A Russian Officer with Polish Roots in Czechoslovakia. On the Seventieth Anniversary of Vladimír Hejmovský’s Victory in the Grand Pardubice Steeplechase

Abstract

Vladimír Hejmovský (Russian: Vladimir Geymovsky) was a tsarist officer in Russia who fought on the side of the Whites against the Bolsheviks. After arriving in Czechoslovakia in 1923, he became an officer in the Czechoslovak army. He was also a passionate equestrian who managed to win the Grand Pardubice Steeplechase in 1951 – when he was nearly sixty years old. But he would never again achieve a similar sporting achievement. Czechoslovakia’s State Security (StB) sought to get rid of him for his earlier anti-Bolshevik activities (and his activities in the Russian émigré organization Victor), which they succeeded in doing in September 1952