“Mario’s” or “Ander’s” were not only visited by Brno cultural bohemians, poets; writers, painters, actors, but also by important figures from all other possible fields. In 1960 and 1970 it was almost a cult place, whose importance still awaits acknowledgement, contemporaries quickly leave this world.
On 24 September in the Palace of Noble Ladies in Kobližná street there was the Remembrance evening of lecturer Ludvík Kunz, founder of the Ethnographic Institute of the Moravian Museum. The party was attended by contemporaries, from whom one had a very warm relation to the “Noble Ladies”.
“Once I was walking through Brno, I met a friend and she said: ‘There is a pub on the corner, but it is non-functional, come and see, it would be something for you.’ There was a corpulent lady, somewhat simple, she dried her bloomers and at twelve´o clock she said: ‘Everyone out, I’m going to have lunch!’ And she closed the pub. So I said to myself that it is something for me. I went to a friend, who took me to Kunz (note: director of the new Ethnographic museum with its seat in the Palace of Noble Ladies). And he said: ‘For Christ’s sake, Mr. Ander, we persuaded that lady – she resigned - to stay for two months.’ – I said that I can wait two months. Then I walked through Brno again and I met Vladimír Fux (note: author, dramaturge and one of the founders of the Satire theatre Večerní Brno). And he said: ‘How are you, Mario?’ – ‘I am opening a pub.’ And he became my first guest.
One older friend said to me: ‘Mario, when do you open your pub, the first customers – don’t say that to them, they would drink you dry – have drinks on the house.’ Therefore I said to Vladimír: ‘Keep your money, you are my first guest.’ That was the best advertisement that I could wish for. People immediately started visiting. Whoever meant something in Brno came to us. From television, radio, theatres, doctors, professors. I started in 1963 and I remained there for fifteen years, two months and fourteen days.
Then two ladies came from the regional party committee to the boss, to lecturer Kunz and director of the Moravian Museum Mr. Jelínek and said that my person is a guarantee of the bad social composition of customers. And they said to the ladies: ‘Please that is not true; whoever means something in Brno visits there. Give that to us in writing.’ And the ladies said: ‘If there were more arrests in 1950s and less writing, then in 1968 there wouldn’t be any rehabilitations.’ – The bosses called me and explained the situation to me and I said: ‘When I started fifteen years ago, we agreed that when I am unable to make profit, you would fire me. And if my class origin becomes a liability after some years, I would leave.’ – Round the corner there was the general management of Průmyslové stavby Brno. I was working there for three years and a half…”
Here I will interrupt the story of Mr. Mario Ander, which I recorded last July at his home in Luleč, and I will return to the phrase “class origin”. It might not be clear to everyone today. Young Mario (born 1936) grew up in Svatý kopeček near Olomouc. His father was the director of an important commercial chain ASO and in the memory of the small boy remained many names of family acquaintances, for example important politicians Petr Zenkl, Hubert Ripka and Jan Masaryk. The year 1948 meant a dramatic turn. The Communists immediately nationalized the ASO Company and his father became the representative of the “enemy class of working people”. Young Mario Ander luckily became a cookery student. He says himself that the real luck was the fact that he was interested in cooking from the first moment. But his life was not short of dramatic events: “I used to return from studying in Zlín by bus. When I got off the bus in Svatý kopeček, people stood and stared at me. I came home and the house was sealed. I unsealed it, entered, found something to eat, went to bed and awaited further developments. At six in the morning the StB woke me roughly and I was interrogated. My parents had already been imprisoned for two weeks and I was not notified.” – Fortunately it was only interrogation and not suspension from studies, where he was the best student. Mario was fifteen when his parents were arrested and when his parents were released from prison he was twenty-five.
Café as a cultural phenomenon
Inherent refinement and a sense for business made the “enemy of the people” into an innkeeper, or rather café manager in the case of the café in the Palace of Noble Ladies, which had no equal far and wide. “Mario’s” or “Ander’s” was visited not only by Brno cultural bohemian, poets, writers, painters, actors, but also by important figures from all possible fields. In the 1960s and 1970s it was almost a cult place, whose importance still awaits acknowledgement, contemporaries quickly leave this world. The unwritten “boss” of this pub was – as remembered in the book Sešlost u Nečasů (GNOSIS Brno 2002) by Ludvík Kunz – the poet Oldřich Mikulášek. Characteristic was the encounter of the young waiter Ander with the poet immediately after the opening of the café. “I came to work and at one table there an elderly grey-haired man was sitting, eyes closed, he was clearly socially tired. I asked him: ‘Sir, what are you doing here?’ – ‘I am waiting for you,’ he answered. He didn’t even open his eyes, he extended his hand and said: ‘I am the king of Czech poets Oldřich Mikulášek and I will be your daily guest.’ – he kept his word.”
The Ethnographic Institute of the Moravian Museum in cooperation with Czech Radio Brno and Slovácký krúžek organized a musically accompanied remembrance evening for the anniversary (26 August 1914) of the founder of the Ethnographic Institute of the Moravian Museum, Ludvík Kunz, on 24 September at the Palace of Noble Ladies in Kobližná street. As contemporaries there were professor Ludvík Kunz (director of the Material Physics Institute of the Academy of Science of Czech Republic), who remembered how his father acquired the building of the Palace of Noble Ladies from the Moravian Museum with difficulties. He had to clear out many different tenants, while the most difficult tenant was the driving school of Svazarm. Mario Ander described the environment of the famous café and the retired radio reporter Jaromír Nečas reminisced on the permanent cooperation between the Ethnographic Museum and Brno Radio, when the chapel of the Palace of Noble Ladies served as a detached radio studio and many interesting parties and concerts took place there, and not only folklore ones. The legendary album Vandrovali hudci by Jaroslav Hutka was recorded here.
Museum with a message
The Ethnographic Museum in the Palace of Noble Ladies was given a message by its clairvoyant founder Ludvík Kunz, which was not limited only to ethnographic exhibitions, although the first permanent exhibition, People in five generations from 1961, made in cooperation with famous architect Bohuslav Fuchs, was ahead of its time with its concept. But as Ludvík Kunz reminded in the book Sešlost u Nečasů, “When I opened the ethnographic exhibition (...) I realized that folk costumes and ploughs will not attract crowds of people, with all respect to this material. It has to be something that will attract people...“ And there was: There were organized events, exhibitions, a functional café –a multi-functional cultural centre was arising, which attracted visitors and living culture was connected to Moravian traditions. Today, when Brno has become an internationally acknowledged academic centre, in which eighty thousand students study, the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) and other research activities are developed, there is a necessity of places of focus, which attract visitors also to traditions of the region, to which they came and enrich them with specific experience. Thanks to this experience similar centres have been completed in the world and they know why. The Palace of Noble Ladies, as one of the important cultural institutions in a strategically appropriate place, could represent a window into the world of Moravian tradition and living culture for visitors
