The current role of civil society and its status today will be discussed by Bishop Václav Malý, a member of the board of directors of the Committee of Goodwill – Olga Havlová Foundation, and Robert Basch, executive director of the Open Society Fund Prague. Paulina Tabery, head of the Public Opinion Research Centre at the Czech Academy of Sciences, will present new findings from the study Opinions of the Czech public on the Velvet Revolution and on changes to the political and economic system.

Chaired by Martin Churavý.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Committee of Goodwill – Olga Havlová Foundation.

Rozhovory přes rozbouřené doby (Interviews From a Time of Tumult), a book of interviews with eminent figures in public life, offers reflections on the “arena of freedom” in contemporary Czech society. Each of the interviewees has a close relationship to our state’s process of democratisation and a number were personally involved. 

They include dissident and politician Luboš Dobrovský, former student activist and co-founder of humanitarian organisation People in Need Šimon Pánek, dissident and politician Petr Pithart, constitutional lawyer Jan Kysela, historian Igor Lukeš, journalist and writer Aleš Palán, political commentator Jiří Pehe, writerMark Slouka, historian Timothy Snyder, documentarian Olga Sommerová, scientist and Roman Catholic priest Marek Orko Vácha and translator and journalist Michael Žantovský.

The interviews, with a foreword by publisher Aleš Lederer, were conducted in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the foundation of the PROSTOR publishing house, which was the direct successor of the samizdat series Prostor and a review of the same name, which began in 1982. 

The interviews were conducted by journalists Eva Bobůrková, Jiří Leschtina, Petr Placák and Petr Vizina while the book also boasts a wealth of photographs.

Denisa Novotná will chair the evening.

Guests: Alžběta Jungrová and Kuba Kamiński, winner of the National Geographic Photo Contest and Grand Press Photo, who has worked in Belarus, China and Crimea following Russian annexation. 

The debate will take place in Polish and Czech with interpretation from and into both languages.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library and the Polish Institute in Prague with the support of the Czech-Polish Forum at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The owner of the Perplex publishing house, Martin Kubík, and its editor-in-chief (and the book’s editor) Dan Jedlička will speak with the author.

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

A debate with senators David Smoljak and Marek Hilšer, who recently spent time in Russia with government and opposition figures, whose experiences will be complemented by Alexandr Mitrofanov, journalists who are very familiar with the region.

A unique selection of original, previously unpublished footage from the five-hour serial has been prepared by the National Film Archive in cooperation with the Václav Havel Library. The documentary includes hundreds of minutes of hitherto unexplored interviews with dissidents, politicians, artists, scientists and ordinary people recorded at the end of the 1980s.

From next year materials from The Other Europe will become part of an extensive on-line database.

Jacques Rupnik will introduce the screening and provide commentary.

The project is carried out with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the CR, the Europe for Citizens programme and the International Visegrad Fund.

During the evening, as in the book, the fates of Czechoslovak citizens persecuted and executed in the USSR from the Bolshevik revolution to the end of Stalin’s era will be explored. The evening is dedicated to the memory of Heliodor Píka and Jakub Koutný, who saved thousands of their compatriots from Gulag camps and themselves met their deaths in Communist prisons in Czechoslovakia.

Among those in attendance will be the publication’s authors, Jan Dvořák, Jaroslav Formánek and Adam Hradilek, as well as relatives of the victims, who contributed to the preparation of the book.

The book’s foreword was penned by former foreign minister Jaroslav Šedivý, who will help launch it, while the afterword was written by Madeleine Albright, who was a great admirer of Jiří Dienstbier and Václav Havel.

The evening will be moderated by the book’s editor Irena Tatíčková and writer Marek Toman will read excerpts. 

The group Tata Bojs will provide musical accompaniment.

Both the publication and the exhibition recall important figures such as Josef Čapek, Emil Filla, Milada Horáková, Záviš Kalandr, Jan Zahradníček, Jiří Stránský, Jan Zajíc, Jan Palach, Ivan Martin Jirous and Václav Havel. These personalities – distinguished artists, scientists, journalists, politicians, civic activists and citizens unknown in their time – represent a set of people who shared a similar destiny: they displayed courage and stood up to the two totalitarian systems of the 20th century, Nazism and communism. 

Alongside the project’s creator Jiří Sozanský, the discussion will involve philosopher Martin Palouš, journalist Vlastimil Ježek and historian Petr Koura, as well as Libuše Heczková, Josef Vojvodík and Jan Wiendl, who are Bohemists and literary scientists at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts.

The evening will also feature the presentation of the publication SYMPOSION 27 and an autograph signing session.

All of this is the subject of a succinct, even laconic, memoir and 120 photographs from the albums Housková created during her life.

Episodes from everyday life feature well-known names from her close circle, while major historical events are scarcely touched on.

Memoirs, memory, photography, the phenomenon of the family album and “big” history will be discussed by Vlasta Dufková, Anna Housková, Mariana Machová and Josef Moucha.

Táňa Fischerová will read excerpts from the book while Jan Šulc will moderate the event.

The 24th edition of Works of TGM includes two volumes of Masaryk’s published works from 1898–1900 focused primarily on sociological, educational and political themes. More than 30 pieces document the author’s opposition to ritual superstition and anti-Semitism and his brave polemical stance during the so-called Hilsner Affair.

His focus was the issues of mass education, the relationship between journalism, the intelligentsia and the nature of the nation as a whole, the need for the orientation of the public and each “only slightly thinking person” and the effort to transform the Czech public sphere. 

The presentation will be helmed by Marie Bahenská and Jan Zouhar while the chief editor of the Works of TGM Jiří Brabec and the publication’s editor Luboš Merhaut will also speak. Excerpts from Masaryk’s texts will be read.

In cooperation with the publishers of the Works of TGM: the Masaryk Institute, the Archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the T. G. Masaryk Institute.

Guests: Vojtěch Hons of DG NEAR at the European Commission, Jakub Červenka, who works on stress tests at the European Central Bank and a TBC third speaker from NATO.