Vydržať! Dopisy z vězení (Stay Strong! Letters from Prison), a book of correspondence between Jaromír Šavrda and his wife Dolores between 1978 and 1984, will be introduced by Jiří Gruntorád, Iva Málková and Jiří Fiedor. Markéta and Roman Polách will read excerpts while video interviews with Dolores Šavrdová will be screened.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Pulchra publishing house.

We will look back at the community of Czechs and Slovaks Down Under, while exiles themselves will describe life in Australia and New Zealand. Also discussed will be the Czech men and women who found success in Pacific countries. As part of the discussion we will also recall Václav Havel’s presidential visit to the region in 1995.

Markéta Vozková from the Aussie and Kiwi Film Fest team will compere the evening.

The event takes place within the accompanying programme of the sixth edition of the festival of Australian and New Zealand cinema, whose theme is FREEDOM. For more, go to www.aussieakiwi.cz

The book Jako v nebi, jenže jinak (Like in Heaven, But Different) includes an interview with a woman who has lived virtually her entire life in mountain solitude a few kilometres from the Slovak border. It also features a man who bought an old military vehicle 20 years ago and has holed up in it since then among the fishponds of southern Bohemia. We also visit the hermitage of a contemporary pilgrim, the Franciscan monk Anděl.

These encounters with Moravian and Bohemian loners are accompanied by singular outlooks, unrepeatable life stories and a good degree of natural mysticism.

The main guest will be photographer Johana Pošová, who took the pictures in the book, while the moderator will be Denisa Novotná.

Who gave away the results of the Mariáš cards league? Who is my real dad? Who sold out the Velvet Revolution? What happened at Prague Castle in the 1990s? Who’s spraying chemtrails on us? Only a fool would continue to swallow such deception – something should be done about it immediately.

Stage reading featuring Vladimír Mikulka, Kateřina Rudčenková, Jakub Škorpil and Martin J. Švejda. Music by Petr Mazúr.

The Antonín Puchmajer theatre group grew out of the ruins of the Antonín Theatre Company, which itself grew out of the ruins of the Puchmajer Cultural Theatre Company founded in the early 1990s by then students at the Department of Theatre Science at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts (today theatre critics and historians).

1989. The Eastern Bloc is falling apart. Krzysztof Miller, then a fledgling Polish reporter, captures in his pictures demonstrations and changes in Poland, the Velvet Revolution in Prague and the bloody fall of the regime in Romania.

Between 1990 and 2008 he documented a series of military conflicts and victims of massacres and famines. Miller, who is today famous, has undertaken almost 60 international trips, returning to a number of places several times. Among other spots, he has taken pictures in Romania, Iran, Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Bosnia, Croatia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Burundi, Zaire, Kosovo, Congo, Iraq, Uganda, Southern Sudan and Kenya.

Miller immortalised key moments and central conflicts of the 20th century, as this exhibition bears out. The images on show deliver not just a picture of the contemporary world but also of a perceptive and exceptional photo reporter who, thanks to his perceptive eye, has managed to capture ordinary people in their everyday reality.

The exhibition is an accompanying event to Festival of Freedom, celebrating the anniversary of 17 November 1989.

Co-organisers: Polish Institute in Prague, Václav Havel Library, Leica Gallery Prague, Dom Spotkań z Historią and Agencja Gazeta. The project has been supported by the Czech-Polish Forum of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

These celebrations are very much at the right venue in the Václav Havel Library. After all, it was thanks to Václav Havel that the group’s front man Filip Topol appeared in public for the first time, playing before The Plastic People of the Universe at Hrádeček. A year later the full band performed their first official concert within the Prague Jazz Days festival in 1979. In the afternoon we will remember them via the interactive exhibition Psí Vojáci: Music on the Canvas by Sára Svobodová, whose brushes moved to the rhythm of music that you can listen to on headphones placed by the paintings. We will also look back in an interview with the artist due to follow as part of the evening programme. VHL dramaturge Jáchym Topol will also take part, delivering a reading of one of his brother’s poems.

The evening will conclude with performances by Vladivojna La Chia, with a repertoire of Psí Vojáci songs, and the duo Déjà vu. The whole nation of “Dog Soldiers” are invited to come along and remember and listen in the company of fellow fans.

The evening will be moderated by Anna Řeháková, coordinator of the exhibition Psí Vojáci: Music on the Canvas.

“Is there such a thing as childhood? All that exists is what we remember. And when our memories go, even that won’t exist. When we become adults only we adults are responsible for our childhoods.”

Whoever was around then will remember and whoever wasn’t will learn how wonderful a Prague childhood could be.

Jáchym Topol will conduct a talk with Beatrice Landovská. The book’s editor, Petr Himmel, will launch the gathering.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Garamond publishing house.

What will happen with respected commentator Jindřich Šídlo sits down to discuss journalism with Tomáš Etzler, who cooperates with CNN in the US and is a former Czech Television China correspondent? In the era of Facebook and YouTube, what does the profession entail? How does American journalism differ from the European, respectively Czech, variety? And why do people go abroad? The two journalists will discuss a range of issues, serious and otherwise.

A day before the anniversary of 17 November, we will not only recall the major role played by Václav Havel in the revolution and the importance of his legacy for freedom and democracy but also savour some tastes and aromas associated with his name.

Visitors to the market will be able sample dishes from the recently published Václav Havel cookbook Kančí na daňčím (Boar on Fallow Deer), such as the unrivalled Lukashenka’s Rage, which will surely spur them to purchase this unique collection of Havel-related recipes or other recent titles published by the Václav Havel Library that will also be on sale.

Later, their mood brightened, they may like to exercise their civic viewpoint at Letná Plain. Bon appétit!

19.00 – 20.30

The Garden Party Here and Now

The Sedlčany theatre company Našlose

The young theatre group will render Václav Havel’s first play, and one of his most famous, as a documentary about contemporary society in a town with a population of 8,000.

The hero of the first Czech absurdist drama, the eager, docile and malleable Hugo Pludek, a chess-loving member of the middle classes, soon grasps the mechanisms of career advancement; he becomes a master of empty phrases and dominates the world of initiators and liquidators.

Featuring: Martin Pešek, Zuzana Trojanová, Jana Durďáková, Jakub Feldstein, David Krůta, Anna Novotná, Petr Bilina, Filip Hodys, Radek Strnad, David Feldstein, Director: Jaroslava Trojanová.

21.00 – 23.00

Theatre and Revolution

A compilation of archival documentary footage from November 1989, when students and theatre people took history into their own hands, unleashing what became known as the Velvet Revolution.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library and Czech Radio Dvojka.

Visitors are requested to take up their seats by 9:50.

Among those due to speak are Martin Palouš, Edward Lucas, Timothy Garton Ash, Alexandr Vondra, Michael Žantovský and representatives of the groups Million Moments for Democracy, Národní Promenade and Festival of Freedom as well as other civic initiatives.

Musical accompaniment will take the form of Jiří Černý’s Civic Disco and Vladimír Merta’s stirring songs.

The Václav Havel Library and co-organisers Činoherní klub extend a warm invitation.

Confirmed participants this year include Václav Marhoul, Michael Kocáb, Tomáš Etzler and Dagmar Havlová.

We will publish the names of other well-known figures taking part on our Facebook page.

The speakers will be Michael Žantovský and Charles Powell, the Director of the Spanish think tank Real Instituto Elcano, Spain’s leading international relations think-tank, and a Professor of Contemporary History. He was Lecturer in Oxford. He has published six books and dozens of articles on Spanish history, politics and foreign policy, with special emphasis on its European dimension.

Organised in cooperation with the Embassy of Spain in Prague andthe Instituto Cervantes, Spanish finger food and wine will follow after the discussion.

DR. CHARLES POWELL CMG 
Charles Powell is Director of the Elcano Royal Institute, Spain’s leading international relations think-tank, and a Professor of Contemporary History at CEU San Pablo University. Prior to settling in Spain in 1997, he was Lecturer in History at Corpus Christi College (Oxford), J. A. Pye Fellow at University College (Oxford), and Junior Research Fellow at St. Antony’s College (Oxford). He has published six books and dozens of articles on Spanish history, politics and foreign policy, with special emphasis on its European dimension. Dr. Powell holds a BA in History and Modern Languages from Oxford University, where he also obtained his D. Phil for a thesis on Spain’s transition to democracy, which was supervised pointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for his services to British-Spanish relations.

The gathering at Prague’s Albertov, the euphoric march along the embankment and the subsequent violent repression on Národní St. have entered the history books. Ten den – 17. listopad 1989 (That Day – 17 November 1989) is a new book bringing together over 200 eye-witness accounts from experienced demonstrators as well as those who took to the streets for the first time that day, student organisers and rank and file participants, random passers-by and police officers. What was their experience of 17 November and what expectations did it give them? What thoughts did they wake up with that morning and what future did they imagine when the demonstration was broken up and they were counting their cuts and bruises? It isn’t a detachment of actors in those events but the actual day itself that speaks to the reader. The book gives a voice to well-known and unknown attendees, including those who have never previously spoken publicly about their experiences.

The authors, Michal Beck, Matouš Hartman, Alžběta Ambrožová and Anna Palánová, who were still students when the book was being written, have created in cooperation with writer Aleš Palán a compelling collage mapping the story of that unique day. It allows contemporary readers to vicariously experience that crucial date and brings to life the legacy of days of revolution and hard-fought freedom.

Petr Schwarz will moderate an evening featuring both the authors and a number of their interviewees.

Václav Havel wrote his version of The Beggar’s Opera in 1972 after being commissioned by the Činoherní klub theatre, though it was not performed until 1975, when the theatre Divadlo na tahu staged it in Horní Počernice, directed by Andrej Krob. It was filmed by Jiří Menzel in 1971.

The new CD will be presented by actors Jiří Dvořák, Dana Černá and Klára Sedláčková-Oltová, director Lukáš Hlavica and dramaturge Renata Venclová.

Moderated by Robert Tamchyna.

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

Confirmed guests: Commissioner Věra Jourová, commissioner Frans Timmermans, former Polish Prime Minister and currently MEP Marek Belka, MEPs Alexandr Vondra, Nathalie Loiseau and Michal Šimečka, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Director Jamie Fly.

Chaired by: Michael Žantovský, Director of Václav Havel Library

Co-organized by the Václav Havel Library, the Czech Embassy in Belgium, the Czech Permanent Representation to the European Union and the Czech Centre in Brussels.

• Download the flyer with programme

It will be discussed by its co-authors: historian and philosopher Petr Hlaváček, journalist Jakub Patočka and historian Petr Placák.

Moderated by Jáchym Topol.

Times are bad again, with petitions and protests multiplying at home and abroad – but what is the point of them? Do the actions and consciences of politicians influence the will of (certain) citizens? Is that enough? We will remember a lesser-known “Vaněk” play, Václav Havel’s 1978 work Protest.

Performed by the Divadlo na tahu theatre.

Directed by Andrej Krob and featuring Karel Beseda and Radek Bár.

Štěpán Černoušek, chairman of the Gulag.cz association will share his experiences of a Fulbright scholarship and study trip around the US, during which he visited 40 institutions focused on the past. The event will also include a projection of photographs from the institutions in question.

Organised in cooperation with the J.W. Fulbright Commission in the CR.

Bán, a Slovak photographer and reporter mainly focused on war zones, knows his native country like the back of his hand. He has travelled its roads and dusty paths over three decades, during which time he has come to know the Slovak people and their stories. His texts reflect the observant eye of the photographer, while for their part his photographs show the keen eye of an excellent narrator.

The book of reportage Slon na Zemplíně (Elephant in Zemplín), published in Czech on the Absynt imprint this month in a translation by Miroslav Zelinský, is an intimate account of the landscape and people who live their lives way beyond the horizon of general attention. It is a winding journey from east to west, from Čierna nad Tisou to Bratislava, but also a long pilgrimage through time, from Jánošík through Tiso to the ´Ndrangheta and “our people”. Stories include a man who decided to live as one with nature near the village of Sečovce, swindled farmers and the agro-mafia and the Romany man whose torturing to death by the police touches on the Slovak tragedy of the aryanization of Jewish property.

The book is a colourful fresco of tales from the country that is closest to us but also the one we know the least.

Organised in cooperation with the Absynt publishing house on the occasion of the publication of the Czech translation.

Confirmed guests include Vojtěch Hodboď, an expert on artificial intelligence at Charles University and Mikuláš Křen from the company VR_Musashi, which is focused on new technologies in health care, including the treatment of autism through the usage of virtual reality.

Aneta Štokrová will moderate.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Faketicky association.