Slovak President gives high state honors to Ľudovít Didi and Anna Koptová, both of Romani origin
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of an independent Slovak Republic, President Zuzana Čaputová has given state honors to dozens of figures. Many of them were involved in the struggle against totalitarianism.
Ľudovít Didi and Anna Koptová, both of Romani origin, were among those honored. Didi received the Order of Ľudovít Štúr Third Class in memoriam.
The president bestowed the honor upon Didi for his exceptional services to democracy and its development, as well as to human rights and freedoms and their protection. His debut as a prose writer happened at the age of 73.
Didi made his mark in the history of Slovak literature as the author of the first novel about Romani people. His prose work Příběhy svěcené větrem [Tales Sanctified by the Wind] comes from the milieu with which he was intimately familiar, the Romani world.
He came from impoverished conditions and grew up in his grandparents’ home. Thanks to his persistence he graduated from high school, but was expelled from the College of Political and Economic Sciences in Prague because he disagreed with the Czechoslovak communist regime.
He eventually completed his university studies at the Institute of Pedagogy in Nitra in 1963. He openly criticized the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and had problems with finding a job for that reason.
In 1980, he and his wife both signed Charter 77. After the 1989 transition to democracy, known in Slovakia as the “Gentle Revolution” (Něžná revoluce), they were both politically rehabilitated and the Institute of National Memory in Slovakia awarded them both the status of participants in the anti-communist resistance; he spent his retirement years dedicating himself to literature full-time.
The Order of Ľudovít Štúr Second Class was bestowed by the president upon Anna Koptová, a crucial actor in the Romani emancipation movement and cofounder of the first Romani theater company in Slovakia, Romathan; the first Romani magazine, Romano ľil; and the Foundation of the Good Romani Fairy Kesaj (nadace Dobrá romská víla Kesaj). After the democratic transition in 1989 she contributed to the Roma being officially recognized as a national minority with the right to educate themselves in their own language and develop their culture.
In 1978, at the Second World Roma Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, Koptová joined the international Romani movement. When she returned home to Czechoslovakia, the communist secret service began investigating her as an “enemy of the people”.
After the fall of the communist regime she became an elected member of the National Assembly of Slovakia for the People against Violence (Verejnosť proti násiliu) movement. She established and led a private primary school in Košice, published a dictionary for translation between Romanes and Slovak, and contributed to the release of both a grammar of Romanes and textbooks for teaching it.
Both Koptová and Didi’s son, who received the state honor on his late father’s behalf, were personally congratulated by the Slovak Government Plenipotentiary for Romani Communities, Ján Hero (above, center). Other figures who were honored were the Czech historian Vilém Prečan; leading Slovak theater director Ľubomír Vajdička; famous cameraman Martin Štrba; Hana Gregorová (1885-1958), defender of women’s rights who joined the anti-Fascist resistance and spent part of her life in Prague, where she ultimately passed away; leading children’s oncologist Alexandra Kolenová; and Karol Mikuláš, the oldest living former miner to join the Slovak National Uprising who was falsely charged by the postwar Czechoslovak communist regime and subsequently convicted of establishing an anti-state group.
The invitation to attend the Slovak state honors ceremony was accepted by Czech President Miloš Zeman; Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen; Polish President Andrzej Duda; President of the Czech Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová; and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk. Hungarian President Katalin Novák excused herself from attending the ceremony, which was held in the historical center of the capital, Bratislava, in the building of the Slovak Philharmonic.
