Gone Medieval - The Czech Braveheart: Jan Žižka

Episode Date: November 5, 2022

Jan Žižka is the legendary Czech national hero who led Hussite forces against three crusades and never lost a single battle. His rise to military greatness is now told in the feature film titled Medieval, starring Ben Foster and Sir Michael Caine - the most expensive Czech film ever made.In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis finds out more about Jan Žižka and the film from its director Petr Jákl and writer Petr Bok.This episode was edited by Anisha Deva and produced by Rob Weinberg.For more Gone Medieval content, subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world,

to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Now, when a movie is being released that's called Medieval, how could we not cover it? This film tells the story of a man named Jan Jishka. You may not have heard of Jan, but you're going to love his story. He's a Czech national hero. He's famed for being undefeated in battle for having novel military tactics that helped deliver victories against the odds. In his later years, he becomes involved in the Hussite movement, the followers of Jan Hus, who sought religious reform.

But the film is set earlier in his life and seeks to explore how Jan became this man driven to military greatness, but also to great brutality. It's packed with an all-star cast, Ben Foster, Sophie Lowe, Sir Michael Kane, Till Schweiger and Roland Muller. I was delighted to be joined by director and screenwriter Peter Yakul and writer Peter Bok to tell me more about Janjiska and the movie Medieval. Janjiska is perhaps not well known outside of his homeland, but he's considered a Czech national hero. Why did you want to make a movie about him and why did you want to make it now?

I mean, it started like 11 years ago and basically everybody learns about Janjiska in Czech schools. So I knew him from the beginning, like when I was going to school. It was not that interesting character for me, but he's one of the heroes here. But Hasei's revolution was, you know, something really big, what happened, you know, 600 years ago. And when I was learning about him at school, I thought, like, you know, Vikings are much more interesting. And I thought, like, this is Janjjjiska. Okay, that's Janjcichka. But later on, I started to learn much more about him. And he's really like top five famous people in the Czech Republic.

So everybody knows him. He's got many, many statues here. And he's got like streets are named after him. It's just like, you know, one of the biggest names. And then I thought, like, maybe if we do a movie about this youth and how he became to be the great warrior, that might be interested. And because I didn't want to really do a movie about somebody. who is 60-something years old and who is not really fighting that much anymore.

He was, but it felt much better to do this movie about somebody who was basically fighting himself, you know, what he wants to do. Does he want to be a mercenary or serve the king or do something for people and fight for people's right? So I like this period, you know, and that's why we chose year night 14 or 2, which was very, You know, many things happened there. And it started like that. And basically some people came to me, they brought this script, and I like this idea. And then we decided not to use the script.

And we decided to hire Peter, Peter Bach, to write a script. So he wrote the first script, which was in Czech language, and we wanted to do it in Czech. But then we decided it would be like too expensive just for the check market. And we had to move to another script, which was in English and that was. It was like, you know, many versions of it to the end, which was shot. So the movie is the kind of the end of an 11-year journey to get Janjiska onto the international stage? Basically, it was 11 years. We shot the movie in 2018, and then it was done like two years ago,

but then the pandemic hit and we couldn't release it, so we were waiting for the better days, and we finally released it. If I came at something, you was asking why film about Janjiska today, I think there is one more reason because he's really well-known figure here, but he is more as connected to the Housefight Revolution, as Peter said, which was highly abused by the communist propaganda. You know, we were born in communist regime, and when we was learning about Jishka in schools, it was all based on the, you know, huge propaganda narrative, which was saying, you know, these

revolutionaries, they came to free people, whatever. I think it still is a task for our generation to try to, you know, dig out the real picture of these people today, real contexts, real, you know, time, what they were worried about, what their lives were about, and why they did what they did. I mean, well, the reality was then, not what this propaganda saying. That's a fascinating aspect of it, I think. So as you mentioned, this film is set in 40202,

which is sort of 15, maybe 20 years before Jan Jiska's real moment of fame and coming to the forefront. So it's about how he moves into being that person. What do we actually know about Jan's early years? I did read somewhere that Jiske might be a kind of nickname relating to him having lost an eye when he was quite young. Is that true? We don't know much about him from those days. We know where he was born, probably when, but we don't know exactly when. We actually don't even know which I he lost first, because he lost the other eye later on when he was fighting.

So we don't know that much. We know he worked for the king. We know some other things and other details which we were trying to use. But it also helped us to create some story between things could happen and which was describing the situation and what we wanted to say with the film the best. And basically, the movie why we decided also to do a movie about him is because in these days, many people fight for freedom, like before, and it's going to be in the future. It's going to be the same, and it's going to be repeating. So we wanted to do a movie about fighting for justice and about faith.

And also, we love our country. So we wanted to do a movie where you can show beautiful land and castles and everything. And that was our main goal to tell people this story differently. And actually something most of the people in the Czech Republic wouldn't expect because they would expect his biography and what he really did later on. But we thought this is more suitable for these days, you know, when people fight for something what they believe in. And especially now with the Ukraine, which happened afterwards.

But it's still, you know, it's like something having. happen even before and something is happening all the time in the world. So that's never ending story unfortunately. If I can add something he was saying what we really know about that time. I think as you just said almost nothing is known. Just small parts of the large puzzle and the small part from my point of view are absolutely fascinating because what we know for sure that he was not in this year early on he was captured as an outlaw and he was almost sentenced to death. But then there was pardon coming from Prague from the very king. He was pardoning him personally. Why? And why just him? Why not the others? So these are

really, you know, small parts of the puzzles. And if you are working as a, you know, storyteller, you want to draw a bigger picture using these small parts. It sounds like it's a really good place in his life to be because there are bits of information that you can use as the building blocks, but there's also scope to tell the story that you want to tell without, you know, getting too tangled up in what's real history and what isn't. Yeah, sometimes it's really good that you know a lot about the period of about the story, but sometimes you just need to get the main idea and main idea of his life. What he was doing, how did it end up? He's one of seven never defeated channels of all time. So that means.

matters and that is something what didn't happen from one day to another. So he had to train before. He had to be really good mercenary. He had to lead people before. So he was also Kingsguard. He did many things. And something had to form him. And as we believe, there is always a woman behind every successful man. So that was the choice. And we had wife, Catherine. He had actually two, probably the same name. That's what we found out about in this personal life. Hi there, I'm Don Wildman, the host of the brand new podcast, American History Hit. Join me twice a week as I explore the past to help us understand the United States today. You'll hear how codebreakers uncovered secret Japanese plans for the Battle of Midway. Visit Chief Poetan as he

prepares for war with the British. See Walt Disney accuse his former colleagues of being communists and uncover the hidden history that lies beneath Central Park. From pre-colonial America to independence, slavery to civil rights, the gold rush to the space race. I'll be speaking to leading experts to delve into America's past. New episodes dropping every Monday and Thursday. So join me on American History Hit, a podcast by History Hit. One of the interesting things I read about Jan was that there's a mention of him having a memorial mass celebrated every year on St. Nicholas's Day for his father, his mother, both of his wives called Catherine and their ancestors. So Jan has a big military reputation,

but what do you think that tells us about him away from the battlefield? Does it talk about his Christian faith a bit more? Does it talk about his concern for his family and his ancestors? Basically, we didn't want to get too deep into the part of the history, which we understand which was the Haasai revolution later on. The reasons for that were different than we are describing in the movie. You know, some of it was part of that, but mostly of it was religion. But on the other side, of course, people were unhappy and they lost faith because they were treated poorly by everybody. And there was a lot of very poor people and they really lost faith. The revolution wouldn't be happening if the people were satisfied. So it's pretty much the same

like in these days, you know, and then it was the religion part of it. But, But I believe that it just escalated because of that religion part of the revolution. So those people were fighting for something what they believed is right. But I think the main reason of everything was because they wanted better life. They wanted to have some hope and live for something. And they really felt like everything is kind of over. That's why they were desperate. So we wanted to describe the beginnings of this, you know, just like why people felt so.

bad. How Zishka felt, you know, and what he believed in and what he had his rights. I mean, he had his rules. And that's why he was that good, you know, because he had really great rules and he was following them. And that made him to be really great general because people honored him, you know, and they thought like he is the guy who is doing what he says. And that was not always the case in these days. From my point of view, at that time, the very important thing was that the Papal Sizma, which was back then. And from my point of view, that really meant almost everybody, for every Christian, the Western Christian, not the Byzantians. The pillar of saturday somehow crumbles. So what should they believe in?

The Holy Father, there is another Holy Father in France, one in Rome. what trust or what guidance should we follow? I think this was definitely an impact to people like Jishka, who was definitely a strong believer. And this type of uncertainty simply has to have a huge impact inside him as well as for others. And the Hussusser's revolution back then, it was simple. They believed that the last day is coming. The last day, the end of the war was set on like your experience.

the last was 2000, for example. Then it was like something like someday in January, 14, 21, I think. And everybody was facing it. They were simply freaking out that they had to clarify their lives, their souls, to be accepted to the heaven. And so they simply take a weapon because they were told that the hazards knew the only true, which will lead slightly to the heaven. So no time to hesitate.

You have to choose now. So Jishka in his 60, it was chance for him as well to wash all his sins. From this period, we are having that film about. And to lead these people directed to heaven. I'm pretty sure they really believe in this. Not only have a bad life. To have the afterlife in heaven. And definitely that Peter wanted it,

to have a film about the born of a leader of the guy who really was leading the army. but not only are he, but his followers. Yeah, no, fascinating. I think it's fair to say, correct me if I'm wrong, but Jan Jiske is something of a controversial figure. So up against his kind of loyalty and bravery and his status as a national hero, there's a reputation for brutality and cruelty as well.

Do figures like Jan, I mean, do they need both of those extremes for them to work? How do you address that in the film as well? Do we get both sides of that character in the film? Yeah, I think definitely you're going to get both. Because he starts as a paid killer. So we show him as somebody who does work for anybody, basically, who pays him. And then he finds out that there is probably something better to fight for and it's not money. I believe that every regime tried to use Jishka differently.

Some regime was glorifying him that he is the saver like the communists. and other regime was saying, like, no, he was a murder. So I think it's somewhere in between because, of course, you know, he was killing people. But he had his rules. And, you know, for example, when he was going to some town and he wanted to feed the town, he gave them an offer. And he said, you know, if you basically defeat, you're not going to be killed. If not, you're going to kill you.

And these rules, you know, he was following. and that's something what is honorable. And I think that's something by all the other people also were following him. There are good sides of him and bad sides. And we wanted to show both. We wanted to show the period, you know, when he was not the most famous general he was before. That must make him quite an interesting character for you to write as well, Petter.

Thinking about the brutality back then, I always picture in my head from the later period of the hillside, uprising because everybody knows these years were full of you know burning live people at stake because they were heretics. The hillsides are a better system. They burn it alive as well but inside the bucket closed one so they were simply cooked alive and that level of brutality is really fascinating and it's something kind of full of hatred because it's sick. So I think that time period was really full of what you were describing some absolute sick brutality

on one time and on the other hand the great ideals of purely and right way of life were you conscious of the potential conflicts between historical fact

and telling a great story on screen it's where lots of historical epic films are always criticised and I guess you're helped by deliberately going for 1402 which is a less well-known part of his life so you have a bit more room to tell his story.

But do you feel a responsibility to the history to move this Czech hero onto an international stage for everybody to understand? Yeah, you know, we had many discussions like that, what we have to say, what we have to do, what we shouldn't do. And it's very difficult. And then after the shooting,

we were editing the movie with Steve Rosenblum, who is an editor of Braveheart or The Last Samurai. And I was talking to him a lot about all these things. And I was asking, how did you do it there? You know, what did you use? And he was telling me, when they were with Mel Gibson in the editing room, they were changing stuff there. And they were adding, you know, voiceovers and changing things,

even just like not historically right, but were great for the movie. And he said, like, you have to have a great movie. otherwise historical effects, they don't matter. And of course, try to use as many historical effects as possible. So we did the same and we are trying to be as right as possible. But on the other side, the story had to be great. So sometimes we just had to create stuff. But on the other side, we just like, you know, we have big advantage

because not many things are known from this period of his life. So we could actually create almost anything and it'd be fine. And I had this historian who was reading basically every draft of our script and who watched every possible cup of the movie. And I always ask him, is this possible? Is this right? And he said, yes, this is not right. So we changed it.

If something was incorrect, we didn't put it into the movie. At the end, he said, this could happen like that. I'm not saying that it happened like that, but this could happen. And that was enough for us. If you want to really follow history as best as you can, you're doing documentaries or these podcasts or whatever. From my point of view, when it was maybe the first focused screening or the second focus screening, we add a question to the focus group.

Did you know Janjishka before the screening? And after the film, did you Google his name? And the purge of the saying, yes, the second question was the winning. for us because that what we wanted. We wanted to simply, you know, like the... Who the hell was he? Good. Let's Google it. Yeah, light the fire sparked the interest that causes people to go away and learn about Jan. It was actually 75% of people who Google Jan or Haasid revolution, which was super high. I didn't expect that it's going to be this guy.

That's incredible. I mean, the last question that I'd written down to ask you is, what do you hope an audience take away from this film? But I feel like you've just answered that question, that they'll go and Google. Janjiska. Yeah, that was definitely one of our goals to promote Czech Republic and this incredible story of Janjiska. And for me, even more important was to tell people that if there is something bad happening to them, it still can end up good and just to stress the faith. Because faith is very needed in our lives, because then it's a reason to live. And, and and move forward and do stuff.

And if something you don't like is happening, you should just like not only watching, you should do something about it. And I think this is for me even more important than the voting. If you choose to fight, you may die. But for your cause, and that is a good death. Thank you very much for spending some time talking to us today about Janjiska and the Hussite Rebell.

and the film sounds amazing. Hopefully we've whetted listeners' appetites to go and, A, watch the film and then B, Google Janjiska and find out lots more about him and the Hussite Revolution and Czech history. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you for a minute.

I hope you enjoyed that and that you'll seek the film out, and maybe even that some of you have already got your phones out Googling Jan Jishka. You can join Dr. Kat Jarman on Tuesday for another brand new episode. Don't forget to also subscribe wherever you get your podcast from. and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you have a moment, please do drop us a review or rate us anywhere that you listen to podcasts. It really does help new listeners to find us. If you're enjoying this and looking for more medieval goodness in your life,

please subscribe to our Medieval Monday's newsletter by following the links in the show notes below. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with history hit.