Vladimír Zbořílek

Vladimír Zbořílek was born in Morkovice near Kroměříže in 1924. He studied at grammar school Křenová in Brno and after that he studied history and French at Masaryk University. He graduated in 1948. Because he could not leave Czechoslovakia for specialized training to France in summer 1948 he and his friend decided to escape to Austria, via Břeclav. In Austria they went through difficulties across the Soviet zone to the American zone. They continued past Germany to France where he studied at Sorbonne University. He also stayed in Madrid. In 1952 he emigrated to the USA. His beginnings there were not easy; at first he worked in a stapler factory in New York, after that in the company Stechert-Hafner that exported and imported books from the entire world. Then he was a substitute teacher at a college in Colorado, where he taught Spanish. And the other place of operation was the Girl's School in New Hampshire. Since 1956 he continued his postgraduate studies of history at University of California in Berkeley and later he changed his subject of studies and specialized in Slavonic studies. He worked at the Czech department at the university and was the head of this department until 1965. In 1970 he moved to Miami where he taught until he retired in 1995.