[Preface] [Introduction] [Beginnings] [Antireformation] [Breakdown] [Dreams]
A Genealogy of a Czech millers´family Kysilka
Part One
Karel Kysilka, Sr. (1913 - 1989)
It will soon be 15 years since I found in my father´s papers a calligraphic ancestor chart of our family, which began (I should rather say ended) so far away at the beginning of the 19th century.
... And there was a darkness before!
This darkness was so chilling and exciting, that I was lured all the time and I tried to penetrate this twilight of the past.
I spent dozens of hours in archives and libraries, hundreds of hours were needed to sort and file the data and to change them into this story. I hope, that my story and the story of my family will never be finished.
My father was the first reader, reviewer and critic. He was ever looking forward to reading any new page, any new chapter. But the last one referring to his youth was written after his sudden death.
I thought how easy it would be, to write on his life, but this part was one of the most difficult ones.
I would like to honor his memory and memory of all ordinary people of the last five centuries, who have built not only my future, but the future of the whole nation.
I learned to esteem their work, I admired their hard fates.
I hope to understand the sense and the secrets of this life.
Napajedla - Zlín , May 1998
