The Milada Blekastad Papers

As requested in her will, one half of Milada Blekastad’s papers, including 31 large files of two-way correspondence, was deposited in the archive of the Department of Comenius Studies and Early Modern Intellectual History at the Institute of Philosophy of the CAS. The Milada Blekastad Papers include an additional 30 files of handwritten or typed documents (academic studies, administrative or personal documents) by Blekastad or others and 10 files of printed articles and research.

The HIKO project will digitize the 31 files of Milada Blekadstad’s correspondence.  The project excludes her correspondence in Norwegian, which is held at the National Library of Norway in Oslo and is not accessible to researchers. The Milada Blekastad Papers at the Institute of Philosophy include sent and received correspondence with approximately 250 partners. Apart from those already named (see “About the project”), Milada Blekastad corresponded with Roman Jakobson, Dmytro Čyževskyj, Jaroslav Seifert, Alfréd Radok, Alois Hába, Josef Škvorecký, Ivan Sviták, Karel Kryl and many other notable figures. Aside from anything else, this is an important resource on the general topic of informal academic and cultural exchanges between individuals in Czechoslovakia and the West in the Cold War era.