Czech Books Ivan Jelínek: a poet in the newsroom
If you had been listening to Radio Prague back in the late 1930s, it is very likely that you would have heard the voice of Ivan Jelínek. He was one of the pioneers of broadcasting in Czechoslovakia, and an early presenter of our broadcasts to Britain and North America. From the radio headquarters here in Vinohrady, he witnessed many of the dramas leading up to World War Two, including moment of the German occupation itself. During his wartime exile in Britain and in the decades that followed the war, Ivan Jelínek became a familiar voice in the Czechoslovak section of the BBC, and he continued to broadcast from London until his death in 2002, at the age of 93. But Ivan Jelínek was not just a broadcaster. His lifelong passion was poetry. In Czech Books this week, I’ll be looking at Jelínek’s fascinating life and work.
Ivan Jelínek
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