I've been writing for as long as I can remember

Tatiana Lukes' memoirs contain the whole tragedy of the 20th century with its horrors and hopes. They are read with sensitivity and tenderness by her daughter Barbara Lukešová and she invited her acting colleague Martin Myšička. In one lifetime, we had pleasant encounters with TGM and Jan Masaryk, the cultural world of the First Republic and an idyllic childhood surrounded by love, but also the loss of almost everything, interrogations at the Gestapo, excluded because of his Jewish background, hiding and humiliating racial tests. It's a life that has involved the world of theatre and film, great love and important personalities. But also the ruthless rampage of the Communist Party Action Committees, the fear and misery of the 1950s, the hopelessness of the coming normalisation wound. The author's memoirs are complemented by a selection of diary entries from the last years of her life. Editorial note Tatiana Lukes began writing her memoirs in the autumn of 2013, but they remain unwritten, as she died suddenly on 15 April 2015. The editor of the book drew mainly on two sources to compile her memoirs: from the author's manuscript of the memoirs themselves and from her diaries, which she began to write in 1997 and in which she often recorded longer sections of memories. Since these passages were out of the diary entries, they were woven into the main flow of the story. As an additional source for supplementing or clarifying the author's memories, the editor used personal interviews with the author or interviews she gave to Katolický týdeník, as well as her memoirs, which she was able to speak about in November 2014 for Post Bellum and its Memory of the Nation project, and shortly before that for the Jewish Community. However, the help and openness of the author's daughter Barbara Lukešová, who, in addition to a number of clarifications, gave the editor of the book access to the entire estate of Tatiana Lukešová, was crucial for the creation of the book. Tatiana Lukes wrote her memories and diaries on a typewriter and they remain in the family estate. Only selected parts of the extensive diary entries have been published. All the pictorial material also comes from the estate: photographs, correspondence and other documents. The only exception are the pictures by Aleš Masner on p. 152. Spelling errors have been corrected in the transcription of selected correspondence, otherwise the original text has been retained. The editor also unified the use of different versions of the name Tatyana (Tatyana i. ) into the wording that the author has followed in recent years when publishing her texts. Some passages from her memoirs have been used by the author in her short stories (Chalupa, Nemanželská) or in her memoir Veselíčko, which was first published independently (Artur 2006) and a second time as part of the book "A přeci něco zůstalo" (Katolický týdeník 2011), in which the above-mentioned short stories were also published. The appendix also includes samples of photographs by František Lederer (mainly from his series on Prague beggars) and film and book art designs by Rudolf Lukes. A short story by František Lederer is also published here "The Lost Chord", originally published in Prager Tagblatt. First time Czech version was printed in the Cyril and Methodius Calendar 2014 in translation by Zuzana Burdová, from which it was taken. Translations of two letters by Max Brod to Tatiana Lukešová were made for this book by Jiří Janíček. Finally, the editor of the book would like to thank all the people contacted in the section Through the Eyes of Others who wrote their personal memories of Tatiana Lukešová as they had the opportunity to get to know her. J. P.