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An Uncertain Nation?

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  • Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
  • When: May 21, 2018, 19:00 – 21:00

Czechs and Their Search for a Politics.

“… Czechs are old winners.”
Václav Havel, The Czech Lot? (1969)

Since the Czechs took shape as a modern nation we have frequently faced what is referred to as the Czech question: To what degree is the Czech society a self-aware political nation? What in fact is the Czech relationship to the country’s own statehood and to politics in general? How are the advances and agonies of the 20th century projected into such reflections? And in this context how can we interpret today’s political reality, in which the Czechs often appear an “uncertain nation” and an “abandoned society” still searching for an “advantageous culprit” for all its troubles? Why are phrases such as political consensus and civic responsibly regarded as perfidy or folly in today’s Czech Republic? A century after the establishment of Czech statehood in the form of a democratic and republican Czechoslovakia, are Czechs a politically “immature” nation, or is that gross defamation?

The topical question of Czech political existence (in the historical context) will be discussed by the historian and philosopher Petr Hlaváček, the political thinker and one-time top politician Petr Pithart and journalist Erik Tabery.

Michael Žantovský will chair the debate.

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