Prague, Aug 14 (CTK) – Jurnalist Slavka Peroutkova, the third wife of Czech writer and journalist Ferdinand Peroutka (1895-1978) died at the age of 94 on Saturday, Peroutka’s grand-daughter Terezie Kaslova has told CTK.
Peroutka, who is considered one of the most prominent representatives of Czech pre-war democratic journalism, emigrated to Britain and later to the United States after the Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
He and Slavka worked for Radio Free Europe (RFE) in exile. She returned to Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Communist regime in November 1989 and it was thanks to her that Peroutka’s name was brought back to Czechs’ attention.
Peroutkova also initiated the Ferdinad Peroutka Award which appreciates the work of Czech journalists.
Slavka Peroutkova was born in Trutnov, north Bohemia, on November 9, 1922. She met Peroutka after World War Two and emigrated to London and afterwards to the United States to join him in 1948.
In 1955, after the death of Peroutka’s second wife, she became his third wife. She worked as a typist, an announcer and sometimes also radio actress in RFE.
In exile, she prepared a book on Peroutka called Man of the Present. It was first published by Skvoreckys’ exile Sixty Eight Publishers. In 1995, the Lidove noviny publishers issued it under the title Diaries, Letters, Memories.
In 2005, Slavka Peroutkova published her memoirs about her life with Peroutka.
