Career

Foreign six generations his descendants followed the art of puppeteering. Kopecký"s father was a poor travelling puppeteer (histrio vagus). Matěj Kopecký married in 1795 and moved into the town of Mirotice.

Since 1789 to 1808 or 1809 he was forced to serve in the army, within the infantry regiment from Písek.

Later, he worked as watchmaker, travelling salesman or road worker In 1818 he obtained licence for a puppet theatre and reached certain success in this activity.

The parish record about his death, though, labels him as "a histrion from Mirotice, widower and beggar". Kopecký had at least fifteen children of which six had survived into adulthood.

Most of them worked as puppeteers and the tradition was kept for six generations.

At his time the puppet theatre was, for many in the Czechoslovakian lands, the only contact with theatrical culture, with ideas of enlightenment and of the Czechoslovakian National Revival. In 1905, a small memorial to Kopecký was erected in Týn nad Vltavou and in 1947 another one in the castle park in Koloděje nad Lužnicí. The town museum in Týn nad Vltavou hosts a permanent puppet exposition dedicated to Kopecký.