From Trash Cans to History: A Journey into the Forgotten Past. Petr Karlíček

If you happen to run into him somewhere on the road—in a field, in the woods, or in some run-down suburb, or perhaps in a local bar there—you’ll feel as though you’ve met a smuggler. Not, of course, a modern-day smuggler in a car, but a smuggler from the 1950s.

That outfit is simply unmistakable, and it’s complemented by a stylish watch, for example.

To round things out, imagine the smuggler’s companion, a dog of unknown origin, and be on your guard around him, because this dog is a loose cannon and doesn’t stop to think whether what he’s about to do in the next minute is entirely in line with the manners of those funny, overbred pets.

This is a lively dog.

Call the dog Himmel and the smuggler Petr Karlíček.

Petr is a historian and archivist. If you think these are boring professions, you’re wrong.

Sure, you need to have patience and a keen eye to get through thousands of pages of historical materials. But when you’re studying history that isn’t all that distant, you’ll be interviewing eyewitnesses, searching through basements and attics, and analyzing what you find.

You just rummage through old shops and every now and then you find a gem. Or at least a little gem.

In fact, Petr himself says in our interview that he wanted to be a garbage collector.

A few years ago, he focused on the history of the Šluknov Hook; specifically, he contributed to two books on the history of Jiříkov and one on the history of Mikulášovice.

After changing jobs and moving from the regional archive in Děčín to the Ústí nad Labem City Archive, which he currently heads, his focus is naturally on this very city—Aussig.

He first became interested in the topic of the vanished villages beneath Buková hora while he was still a student, and this interest culminated in the publication of the book Vanished Villages Beneath Buková Mountain, a book that is very hard to find, even though it has seen three (!) editions, all of which have been continuously reprinted.

The same fate likely awaits the latest book, which is also set to be reissued this year, namely Mariánka/Marienberg: A Mountain of Love and Death . Here, he recounted the complex history of the city of Ústí nad Labem through the story of a single mountain.

It is encouraging to see that public interest in this work is growing. An informed look at history allows us to view the future not as a matter of chance, but as the result of past decisions.