Jiří Louda (3 October 1920 – 1 September 2015) was a Czech

heraldist Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...

and veteran of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Louda was considered among the leading coats of arms designers in the Czech Republic and the former Czechoslovakia. He designed the current coat of arms of the Czech Republic, adopted in 1992, which incorporates the displays of the three historic

Czech lands The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands ( cs, České země ) are the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. Together the three have formed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia since 1918, the Czech Socialist Republic since ...

. Louda also designed the standard (official presidential flag) of President of the Czech Republic, which was adopted in 1993 following the country's independence. Additionally, Louda created coat of arms of the

Olomouc Region Olomouc Region ( cs, Olomoucký kraj; , ; pl, Kraj ołomuniecki) is an administrative unit ( cs, kraj) of the Czech Republic, located in the north-western and central part of its historical region of Moravia (''Morava'') and in a small part of t ...

, as well as the municipal coats of arms for more than 200 towns and cities throughout the Czech Republic. Louda was born in Kutná Hora,

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, on 3 October 1920. He fled to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

during

and the

Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

, where the

Czechoslovak government-in-exile The Czechoslovak government-in-exile, sometimes styled officially as the Provisional Government of Czechoslovakia ( cz, Prozatímní vláda Československa, sk, Dočasná vláda Československa), was an informal title conferred upon the Czechos ...

was headquartered. He joined the exiled Czechoslovakian military during World War II and served as a

paratrooper A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during Worl ...

. He was imprisoned by the Czechoslovakia's

Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...

during the late 1940s. Louda was released from prison in 1950. He is best known in the English-speaking world to students of royal and noble genealogies and royal families as co-author with

Michael Maclagan Michael Maclagan, (14 April 1914 – 13 August 2003) was a British historian, antiquary and herald. He was Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford, for more than forty years, a long-serving officer of arms, and Lord Mayor o ...

(who wrote the text, while Louda compiled and drew the tables) of the best-selling ''Lines of Succession'', first published in 1981, and subsequently reprinted and revised on several occasions. Jiří Louda died in

Olomouc Olomouc (, , ; german: Olmütz; pl, Ołomuniec ; la, Olomucium or ''Iuliomontium'') is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 99,000 inhabitants, and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019). Located on t ...

on 1 September 2015, at the age of 94.

Publications

* With

. ''Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe''. London: Orbis & New York: Clarkson Potter, 1981; revised and updated edition, 1991; adapted small-format edition, 2002. (The 1981 American edition was published as ''Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe'', but later editions took the European title.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Louda, Jiri 1920 births 2015 deaths Heraldists Coats of arms designers Flag designers Heraldic artists Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic) Recipients of the Czechoslovak War Cross Czech coats of arms Czechoslovak military personnel of World War II Czechoslovak exiles People from Kutná Hora