Ladislav Holy: A Larger-Than-Life Character with Extremely Strong Opinions An Interview with Kate Holy (Featuring Petr Skalník)
Ladislav Holy: A Larger-Than-Life Character with Extremely Strong Opinions An Interview with Kate Holy (Featuring Petr Skalník)

Summary/Abstract: Kate Holy, the widow of the renowned Czech-British anthropologist Ladislav Holý, lives in St Andrews in Scotland and administers the Ladislav Holy Memorial Trust, established to promote anthropological research, at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews. The Trust, founded in 1997 after Professor Holy’s death, also administers the David Riches Medal for the best piece of postgraduate writing in social anthropology and sponsors the Ladislav Holy Memorial Lecture held at the University of St Andrews. The University Library’s Special Collections unit houses the Ladislav Holy Archive, containing his fieldnotes, ethnographic material, correspondence, and a photographic collection from his Africanist fieldwork. This interview started when I met with Kate Holy in November 2023 in St Andrews when I was preparing the publication of the Czech translation of Ladislav Holý’s book Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship (Pluto Press, 1996; in Czech Příbuzenství v antropologické perspektivě, Karolinum Press, 2025). As the holder of the copyright for the texts and pictures from Ladislav Holý’s fieldwork in Africa, Kate was so kind as to grant Karolinum Press, the Prague publisher, the rights to publish the pictures and materials from the archive. Kate and I had had a very interesting talk about Ladislav Holý and his life in Scotland and Czechoslovakia, and Kate agreed to answer a few questions for an interview. The interview continued via e-mail and was supplemented with additional answers to my questions provided by the Czech anthropologist Petr Skalník. I also interviewed Eliška Fučíková, the sister of Alice Fučíková, who was the first wife of L. Holy. I would like to express my gratitude to Kate Holy, Eliška Fučíková, and Petr Skalník, for all their helpfulness and kindness.

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