MÍCEK, EDUARD (1891–1962). Eduard Mícek, Slavic language scholar and professor, was born on August 19, 1891, in Frydek, Moravia, son of Jana Mícek. After attending public schools he studied at a four-year teachers' college and was certified in Czech and German. During military service in World War I he was gassed and suffered permanent lung damage. In 1919 he was appointed to the Paris Peace Conference as an expert on Czechoslovakia. In 1920 he began graduate studies at Charles University in Prague. He received his doctorate from King's College, University of London, in 1924, and later that year he immigrated to the United States. Mícek spent two years as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. In 1926 he accepted an invitation from the University of Texas to become an instructor of Slavic languages. When the department of Slavic languages originated in 1929, he became its chairman; he served in that capacity until 1958. In 1936 Mícek was vice president of the Czech Texas Centennial Association. During World War II he spoke frequently to the Austin Forum of Public Opinion on the Nazi regime, the underground in Europe, and Russian-American relations. In 1942 he taught the first class in Russian offered at the university. He was elected vice president of the American Association of Teachers of Slavonic and East European Languages in 1949 and served as president the following year. For five years, beginning in 1954, he was president and organizer of the Czech Majales Festival. In the first thirty-two years of his thirty-six at the University of Texas, Mícek never missed a class. He was the author of numerous books and articles, including The Real Tolstoy (1958), Tolstoy the Artist and Humanist (1961), and a series of four illustrated Czech readers. In addition to Czech and German, Mícek was fluent in Russian and Polish. He was married to Ella Surdivant; they were divorced after two years and had no children. He died on June 25, 1962, in Austin and was buried in Memorial Park. See also CZECHS.

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