Jaroslav Erik Fric
Encyclopedia
Jaroslav Erik Frič is a Moravia
n poet
, musician
, publisher and organizer of underground culture
festival
s.
He studied the primary and secondary schools in Ostrava
; there he also spent a year learning English
, Russian
, French
and Italian
at a language school. In 1968, he travelled through the Western Europe
immediately after the exams, spending most of the time in England
and Scotland
. During this time, he earned money for example as a busker. He returned to occupied
Czechoslovakia
and studied English and philosophy
, at first in Olomouc
(Palacký University
), then in Brno
(Masaryk University
). He graduated in 1974. Not willing to collaborate with the communist regime in any way, he worked as a waiter until the 1989 revolution
.
In 1969, Frič started to publish in samizdat
, together with fellow poets Petr Mikeš and Eduard Zacha, in Ostrava and then in Olomouc. His edition, after a theologist and another poet Rostislav Valušek joined them, turned into a line of books called Texty přátel (Texts by Friends). In 1973 Frič, together with Jiří Frišauf and Jiří Kuběna, founded an "apartment scene" Šlépěj v okně and then, in Brno, and later also in Vranov nad Dyjí
and Podhradí, published samizdats for his closest friends; mainly the works of Josef Šafařík, Jiří Kuběna and also literature almanachs, usually in 5 - 10 copies.
In 1991 he founded a publishing house Votobia which, after several other people joined in, moved from Vranov to Olomouc. However, he left Votobia after two years and founded a publishing house named Vetus Via in Brno. Since 2000 he organises a Brno festival of poetry
Potulný dělník (The Wandering Worker). He also founded two non-governmental organizations: Proximus (2002; "to support people who belong to minorities
, mainly racial, ethnical and religious ones, and to support people handicapped socially or by health") which is connected to the depths of Czech traditions and culture
and which organises many festivals and other projects (such as Uši a vítr (Ears and Wind) which take place every Thursday and introduce poets and musicians; and Christiania (2006; "for support of culture
, national memory and minorities" ). He works as a chief editor
of BOX ("biannual revue for word-picture-sound-movement-life") and Uši a vítr (a monthly newspaper of Potulná Akademie (The Wandering Academy)). He also writes for Český rozhlas
which broadcast three screenplays written by him. Since 2006 he started to perform as a busker again. Recently he started to write a daily blog
. Jaroslav Erik Frič lives mainly in Brno.
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, publisher and organizer of underground culture
Underground art
Underground art, as with underground music and underground film, is a term that seeks to describe art forms that are aloof to the mainstream art world, are illegal, taboo, unconventional, rebellious or revolutionary...
festival
Festival
A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....
s.
He studied the primary and secondary schools in Ostrava
Ostrava
Ostrava is the third largest city in the Czech Republic and the second largest urban agglomeration after Prague. Located close to the Polish border, it is also the administrative center of the Moravian-Silesian Region and of the Municipality with Extended Competence. Ostrava was candidate for the...
; there he also spent a year learning English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
at a language school. In 1968, he travelled through the Western Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
immediately after the exams, spending most of the time in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. During this time, he earned money for example as a busker. He returned to occupied
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and studied English and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, at first in Olomouc
Olomouc
Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. The city is located on the Morava river and is the ecclesiastical metropolis and historical capital city of Moravia. Nowadays, it is an administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and sixth largest city in the Czech Republic...
(Palacký University
Palacký University, Olomouc
The Palacký University of Olomouc is the oldest university in Moravia and the second-oldest in the Czech Republic. It was established in 1573 as a public university led by the Jesuit order in Olomouc, which was at that time the capital of Moravia and the seat of the episcopacy...
), then in Brno
Brno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
(Masaryk University
Masaryk University
Masaryk University is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the third Czech university , it now consists of nine faculties and 42,182 students...
). He graduated in 1974. Not willing to collaborate with the communist regime in any way, he worked as a waiter until the 1989 revolution
Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
.
In 1969, Frič started to publish in samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
, together with fellow poets Petr Mikeš and Eduard Zacha, in Ostrava and then in Olomouc. His edition, after a theologist and another poet Rostislav Valušek joined them, turned into a line of books called Texty přátel (Texts by Friends). In 1973 Frič, together with Jiří Frišauf and Jiří Kuběna, founded an "apartment scene" Šlépěj v okně and then, in Brno, and later also in Vranov nad Dyjí
Vranov nad Dyjí
Vranov nad Dyjí is a market town in the Czech Republic with 888 inhabitants. It lies on the Dyje river in the South Moravia Region 3 km north of the Austrian border close to Hardegg and 22 km from the historical city of Znojmo.-History:...
and Podhradí, published samizdats for his closest friends; mainly the works of Josef Šafařík, Jiří Kuběna and also literature almanachs, usually in 5 - 10 copies.
In 1991 he founded a publishing house Votobia which, after several other people joined in, moved from Vranov to Olomouc. However, he left Votobia after two years and founded a publishing house named Vetus Via in Brno. Since 2000 he organises a Brno festival of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
Potulný dělník (The Wandering Worker). He also founded two non-governmental organizations: Proximus (2002; "to support people who belong to minorities
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
, mainly racial, ethnical and religious ones, and to support people handicapped socially or by health") which is connected to the depths of Czech traditions and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and which organises many festivals and other projects (such as Uši a vítr (Ears and Wind) which take place every Thursday and introduce poets and musicians; and Christiania (2006; "for support of culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, national memory and minorities" ). He works as a chief editor
Editor in chief
An editor-in-chief is a publication's primary editor, having final responsibility for the operations and policies. Additionally, the editor-in-chief is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members as well as keeping up with the time it takes them to complete their task...
of BOX ("biannual revue for word-picture-sound-movement-life") and Uši a vítr (a monthly newspaper of Potulná Akademie (The Wandering Academy)). He also writes for Český rozhlas
Ceský rozhlas
Český rozhlas is the Czech Republic's publicly funded radio broadcasting organization.It offers the following radio channels:*ČRo 1 – Radiožurnál: news and information*ČRo 2 – Praha: talk and family programmes...
which broadcast three screenplays written by him. Since 2006 he started to perform as a busker again. Recently he started to write a daily blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
. Jaroslav Erik Frič lives mainly in Brno.
Books
- Kolotoče bílé hlasy (básně z let 1986-1992), Vetus Via, Brno 1993, poetry
- Houpací kůň šera a jiné básně (1993–1995), Vetus Via, Brno 1998, poetry
- Americká antologie & Poslední autobus noční linky (1989 a 2003), bibliofilská edice Siluety, Zdeněk Janál, ProstějovProstejovProstějov is a city in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. Today the city is known for its fashion industry and special military forces based there....
2004, poetry published as bibliophiliaBibliophiliaBibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. Accordingly a bibliophile is an individual who loves books. A bookworm is someone who loves books for their content, or who otherwise loves reading. The -ia-suffixed form "bibliophilia" is sometimes considered to be an incorrect usage; the older...
CDs
- Jsi orkneyské víno (A poem from 1996–2000, music by Brno rock group Čvachtavý lachtan), Guerilla Records & Vetus Via, 2003
- S kým skončila noc (A poem from 2001–2002, music by part of Čvachtavý lachtan and the violoncellist Josef Klíč )
- Poslední autobus noční linky (A poem from 2003, music by Josef Klíč), both published by Guerilla Records, 2006
Radio screenplays
- Léon BloyLéon BloyLéon Bloy , was a French novelist, essayist, pamphleteer and poet.-Biography:Bloy was born in Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, in the arondissement of Périgueux, Dordogne. He was the second of six sons of Voltairean freethinker and stern disciplinarian Jean Baptiste Bloy and his wife Anne-Marie Carreau,...
: Poutník Absolutna, 2003 - Ivan M. JirousIvan Martin JirousIvan Martin Jirous was a Czech poet, best known for being the artistic director of the Czech psychedelic rock group The Plastic People of the Universe and later one of the organizers of the Czech underground during the communist regime...
: "Básník může být rád, že ho jeho bližní nezabijou", 2004 - Josef Šafařík: Cestou k poslednímu - i prvnímu, 2005