| Catalogue number | 0678 |
|---|---|
| Date of issue | 6.4.2011 |
| Face value | 10 CZK |
| Print sheets | 50 stamps |
| Size of picture | 40 x 23 mm |
| Graphic designer | Pavel Sivko |
| Engraver Printing method | Jaroslav Tvrdoň rotary recess print in blackblue combined with photogravure in greyblue, red and blue |
Josef Vlastimil Burian, better known as Vlasta Burian (April 9th, 1891, Liberec - January 31st, 1962, Prague) was a Czech stage and film actor and director, singer, sportsman, businessman, author and imitator. His boundless spontaneity and urge to win turned him into a real star on the Czech film and theatre scene. One of the most popular Czechoslovak stars between the two world wars, he was unjustly sentenced for Nazi collaboration. Vlasta Burian, winner of the King of Comedians award, as well as movies starring him are still widely popular among Czech audiences.
Born the son of Antonín Burian, a tailor, Czech patriot and amateur actor in Liberec, and his five-year-older wife Marie (who had a daughter, Žofie Picková, by previous marriage), Vlasta Burian spent the first ten years of his life in Liberec, before the family decided to move from the mainly German populated town with little sympathy for his father's patriotic activities to Prague's Žižkov (1901). Vlastimil learned the profession of a shop assistant at a local business school.
As the son of a devoted actor, he grew up within a circle of people interested in theatre and heard many related stories since his childhood. Although he was a keen sportsman, excellent football player, AC Sparta Prague Football Club goalkeeper, cyclist, professional tennis player who regularly competed - and often won - in a number of championships and tournaments, most of his sporting activities gave way to theatre. Burian's career as a comedian first started at private parties, but by talent, he gradually gained access to public performances.
Following a relationship with his partner, dancer Anna Emilie Pírková, and mother of Burian's illegitimate daughter Emilka, Burian married Nina Červenková (1919) who loved him, was his greatest fan and supporter in the hardest times of his life. He became a grandfather in 1944 when Emilka gave birth to a son, Vlastimil Kristl.
An amusing entertainer in public, he privately suffered from melancholy, changes in mood and manic depression. This was the main reason for his frequent seclusion at his villa in Prague's Dejvice.
In his prime, Burian was a great patron of sportsmen, both at professional and amateur levels, sponsoring e.g. the national cyclists team.
Burian's career and popularity came to an abrupt turn in 1944 with the closure of his private theatre by the Nazi authorities, followed by its nationalization and Burian's arrest by the Czech authorities after the war, for allegations of collaboration with the Nazis. He was placed into a cell with SS men and criminal offenders who heavily humiliated him. After an intervention by Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk he was released and further investigated at large, and eventually found innocent by the court. The ruling drew a negative attention from the press and some politicians calling for his exemplary punishment. Burian was re-arrested and in a show trial sentenced for several months of heavy imprisonment and payment of half a million crowns due to alleged collaboration with Nazi occupants. Virtually all his property was confiscated, and when he came from prison, he was prohibited to re-open his theatre or perform in public in the following five years. He had to start doing hard manual labour, working as checkweigher at a mining firm in North Bohemia, messenger boy, kitchen help and car driver at chalets. He started performing again, although without any official approval. It came no sooner than in 1950. His last role was the character of accountant Dušek in the satirical movie "Zaostřit, prosím!"
The five years of prohibition to perform changed Burian into a more modest man. The term in jail and persecution broke his health; formerly an active sportsman in outstanding physical condition, he became an old man. Despite his poor health he had to perform at shows to earn some money. Tended by his faithful wife Nina, he died at home, suffering of pulmonary embolism, after he had to give his last performance with severe pneumonia.
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