Photo: SOkA Zlín, č. NAD: 1294, č. obálky: 146/Tomáš Baťa Memorial
The name ‘Zlín’ has been inextricably linked with businessman Tomáš Baťa ever since the beginning of the twentieth century – so much so that, despite the word bearing no resemblance to his name, the town was renamed in 1949 by the communist leadership, who evidently found the original name to be too closely associated with the buccaneering capitalist shoe king.
However, despite the communists’ best efforts, the name and memory of Tomáš Baťa could not be entirely erased, and after 40 years of being officially known as ‘Gottwaldov’, after the first Communist leader of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, the town quickly changed its name back to Zlín after the Velvet Revolution.
Lenka Čechmánková from the Museum of south-eastern Moravia in Zlín says that during those four decades, the town’s new name never stuck.
“It was officially used but I think people didn’t really like to call it that, they were still using Zlín.”
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Author: Anna Fodor