Czechoslovakia Exiled František Váňa and Hlas domova

“It is the best-run and highest-quality Czech newspaper in the entire free world.” With these heart-warming words Jiří Voskovec belauded Hlas domova, the exile periodical issued by František Váňa in remote Australia for almost three decades. And yet, this book is about more than just Hlas domova; it is also about the rise of an alternative Czechoslovak exile centre in Melbourne.

If the Council of Free Czechoslovakia aspired to be an umbrella organisation coordinating exile activities throughout individual countries, its disunity and the constant infighting that characterised this organisation gradually led to an erosion of confidence and a steep decline in its authority in the eyes of the entire political diaspora. This naturally led to the heavy atomisation of exiles around the world and to the emergence of several “power” centres of Czechoslovak exile life, with Melbourne gaining prominence thanks to the strong community of Czechoslovaks and especially as the result of František Váňa and his associates’ activities. In a certain sense, Váňa was the “ideal” exile, a kind of reference figure in the Czech exile community, someone you could compare to only a few dozen equally versatile, generally recognised and selflessly working individuals (Ferdinand Peroutka, Pavel Tigrid and Josef Škvorecký, to name a few), although they generally enjoyed better starting conditions than their colleague in inhospitable and isolated Australia.