Rudolf Skukálek

He was a poet, translator, playwright, author of the first absurdist plays in Slovakia, journalist, reporter and a well-known songwriter.

He was born in 1931 in Trnava. He studied psychology, philosophy and history at the Faculty of Arts in Brno and in Bratislava. He was already publishing his writing in the first half of the 1950s. He worked on the editorial staff of various newspapers and magazines. He was also active as a translator; in 1962, for example, he published a translation of A. Mickiewicz’s Polish national epic “Pán Tadeáš alebo posledný nájazd na Litve” (“Pan Tadeusz, or the Last Foray in Lithuania”).

He wrote the lyrics of songs that became hits in the interpretation of Zuzka Lonská, Hana Hegerová, and Michal and Jana Beláková. He also worked with Marián Varga and Pavol Hammel on the repertoire of the band Prúdy.

From the late 1950s he collaborated with personalities who shaped the cultural life of the time and were regarded as opinion leaders. He co-wrote programmes for a new cabaret theatre, later known as Tatra revue in Bratislava, whose premieres often irritated the officials in charge of ideological supervision.

In May 1968 he publicly voiced his views in a speech at the Congress of the Union of Slovak Writers, which brought him into disfavour with the regime and made him a target of constant attention from the State Security (StB).

In November 1968 he decided to emigrate, and from 1972 he worked at Radio Free Europe in Munich under the pseudonym “Andrej Radan”. He reported on the situation in Czechoslovakia, in Europe and around the world. Through his contributions he motivated listeners and gave them hope for change.

After the explosion of a bomb in the editorial office, probably planted by the StB, he suffered serious injuries that marked him for the rest of his life. In the following years he underwent several medical procedures to remove fragments from his face and body. Nevertheless, he returned to his work as a journalist. He died in 2008.