Leopold Šťastný, a Football Career and a Central European Life

One life was enough for Leopold Šťastný (1911–1996) to live under nearly every political regime Central Europe produced in the twentieth century. A star of interwar Bratislava football and a Czechoslovak champion, he was banned from the pitch in 1940 because of his Jewish origins. He survived the Shoah; his parents were murdered. After 1945, as a coach, he led ŠK Bratislava to several titles before the State Security imprisoned him in 1953. He moved to Austria in 1965, managed the Austrian national team from 1968 to 1975 and prepared the country’s return to the World Cup in 1978 and 1982. In 1980 he joined his children in Canada, where he died in Toronto in 1996.

What does politics do to a life? From the First Czechoslovak Republic to the Slovak State, from communist Czechoslovakia to Austria and then Canada, Šťastný’s path shows, on the scale of a single biography, the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion that shaped sport in Central Europe. It also invites us to question those still at work in sport today.

The lecture will be followed by a reception. Admission is free.

Exhibition. The travelling exhibition “Leopold Šťastný”, produced by the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava (2020) and adapted by the Innsbruck City Archive and City Museum (2025), will be on display in the entrance hall of the Desmarais Building (55 Laurier Avenue East) from 30 October to 15 November 2026. Free access during building hours.