Jiří Louda

Jiří Louda (3 October 1920 – 1 September 2015) was a Czech heraldist and veteran of World War II. Louda was considered among the leading designers of coats of arms in the Czech Republic and the former Czechoslovakia.^[1] He designed the current coat of arms of the Czech Republic, adopted in 1992, which incorporates the displays of the three historic Czech lands.^[1] Louda also designed the standard (official presidential flag) of President of the Czech Republic, which was adopted in 1993 following the country's independence.^[2] Additionally, Louda created the coat of arms of the Olomouc Region, as well as the municipal coats of arms for more than 200 towns and cities throughout the Czech Republic.^[1][2]

Louda was born in Kutná Hora, Czechoslovakia, on 3 October 1920. He fled to the United Kingdom during World War II and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, where the Czechoslovak government-in-exile was headquartered.^[1] He joined the exiled Czechoslovakian military during World War II and served as a paratrooper.^[1]

He was imprisoned by Czechoslovakia's Communist regime during the late 1940s, and released in 1950.^[1]

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 (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 on 1 September 2015, at the age of 94.^[1][2][3]

• With Michael Maclagan. 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.)