Éric Vuillard is a French novelist, filmmaker and scriptwriter whose books chiefly focus on events that have altered the course of history. His first novel Conquistadors, an account of the conquering of Peru by Francisco Pizzarro, was published in 2009. It was followed by La Bataille d’Occident in 2012, Congo that same year, Tristesse de la terre: Une histoire de de Buffalo Bill in 2014 and 14 juillet in 2016. All of his works are gripping and fascinating and based on thorough study of the historical facts. Vuillard is the recipient of numerous awards, including the most important of all in the French-speaking world, the Prix Goncourt, for The Order of the Day (2017).

The Order of the Day is a work of stunning force rooted in simplicity. Vuillard describes Europe’s journey to the abyss via two historical moments. The first is 20 February 1933, when at a meeting the Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler, who has become chancellor just a month earlier, the 42 most influential German industrialists pledge without the slightest resistance to finance the Nazi party’s campaign in the forthcoming elections. The second moment, which the book explores, is the Anschluss under which Austria is attached to Germany on 12 March 1938 on the basis of an agreement made between Hitler and Austria’s chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg exactly a month previously in Vienna. 

The evening will be hosted by Petr Janyška, a translator, journalist and former Czech ambassador to France. 

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with Prague’s Institut français and the Argo publishing house. Simultaneous translation from French provided.

The notebooks, as Slavík dubbed his diaries, were created as work and travel journals. Conveying his personal vision, they offer an intimate account of what art meant to him, what he believed in and what worlds he moved in. 

Though he was a trained artist, Slavík worked in a number of manual professions and only exhibited in the latter half of the 1960s. At that time his art received attention as part of the New Figuration movement. In the early 1970s he became close to artists from the Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Jokes, whose absurd poetics appealed to him. He was one of the first signatories of Charter 77, resulting in his expulsion from the Creative Artists Foundation and subsequent forced emigration to Austria. He remained there until the early 1990s, when he began living alternately in Vienna and Prague.

The painter and his art and written works will be recalled by Dana Němcová and Duňa Slavíková.

Excerpts from the book will be read by Vojtěch Vondráček, while Hana Lundiaková Stinka will provide musical accompaniment.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with Charles University’s Faculty of Law and the Argo publishing house. 

A political and social activist, Andrei Sannikov is the coordinator of the European Belarus social programme and the Charter 97 initiative. In 2010 he stood in presidential elections in Belarus. After the rigged vote he was imprisoned. He was released 16 months later following EU pressure and forced to leave Belarus.

His autobiography My Story, largely focused on his opposition to Alexander Lukaschenko, was described by the magazine Foreign Policy as a cross between One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Nathan Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy.

The book has been translated from Russian by Magda Bělková.

Speakers: Andrei Sannikov, Jáchym Topol, René Levinský and Michal Hrubý.

Vratislav Brabenec will perform on saxophone.

Kryścina Šyjanok will interpret from Belarusian. 

Pavel Barša will discuss this subject with Marci Shore and other guests.

The book American Gypsy (issued in Czech as Žij tam, kde jsou písně. Jak ruská Romka dobyla Ameriku/Live Where There Are Songs: How a Russian Romani Conquered America) is narrated by an heiress to two ancient cultures; Armenian on her mother’s side and Romani on her father’s side. A childhood spent touring the USSR in the 1980s with her grandfather’s Romani theatre was very much out of step with the conventions of real socialism. However, neither did the author fit in as the daughter of immigrants to the US trying to establish themselves in the field of traditional clairvoyance and love magic. Author Oksana Marafiot will personally introduce her tragicomic book, which is about seeking and accepting one’s own identity and overcoming longstanding stereotypes and also offers insights into two persecuted and relatively closed nations. 

Karolína Ryvolová will moderate the event, which is being held in cooperation with the US Embassy in Prague. 

Interpretation provided. 

The debate will be chaired by Ondřej Klimeš from the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Scientists and Pavel Pokorný, a member of the synod council of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. The names of other panellists will be confirmed on the VHL’s website.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Human Rights Commission of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.

Literary historian and philosopher Martin Puchner is an eminent professor of English literature at Harvard and Berkeley. In his book The Written World he shows that books, epics and manifestos are not merely texts stemming from an artistic and literary tradition but themselves represent historical actors. In his literary history, therefore, language, words and literature are just as important in shaping nations and defining culture as famous commanders, inventors and revolutionaries. 

The debate will be chaired by literary critic Jan M. Heller.

The evening will take place in English. Interpretation into Czech provided. 

The focus will be investigative journalism both in the present and in recent years. Is the role of such reporters changing? Are conditions improving for uncovering facts that politicians and state officials would prefer to keep secret? And how have opportunities for this kind of journalism changed since Czech oligarchs and businessmen bought the country’s major media houses? Is it better to write for small independent outlets or to have the protection of large publishers? 

Evening hosted by Martin Groman, chairman of the Ferdinand Peroutka Society. 

The marked resistance met by Islam in the Czech Republic is matched in few small European countries. Why is this so? What are the current forms of Islam? And should we only fear Islam and Islamists? Instead of correcting the wide range of falsehoods and semi-truths about Islam and Muslims, which has become an essential element of public polemics on the subject in this country, the author attempts to arrive at a realistic “diagnosis”. Ostřanský attempts to tackle apocalyptic visions of the “clash of civilisations” through a substantive overview of the subject, which had hitherto been lacking in the Czech language. His book looks at a number of key factors that help shape events in a major part of today’s world, from the “erosion of authority” and the challenges of the “information age” to the battle for Muslims’ hearts involving various interpreters of Islam. 

Petra Královcová will chair the debate. 

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with publishers Academia.