Printing tradition in Litomyšl for more than 500 years
The historically first printing house in Litomyšl was established in 1503 by Pavel z Meziříčí and he called it Impression on the Olivetská mountain, which happened a few years after the book printing invention by Johann Gutenberg. In 1641 it was allowed to print religious books. In the 17th century the printing house was owned by the family Kamenický who printed favourite calendars and in 1728 the first Czech spelling-book was published there. In 1776 the printing house was bought by Václav Tureček who was the owner until 1846. A lot of people knew „The Printing house U Turečků“ at that time. During the 19th century Josef Kajetán Tyl published his first stories there. In 1852 the printing house was taken over by his relative Antonín Augusta. One of his well known activities was the beginning of magazine printing. In 1860 he became the leader of the magazine Obrazy života, whose editor was Jan Neruda. Antonín Augusta was famous for the first Litomyšl’s newspaper called Hlas z Litomyšle which he printed in 1861. He belonged to the group of people who published Czech scientifical books and his name is also connected with the last stay of Božena Němcová in Litomyšl. Augusta offered her the publishing of her papers and it came to the first publication of the famous book Babička. Since 1890 his son Vladimír led the printing house. Vladimír reconstructed the company, equiped it with new mahcines and increased the production. Because of the advanced age he sold the company in 1939 to Šperla’s family, who ran the printing house under the same name Augusta, printing machine in Litomyšl. After the second World War the company was cancelled and later renovated. In August 1931 the company was given back to Šperla’s family, however, until 10 years the production stopped. At the beginning of 90s Petr Lorenc started to be connected with the printing house. He was taught in Augusta’s company (it was a state company of Východočeská tiskárna at that time) and afterwards he worked in the printing house like a few other people who are now present employers in HRG. Nowadays our company has had an important place on the Czech and European polygraphic market.
Fotoreportáž v tiskarně Augusta (toho času Vychodočeské tiskárny n.p.) z roku 1983.
Antonín Augusta
