Joan Sedlacek, dedicated chronicler of US Sokol activities
Members of Sokol, a Czech physical fitness organisation with branches the world over, are descending on Prague for the 17th All Sokol Slet, or jamboree, due to start on Sunday. Among the 20,000 enthusiasts due to attend is Joan Sedlacek, a dedicated chronicler of Sokol activities in the United States.
Joan Sedlacek, a board member of the Sokol Museum and Library in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a second-generation Czech expat. Her grandparents came to the United States in the 19th century as the first Czech settlers. They eventually moved to Chicago, where Joan's father was born. Although her mother is of a German-Danish descent, Joan has always felt a strong connection to her Czech heritage:
“It is deep in my heart. I am a 100 percent American, but like most of the Czech people I know, they really love the Czech heritage, the people and the country. We have a lot of Czechs who married other ethnic groups and brought them into the Czech culture, and they love it as well.”
One of the symbols of their homeland for Czech and Slovak expats living in the United States is the traditional costume or kroj. Joan has 13 or 14 of them from different parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. She also collects dolls sporting various regional costumes. But, as she told Radio Prague, her primary interest is the history of Sokol and other Czech expat associations, such as literary societies:
“One thing that Czechs started in the US when they first came were literary societies, where they would get together and read and talk about books. The Czechs were really literate. In the 1910’, around 97 percent of them who came through Ellis Island could read and write, which was extraordinarily high for that time”
Joan has also travelled much of the United States to document the various buildings of the Sokol organisations and has already filled five albums with her photos.
The first such organisation was founded in 1865 in St. Lois, Missouri. In less than a year, clubs were founded in New York and Chicago, and within a few years, clubs were established in Baltimore, Detroit and other cities in the USA, as well as in Canada. Eventually there were 200 of them, but then their numbers started to dwindle, explains Joan Sedlacek:
“A lot of them were in small towns and there was nothing to do for the young people, so they moved out. WWI and WWII also took a big toll on the units. The men were either killed, or they came back and they moved on somewhere else. But there are lot of strong units as well. We have about 300 members in Minnesota.”
A number of organisations from all over the US are now getting ready to attend the All Sokol Slet in Prague, including Joan Sedlacek and another four delegates of the Sokol Minnesota.
Joan, who has already performed three times at the Sokol Slet event, in 1994, in 2000 and in 2018, is also heading to Prague. This time, however, she won’t be taking part in the exercise, because she was ill and didn’t have enough time to practice the routine. She still hopes she will get to carry the flag during the opening ceremony and, if her health allows, come back to Prague in six years’ time.
