There is growing discussion of how, and whether at all, the state ought to influence the media sphere. An amendment to the copyright law and a mooted government plan to support the media and combat disinformation have recently stirred up emotions. What should the rules guaranteeing independence and enabling media development be?

Discussion involving editors from the weekly Respekt and their guests. For more details and the names of guests visit www.vaclavhavel.cz prior to the event.

In Nazi Germany nearly 900 Czechoslovaks were executed by the guillotine in Dresden alone between 1939 and 1945. Most of them had actively stood up to the German occupation. Tento dopis si nechte na památku na mě (Keep This Letter as a Memory of Me) is a bilingual Czech-German critical edition containing biographies of those sentenced to death and around 100 letters that they were able to send to relatives. The book and the circumstances of its creation will be discussed by the author of the original study, the historian Pavla Plachá, and Birgit Sack, historian and director of the Dresden Memorial, and relatives of the victims.

Little attention is devoted to historical and contemporary Czech-Albanian relations in Czech public discourse or academic research. The recently published volume from Adrian Brisku (ed.) Sto let česko(slovensko)-albánských vztahů: Vzájemné sympatie a rostoucí interakce (A Century of Czech(oslovak)-Albanian Relations: Mutual Sympathy and Growing Interaction) (Karolinum, 2022) offers an opportunity for debate between historians from both countries, Afrim Krasniqi, Ladislav Hladký and Adrian Brisku, as well as diplomats: Albania’s ambassador to the Czech Republic HE Ilirian Kuka and a Czech deputy minister of foreign affairs (name to be confirmed). Moderated by historian Kateřina Králová.

Resilience Between Trauma and Burnout

Debate series of editors from the weekly Echo and their guests in cooperation with the Václav Havel Library. Dalibor Balšínek will chair the discussion. For the topic and the names of guests visit www.vaclavhavel.cz prior to the event.

Since 24 February 2022 Ukraine has been facing Russian aggression – and since the very start of the war Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been informing the world of the brave efforts of the country’s defenders. The book A Message from Ukraine delivers a collection of the president’s war-time speeches. Zelensky himself selected them for the book and wrote a powerful introduction reflecting on what he has learned about both himself and Ukraine since the start of the invasion. The book will be discussed by its Czech translator Viktor Janiš, Rita Kindlerová and others.

Zsuzsanna Szelényi is a Hungarian foreign policy specialist and former politician, director at the Democracy Institute Leadership Academy of the Central European University. In the 1990s, she was an activist and member of parliament for Fidesz, then a liberal anti-Communist party. After working at the Council of Europe for fifteen years, she returned to politics representing the liberal opposition 'Together party' until 2018. (Zsuzsanna was a recipient of a Europe’s Future fellowship from the IWM and Richard von Weizsäcker fellowship from the Robert Bosch Academy.)”

Lusatia is home to the smallest Slavic nation, the Lusatian Sorbs, and is also one of the historical lands of the Czech crown. That is why the Czechs have always been intensely interested in Lusatia. For that matter, they like to affirm that Lusatia should have become part of their country when it was established. However, this is not a relationship burdened by the past, but a strong coexistence of two peoples, which is still active, albeit with the bigger one having little awareness of it. What are the lives of Lusatian Sorbs in Germany like? What have Czechs done for them since 1989? And did you know that Václav Havel was only the second foreign head of state to officially meet with politicians from Sorbian Lusatia?