The Insanity Defence

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 9, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Debate with Respekt

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 10, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Terje B. Englund – The Spy Who Arrived Late: The Czechoslovak Intelligence Service in Norway

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 14, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Alongside this are descriptions of very cunning spying techniques in which one side loses sight of the fact the other can be just as clever, or even one step ahead… Few would expect so much espionage activity between Communist Czechoslovakia and Norway. And few would expect either that virtually 30 years after the Velvet Revolution we still don’t know all we should about the work of the StB. This makes Terje B. Englund a “spy” who most certainly hasn’t arrived late.

Taking part in a debate with the author will be historian Petr Blažek of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, Radek Schovánek, a researcher focused on the history of the Communist regime, and translator Zuzana Hlavičková. Denisa Novotná will moderate.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Prostor publishing house and the Scandinavian House.

Republic Café: Waiting for Palach

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 15, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Last year also saw a major wave of civic defiance. Can today’s protests and demonstrations, and in particular the reasons behind them, be compared to what was referred to as Palach Week? How do Czech and Slovak society express their disagreement with the state of society now? What are today’s motivations and expectations? And what is the response of the governing political elite?

Guests: Daniel Kroupa, politician, philosopher and teacher; Šárka Kružíková, translator and activist, Proč – proto! initiative; Mikuláš Minář, co-founder of the Milion chvilek pro demokracii civic group; and Juraj Šeliga, co-founder of the initiative Za slušné Slovensko.

Actress and TV host Bára Štěpánová, one of the youngest signatories of Charter 77 and an active participant in Palach Week in 1989, will chair the discussion.

Nadia Urbinati: Democracy: Decline or Transformation?

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 17, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

A debate with its author Nadia Urbinati, a renowned Italian and American political theorist from New York’s Columbia University, will be chaired by the book’s translator, Jan Bíba of Charles University’s Faculty of Arts.

The lecture and discussion will take place in English.

Václav Havel: Tomorrow

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 21, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

A historical meditation in five acts from 1988. It is 27 October 1918. Alois Rašín knows that in the morning it will be necessary to vote in independence. But how does one go about that?

A somewhat atypical Václav Havel play – it is neither drama, reportage, farce nor historical mediation, but draws a little on each.

Director: Šimon Dominik; dramaturg: Martin Urban; creative co-operation: Karel Čapek and Tereza Vašíčková; cast: Martin Polách, Štěpánka Prýmková, Přemysl Houška, Petr Hanák, Ladislav Dušek, Jan Jedlinský and Michaela Foitová.

Bernd Posselt: The Story of Europe

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 22, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

Bernd Posselt, a former member of the European Parliament of many years (and current candidate for it) and the head of the Sudeten German Homeland Association, returns to the roots of Europe and its leading personalities, including Václav Havel, in his book The Story of Europe. He also sets out his own vision for Europe’s future and explores possible ways in which Europeans could overcome their current fragmentation and become a community capable of withstanding the demands of today’s globalised world.

Jaroslav Šonka will host a conversation between Bernd Posselt and Milan Horáček (who also served as an MEP for several years).

Edward Luce: The Retreat of Western Liberalism

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 23, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

The West’s hegemony has gradually weakened, while at the same time other centres of culture and civilisation have become markedly stronger. To what degree has the economic and geopolitical decline of Western civilisation been linked to the development of individual freedom and the equal participation of citizens in political power? For a long time there was a prevailing, but unsubstantiated, belief that the West’s success was primarily due to values that the majority of its citizens understood and shared. And that nothing could threaten the triumphant march of democracy and freedom. In his text, Edward Luce, chief commentator of the Washington office of The Financial Times, argues that reality has shown us something else entirely.

A Czech translation of The Retreat of Western Liberalism has been freshly issued by the Argo publishing house as the first title in its new Crossover series. Argo editor Oldřich Vágner will introduce the book and chair the following debate. 

Karel Skalický: The Church in Europe, Europe in the Church

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 24, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

The author will present his recently published monograph Církev v Evropě, Evropa v církvi (The Church in Europe, Europe in the Church). It offers a theological view of the history of Europe via the prism of freedom and revolution (the Trinity), which reflects European history, particularly the history of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia and in other countries behind the Iron states via key historical turning points: revolutions.

An evening or readings, recollections and dialogues will be hosted by theologians František Štěch and Zdeněk A. Eminger.

The Uyghur Region Under Chinese Government: Re-education Camps and 21st Century Digital Dictatorship

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 28, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

In a spirit of new normalisation, the Communist Party of China is bringing back totalitarian aspects of Leninist state control. In 2014 the government launched, under the pretext of a “people’s war against terror”, an extensive campaign to tighten control of Uyghur society and to suppress the Uyghurs’ religious and ethnic identity. To achieve this Chen Quanguo, who racked up plenty of experience with the earlier introduction of hard-line rule in Tibet, was appointed in 2016. Chen has created a police state in Xinjiang, employing state-of-the-art technology to control the “defective” population.

The establishment of “political re-education camps”, in which estimates suggest up to a million Uyghurs and other Muslims (roughly 10 percent of the whole population of native ethnic groups) are being held, is alarming. People frequently disappear overnight without a trace and it is unclear if they will ever return. The religious and cultural life of the Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups is subject to ever stricter restrictions, which is having a destructive impact on their identity.

For this reason Czech and Slovak academics launched an open appeal calling on the governments of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and China to shut down re-education camps for Uyghurs and other minorities and to respect of internationally recognised human rights in China. You too can take part in this appeal. The full text is available here: https://bit.ly/2Cjqx61

The subject will be discussed by Ondřej Klimeš, a Sinologist and Uyghur Studies expert from the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and an initiator of the appeal, Filip Jirouš, a Sinologist focused on the issue as part of the Sinopsis project, and Martin Hála, director of Sinopsis and another initiator of the appeal.

Kateřina Procházková will moderate.

France Today

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 29, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00

These and other questions will be discussed by speakers familiar with the situation in France at present: Kateřina Lukešová, Lenka Zlámalová, Petr Janyška and Petr Fleischmann.

Michael Žantovský will chair the debate.

Jan Šolc: Life in Liberec

• Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
• When: January 30, 2019, 16:00 – 18:00

In his book he explores key milestones in Czechoslovak history, including the expulsion of the Germans and the period of Czechoslovak Stalinism, and describes coercion exerted by the military counterintelligence and the persecution he himself suffered after 1968, as well as the enormous political and social changes that followed November 1989. He also remembers Václav Havel. “Two years before his death I heard him lamenting as to whether it had been at all worth bringing back democracy. He was worn out, browned off and tired. Nobody knows what it means to be president after 42 years of repression,” Šolc says of his friend.

The publication of the memoir of the Liberec philosopher, man of letters and political activist Jan Šolc will be celebrated by the author and his friends, students and colleagues. Invited guests include Jan Kačer, Martin Vidlák, Libor Prudký, Michael Kocáb and Petr Pithart.

VHL director Michael Žantovský will serve as host.