Urns containing the remains of Vera and Milan Kundera have returned from Paris to the writer’s hometown of Brno. On Friday, they were handed over to Brno Mayor Marketa Vankova and Tomas Kubicek, head of the Moravian Regional Library, where they will be housed until a grave is prepared, Kubicek told reporters today.
The remains were brought in from Paris by publisher Antoine Gallimard, the executor of the couple’s will, and by the former Czech ambassador to Paris, Michal Fleischmann.
“Michal Fleischmann and I promised that after Mrs Kunderova’s death we would make sure that both urns would be placed in Brno’s cemetery,” said Kubicek. “At the moment they are in Brno, and after the grave is ready they will be transferred there. Until that happens, they will remain safe in the Moravian Library.”
Milan Kundera, one of the most important writers of the 20th century, whose work has been translated into more than 50 languages, died in Paris on 11 July 2023 after a long illness, at the age of 94. His wife Vera kept the urn with his remains at home in Paris, and also approached the City of Brno to help her secure her husband’s final resting place. Brno city councillors agreed to place the remains of both spouses in the last available grave in the circle of honour at the city’s Central Cemetery. Vera Kunderova died on 13 September 2024, aged 89.
In October 2024, Brno city councillors approved an architectural and artistic competition to design the couple’s tombstone. In recent weeks, they set up a 13-member jury to review and evaluate the competition proposals. The winning proposal is expected to be installed in mid-2025.
“Milan Kundera’s work will inspire us for many years to come thanks to its timelessness,” said Vankova. “It is a great honour and commitment for Brno to prepare and manage with dignity the final resting place of the famous couple who, although they lived for a long time in France, wished to end their life journey in the writer’s hometown. The legacy of the Kundera couple continues to resonate around the world, but it has a special and strong resonance here – the Milan Kundera Library is proof of that.”
In 2020, Kundera donated his library with its extensive archives to the Moravian Library. The Milan Kundera Library opened there on 1 April 2023, the day of Kundera’s 94th birthday, with more than 3,000 of the author’s publications, portrait photographs, snapshots from cultural events, awards, paintings and drawings by Kundera, and his personal library.
