddenly he was left alone in a foreign country. He was very young, just about to turn nineteen. He was in such a bad state mentally that he couldn't even speak at his father's funeral.

What happened next to young Alfred?
That's a different story. He became a famous conductor, like his father. He traveled a lot of the world and returned to Prague in his old age, where he died in 1914. He did not stay in the Netherlands, if that's what you're asking.

So will there be a second volume about Alfred Škroup? I haven't heard or read much about him yet.
You're not the first to ask. But I'm afraid it would be very difficult to follow in his footsteps precisely because he is not nearly as well-known as his father was. On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more I want to go for it. It is tempting to discover another interesting Czech personality about whom not much has been written yet. In addition, Alfi was simply likable to me, not only as a character, but also in the photo, as a grown man (you can find it here in the photo gallery.) So it remains to be seen.

I noticed that you like to say "František" and not Škroup. Did you find a deeper connection to the character of František Škroup?
Definitely. Figuratively speaking, I lived with him practically day after day for three years. I looked into his mind, into his life, into how he experienced things, what he wanted. He will always be František to me, to whom I look up with great respect and humility.

What did you like about him?
He was incredibly hardworking and didn't give up easily when something didn't go well. He was a good father and an exemplary husband. His family was very important to him. He wasn't a kiss-ass, or we can say that he didn't kiss people's asses. If he had, he could have lived to see the opening of the Prozatímní Theater and could have become the main conductor there, as he dreamed of. He lived in a time that was not easy, that would be a long story. He experienced various waves of the National Revival and everything was not as ideal then as it may seem from elementary school textbooks. Even then, there was protectionism, one hand washes the other, backscratching and other similar practices that we know well today. He didn't have it easy when his wife was a German, and besides, it was never important to him whether he worked for Czechs or Germans. But then he was accused of this and it largely destroyed his career and life. At the same time, some of the turncoats were doing quite well then. After all, nothing new, we know that well from our Velvet Revolution too. He must have been terribly disappointed, but he didn't give up. And even though they didn't treat him very nicely at home, he achieved really great success in Rotterdam. People there used to walk around the city with lanterns and shout his praises, can you imagine that? They celebrated him so much there!

What did you dislike about him?
(Thinks for a long time.) Well, actually the same thing, that he couldn't bring himself to kiss some ass occasionally. That he couldn't wave it off and couldn't make the best of the times. He didn't have to die so soon and could have done much more for Prague and the Czech nation. He simply could have done it for himself, his wife and children.

It wasn't long ago that there was talk that a small piece, I would say a certain motif of our anthem, which Škroup wrote, comes from Mozart's music. What do you think about it?
I listened to it, there is definitely a similarity. But I can't judge it. František greatly revered and admired Mozart, it wouldn't surprise me if an idea that bore some signs of Mozart's influence was born in his head. I know this from writing. Sometimes it is very difficult to resist imitation, because everyone carries many stories in own head. He certainly carried many melodies there. Sometimes a person imitates something or someone without even realizing it. I know that very well too. That's about all I can say about it. I don't know more than that.

Is there anything that surprised you while working on the book?
Definitely the amount of information that can still be found 160 years later, even though it was not possible to store data electronically at the time. For example, a medical report from the theater doctor about František's health condition. Who would have said that. I think that if the Rotterdam theater had not been destroyed during the Second World War, even more would have been preserved.

Thank you for the interview.

Written by Satr