Events: October 2013
September 2013
November 2013
Margita Titlová Ylovsky: BIO
10/09/13 – 06/10/13 Exhibitions
Margita Titlová Ylovsky (born 1957, Prague) is one of the most distinctive artists of the 1980s generation. Between 1977 and 1983, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of painting under Professor Oldřich Oplt. She had previously mainly focused on expressive painting and drawing which, thanks to her physical conception and temporality crossed over into action art. She later concentrated on objects and installations. Her basic means of expression is the recording of an immediate gesture in reaction to a current emotional state. More
Civic Society: Freedom Is Not To Be Taken For Granted
October 2, 2013, 08:45 Conferences
The one-day conference Civic Society: Freedom Is Not To Be Taken for Granted is being held in connection with the first presentation of the Václav Havel Award for Human Rights, which is bestowed by the Council of Europe, the Václav Havel Library and the Charter 77 Foundation. The conference will be conducted in English with simultaneous translation into Czech. Organisers: Václav Havel Library, Charter 77 Foundation Partners: Fondation Zdenek et Michaela Bakala, Václav Havel Airport Prague, VIZE 97 Foundation. Conference Programme and Participants Bios Video 1: Welcome Speech and I. Panel Video 2: II. Panel Video 3: Interview with Laureate of Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, III. Panel, Closing Remarks Photographs
Václav Havel´Place in Washington
102013103112 Participation on events abroad
An unveiling of a memorial to Václav Havel on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington. Inivitated guests: Dagmar Havlová, Madeleine Albright and Suzanne Vega. More
Min Ko Naing: Homo Homini Award Laureate
October 3, 2013, 18:00
Min Ko Naing is a dissident, a leader of the 1988 student movement and the most important figure in civic society in Burma today. He received the Homo Homini Award – which is given to an individual who has contributed significantly to advancing human rights, democracy and the non-violent resolution of political conflict – from the NGO People in Need in 2000. However, he has not been able to accept the prize in person until now as he had been sentenced to almost 15 years in prison for organising student protests and was only released in January 2012. More
Václav Havel (Library)
05/10/13 – 14/10/13 Participation on events abroad
The Václav Havel Library at the Mutual Inspirations 2013 festival The Václav Havel Library has contributed a broad selection of documentary and feature films closely linked to Václav Havel to this year’s edition of the Mutual Inspirations festival, which is dedicated to his life and work. Films such as Every Young Man, The Mist, The Heart above the Castle and Leaving will be screened at the National Gallery of Art on 5 and 11–13 October 2013. On Monday 14 October the director of the Václav Havel Library, Marta Smolíková, will present its activities at the Czech Embassy. For more information go to www.mutualinspirations.org
Kateřina Štenclová: Continuo II
08/10/13 – 07/11/13 Exhibitions
Karenina Štenclová (born 1959, Prague) is one of the few painters on the Czech scene to have focused purely on abstract painting over a long period. She began experimenting with colour and image during her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague between 1982 and 1988. From the monochromatic canvasses that she created in the 1990s she moved on to the free gestural painting she still goes in for to this day. More
Zdeněk Pinc: Paradoxes of Normality
October 9, 2013, 10:30
The first in a third series of lectures dedicated to the “memory” of the Czech dissent. The series Memory of Dissent is organised by the Historical Sociology department of the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University and the Václav Havel Library and headed by sociologist Nicolas Maslowski.
Tania Malyarchuk in Prague
October 9, 2013, 19:00
A meeting with the Ukrainian writer Tania Malyarchuk, the author of six short story collections and one novel. Malyarchuk’s prose has been translated into many languages and her short story The Butterfly was turned into a movie. Her work, which draws on magical realism, appeared in Czech in anthologies of Ukrainian short stories published in 2008 and 2012 and in the magazine Aluze, also in 2012. The evening will be presented by Alexej Sevruk, who will also translate where necessary. The event is being held in cooperation with the Czech Association of Ukrainianists.
Introducing Timothy Snyder´s Bloodlands
October 14, 2013, 19:00
The publishers Paseka and Prostor will present Krvavé země, the Czech translation of Bloodlands by the US historian Timothy Snyder. The book explores a dark and previously unknown chapter of 20th century history: the brutal murder of the civilian population in countries across Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It maps the rampages of both Stalin and Hitler, while its author had the unique opportunity to compare the mechanisms of both totalitarian regimes. The evening will be moderated by the director of the Paseka publishing house, Stanislav Škoda, while translator Petruška Šustrová will be special guest.
The fate of Slavic reciprocity, or how will Czech-Russian relations look after the elections?
October 15, 2013, 19:00 Participation on local events
A pre-election debate with representatives of political parties on their foreign policy toward the Russian Federation. Issues will include the extension of Temelín, the Czech Republic’s energy security, Czech representation at its embassy in Moscow, the upholding (or otherwise) of human rights in the RF, and of course relations with the EU and the question of whether Europe’s largest state should or should not be allowed to join. Guests: Ivan Gabal (KDU) Ondřej Liška (SZ) David Šeich (ODS) The debate will be moderated by journalist Ondřej Kundra. The evening is being organised by the Strategie-31 initiative (CZ) with the support of the Václav Havel Library.
Markéta Křížová: The Czech lands, Europe and the World
October 16, 2013, 19:00
The birth of the modern era out of the process of overseas colonisation The first lecture in a new series conceived by Markéta Křížová (Centre for Ibero-American Studies at the Arts Faculty of Charles University) which will explore, among other things, the concepts of human rights and universal freedoms against the broader context of historical events. Even after the cooling of emotions surrounding the 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of America, the subject of overseas expansion and the conquest of other cultures remains a sore point in Europe’s self-image. What a century ago was a source of European confidence and superiority has become a source of doubt…
Monodrama IV. Peter Turrini: Finally, the end
October 17, 2013, 19:00
October’s evening from a series of staged readings from the works of Czech and foreign writers will be dedicated to the Austrian playwright Peter Turrini. His monologue Finally, The End (Endlich Schluss, 1997) explores in masterly brevity the life of a successful journalist who, due to his disregard for his surroundings, loses his own identity. It is built on the stunningly simple opening sentence: “I will count to a thousand and do myself in.” Featuring: Rudolf Stärz Directed by: Vojtěch Bárta
The future of Czech education
October 18, 2013, 18:00 Participation on local events
A pre-election debate How will Czech education look after the elections? What do the candidates for minister of education plan for their first days in office? Where do they stand on informal education, tuition fees and the future of regional education? Representatives of the political parties will answer these questions in a debate organised by students from the Czech High School Students Union. Guests: Marcel Chládek (ČSSD)Petr Fiala (ODS)Jiří Zlatuška (ANO 2011)Ivan Gabal (KDU-ČSL)Zakaria Nemrah (SPOZ)Ondřej Liška (SZ)
Literature from Hell
October 22, 2013, 19:00
Hell, a school magazine published since 2009 by students of the Jana Neruda Grammar School that originally served in part as “an act of resistance against the then management” has, after numerous pauses and mutations, become the essential voice of THE YOUNGEST GENERATION OF LITERATI, whose writing entertains, interests, compels, tortures, pleases and more. Tomáš Roček, Honza Koniáš Vávra, Dominik Herzán, Anna Šímová and perhaps others will present their texts, while the evening will be hosted by Hell editors Sára Herrmannová and Benedikt Straňák.
Memory of Dissent I: Milan Balabán - The Dissent as an Adventure and Certanity (9. 10. 2013)
October 23, 2013, 10:30
The second in a third series of lectures dedicated to the “memory” of the Czech dissent. The series Memory of Dissent is organised by the Historical Sociology department of the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University and the Václav Havel Library and headed by sociologist Nicolas Maslowski.
Challenges, paradoxes, plays: Václav Havel No 1 Largo desolato
October 24, 2013, 19:00
First of a series of evenings dedicated to the plays of Václav Havel. Largo Desolato is according to its author: “…a ‘musical consideration’ of the heaviness of human life; on the difficulty of man’s struggle for his own identity with an impersonal power wishing to take it from him; on the strange discord between man’s real possibilities and the role that his environment, fate and even his own work have condemned him to; about how it is easy to know theoretically how to live, but how hard it is to actually live that way; about the eternal ‘woe of reason’; about the tragic impossibility of mutual understanding between people who think well of one another; about human loneliness, fear and cowardice; etc., etc. – and finally of course (mainly) about the tragicomic and absurd dimension of all these themes.” The plays of Václav Havel from various points of view: the experience of directors and actors, the opinions of experts and critics, video excerpts and audio recordings, the memories of those involved and last but not least the intentions, inspirations, reflections and remarks of the writer himself. The evening will be hosted by Anna Freimanová.
A reading for Mikhail Khodorkovsky
October 25, 2013, 18:00 Participation on local events
The Strategie-31 initiative (CZ) and the Václav Havel Library are taking part in a worldwide expression of solidarity with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and all political prisoners in Russia. Khodorkovsky, the former executive director of the company Yukos whose arrest occurred exactly 10 years ago, and his business partner Lebedev were sentenced to many years in prison in dubious trials. More
VHL Film Marathon VIII: Václav Havel as the media symbol of the revolution
October 29, 2013, 18:00
29. 10. / TUES / 18:00 / ŘETĚZOVÁ 7 November 1989 turned Václav Havel into one of the biggest stars in the Czech and international media, with the media beginning to take an interest in both the story of his life and his theatre work. Theatres put on numerous productions of Havel’s dramas, while Czechoslovak Television screened a version of Václav Havel’s only TV play, the 1960s piece Butterfly on the Aerial. The evening will feature a meditation on Havel by Vojtěch Jasný, the referred to TV production of Butterfly on the Aerial and a documentary from 1991 on preparations for a production of Temptation directed by Jan Grossman. More
Czech foreign policy in the new power configuration
October 30, 2013, 18:00
Is it the end for Havelite human rights ideals in foreign policy? Will the Czech Republic be known for economic diplomacy alone? What will the Czech view of Europe be? Journalist and analyst Jan Macháček will discuss these questions and more with his guests: Roman Joch, Hynek Kmoníček, Ondřej Soukup a Cyril Svoboda.
Karel Hvížďala and Jiří Přibáň: Tyrannised Justice
October 31, 2013, 17:00
For nearly 10 years, Karel Hvížďala has conducted interviews with Jiří Přibán, professor of philosophy and sociology at Cardiff University in the UK. They have in particular focused on the state of our society in the field of law, the role of the judiciary, the (non)professionalism of politicians and Europe’s position and role in world politics. The result of this debate is a new interview in book form entitled Tyranizovaná spravedlnost (Tyrannised Justice), which both authors will present in an evening of literature and debate.