„Radila jsem se již několikrát s archiváři...“ – několik poznámek k problematice fyzického stavu a konzervace rukopisu Julia Fučíka Reportáž, psaná na oprátce

Julius Fučík’s most important literary work, Notes from the Gallows, is one of the most translated Czech texts, as well as one of the most controversial. Whether it was caused by the extraordinary life story and extravagant personality of its author, communist journalist and resistance fighter Julius Fučík (1903–1943), or the long-lasting dispute concerning both its contents and circumstances of its origin. Yet, the authenticity of the text was finally subsustimated by the expert forensic report in the early 1990s. At the same time, however, the suspicion of the censorship of Fučík’s original text was confirmed. Even though the book was repeatedly published, its manuscript remained inaccessible to the public as the property of Fučík’s widow Gusta Fučíková (1903–1987). It was only after her death in 1987 when the original Fučík’s autograph became a part of the collection of the Klement Gottwald Museum, a party museum controlled by the monopolistic Communist party government. With the collapse of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, the newly established Museum of the Workers’ Movement required the manuscript. Finally, in 2014, they donated it, together with their other collections, to the National Museum. This change enabled an extensive conservation and restoration collaborative research carried out by the National Museum and the University of Chemistry and Technology (VŠCHT). The manuscript of Notes has been stored in so-called glass sandwiches since the early 1950s. They consisted of 167 slips of paper – on which the individual passages of Notes used to be smuggled out of Pankrác prison – inserted in plastic films and put (usually three and three on every side) between two durable glass plates. Unfortunately, this seemingly safe and precise storage method did not prevent gradual degradation of selected snippets. Therefore, it was decided to launch a physical condition investigation during which experts revealed significant differences from the declared conservation method, including the absence of alleged protection against ultraviolet radiation by supposedly ultraviolet-resistant glass. Further research and verification of the causes of paper degradation will determine the final nature of the restoration procedure and the subsequent method of storage of Fučík’s manuscript.