Mila Saskova-Pierce
<p>Mila Saskova-Pierce was born in Prague in 1948. Her mother, Miluše, was a high school literature teacher while her father, Vladimír, worked in a factory. She was raised in the Hloubětín district of the city along with her brother and her cousin, whom her parents adopted. After attending<em>gymnázium</em>, Mila applied to Charles University, but says that her application was rejected because she applied for a course of study that was no longer available. She worked for one year, first at the municipal incinerator and then for the national funeral home. Mila’s second application to Charles University to study medical biochemistry was accepted and she began her studies in 1967. It was at this time, according to Mila, that she really began questioning the system and interacting with dissidents. During the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, a photograph of Mila protesting on Wenceslas Square was published in several Western publications – an event which she says ended her anonymity and threatened her future. Within a few days of the invasion, Mila left Czechoslovakia for Vienna, but returned to Prague that October. When she realized that the situation was not going to get better, she left the country once more. After a short stay in Vienna, Mila moved to Belgium. There she studied Slavic and Russian languages and journalism for one year at the University of Liège before transferring to the Free University of Brussels. She graduated in 1975 and completed a one-year program in language philosophy at the University of Leuven.</p><p> </p><p>In 1976, Mila moved to the United States to begin a doctoral program in linguistics at the University of Kansas. She met her future husband, Layne Pierce, in the university library when they discovered both spoke Czech (he had studied the language in college). Mila and Layne married in 1977 and have two daughters. After finishing her PhD, Mila taught Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, for two years. Since 1989, Mila has been a professor of Czech and Russian at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Mila is active in Czech organizations around Lincoln, including the Czech Language Foundation which aims to advance the teaching and appreciation of the Czech language. She is also involved in the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), Lincoln Czechs and Czech-Nebraska. Mila believes that Czech-American culture is integral to the wider Czech culture and she hopes to ‘build a bridge’ between the two. Today Mila lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with her husband.</p>
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
NCSML Archive
Pierre Dobrovolny
<p>Pierre Dobrovolny was born in Brno, Moravia, in October 1933. His father Ferdinand was an artist who worked with, among others, the Czech archeologist Dr. Karel Absolon. Pierre’s mother Růžena was a seamstress. Growing up, Pierre wanted to become a radio mechanic but, he says, this profession was a predominantly feminine one at the time of his graduation, so he went to ČVUT (Czech Technical University in Prague) to study electrical engineering instead. He graduated from technical university in 1958 and says he was ‘lucky’ to do so, given his outspoken nature and his critical view of the Communist government at the time. That same year, Pierre married his partner <a title="Vera Dobrovolny" href="/web/20170609055449/http://www.ncsml.org/exhibits/vera-dobrovolny/">Vera</a>. His first job upon graduation was at the Research Institute for Electrotechnical Physics, where he worked on equipment to measure radiation.</p><p> </p><p>When the possibility of pursuing a doctorate on top of his work presented itself, Pierre applied to do so, but says the background checks that were run on him by the school resulted in him being kicked out of his job at the research institute as well. Pierre was conscripted and spent six months in the Czech Army; upon his return from military service, he was told he had been let go from the research institute and was being sent to TESLA Hloubětín instead. At TESLA, Pierre’s job was to work on transmitters to be sent to Russia, which he says was somewhat of a poisoned chalice, because he could be penalized if the project went wrong, but had little authority to make changes where they were necessary. The project to develop these transmitters, however, was a success, and resulted in Pierre traveling to Vilnius, Kutaisi and Moscow to show technicians there how to operate them. In 1965, after being repeatedly refused, Pierre was allowed to embark upon a second degree in mathematics and physics. He left Czechoslovakia, however, before he could complete his studies.</p><p> </p><p>Following the Warsaw Pact Invasion in 1968, Pierre was part of a group which set up an illegal transmitter and broadcast non-official news about the invasion, first in the TESLA building in Hloubětín, then in Zahradní Město and finally in the Novodvorská suburb of Prague. He left Czechoslovakia with his wife Vera and their two children the following year. Once in Vienna, the family applied for visas to the United States and registered with the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees. Their youngest daughter Lucie, however, fell suddenly very ill and so the family returned to Czechoslovakia to seek medical assistance. Several months later, on the anniversary of the Warsaw Pact Invasion, the Dobrovolnys again left Czechoslovakia. After four months in refugee camps in Traiskirchen and Bad Kreuzen, Austria, they arrived in Chicago, where Pierre found a job at radio and television manufacturer Zenith. He stayed there until LG bought the company in 1990 and continued thereafter to do some external consulting for the firm. Today, he lives with his wife Vera in Hawthorn Woods, Illinois.</p>
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
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