Events: April 2019
March 2019
May 2019
Poverty and Debt in Czech – The Parameters of Social Policy
April 1, 2019, 18:00
A resolution of poverty and social exclusion in the Czech Republic is further away once again. In 2018 a safety net of benefits for the impoverished fell apart, while towns in northern Bohemian and northern Moravia have unleashed a tsunami of declarations of so-called benefits-free zones. Parliament has pushed through “new” rules on debt relief that have made insolvency inaccessible to hundreds of thousands of people facing multiple distraint actions. It has become clear that over 600,000 people are active in the grey economy in the Czech Republic. At the same time, the government has withdrawn a draft law on social housing and wants to support the construction of monitored social housing, which would represent state hostels, and to make ill-conceived changes to the benefits that are the central pillar of housing policy in the Czech Republic and represent a safety net for over 200,000 households in the country… More
Magnesia Litera IV
April 2, 2019, 19:00
Readings by authors nominated across seven categories in the annual Magnesia Litera literary awards: Vendula Borůvková: 1918 aneb Jak jsem dal gól přes celé Československo (1918, or How I Scored a Goal Across the Entire Czechoslovakia) (Children and Young Adults category), Štěpán Hobza: Ferrari v džungli (A Ferrari in the Jungle) (DILIA Litera prize for Discovery of the Year) and Pavla Horáková: Teorie podivnosti (A Theory of Strangeness) (Prose). More
Lenka Marečková: Long Live Society!
April 4, 2019, 19:00
Presentation of the book Ať žije společnost (Long Live Society!), an anthology of three poetry collections by Lenka Marečková. More
Republic Café: 50 Seasons of Divadlo Husa na provázku
April 8, 2019, 19:00
For 50 years now, Brno’s Divadlo Husa na provázku (Goose on a String Theatre) has been not only active in creative terms but also socially engaged. What that meant in the past and the company’s direction today will be discussed by its longstanding dramaturge Petr Oslzlý, the director of its Centre for Experimental Theatre, Miroslav Oščatka, and artistic chief Anna Davidová. More
The Shadow of Jiří Křižan, Josef Somr and Pavel Batěk
April 9, 2019, 17:00
Ceremonial presentation of the audiobook Stín (The Shadow) More
Debate with Respekt
April 9, 2019, 19:00
Discussion between Respekt editors and their guests on a topical issue. For more information go to www.vaclavhavel.cz
50 Years Since Eliyahu Rips’ Protest
April 11, 2019, 19:00
“I didn’t believe that the Prague Spring could ignite a spark in Latvia or in the Soviet Union. But when everybody is in prison and a fellow inmate manages to escape, you’re also delighted. However, after the occupation, that delight turned to bitterness… My act stemmed from absolute bitterness. I ceased believing that communism could collapse in the way it later did. It seemed that that evil would remain here forever.” Eliyahu Rips, 2008 More
Radka Denemarková: Hours of Lead
April 15, 2019, 19:00
“I had to write this book because I understood that I am living in a time when something essential is fracturing and changing and I don’t know what. Beneath me tectonic shifts are taking place but what is this ‘something’ that’s happening in China and which the whole world secretly admires? The worst of communism and the worst of capitalism have embraced. This functions economically and doesn’t have a name. Václav Havel and his philosophy have an important role in the novel. I have become friends with people connected to the dissident anthology DanDu, who in very trying circumstances are building on the work of Václav Havel. I was deeply ashamed in front of them because my country’s politicians are enchanted by China and claim it’s a stable and harmonious society. However, everything that can be conceived beneath the term brutal police state I encountered there …” More
Evenings With Reporters: Poles and Czechs 30 Years After / Change
April 16, 2019, 19:00
Everything’s going to be different from now on! The rapid transition to capitalism and pluralism kick-started in 1989 impacted on the everyday lives of every family and on thinking about the orientation of the state. The philosopher and journalist Dariusz Karłowicz and the ex-director of Czech Radio’s Vltava station Petr Fischer will discuss how Polish and Czech societies have changed, looking at the clash of the old and new worlds and the search for models and paths to the future. Prior to 1989, we were building better futures – what kind are we building today? More
Lost in Translation IV
April 17, 2019, 19:00
Does anybody read or write reviews? More
Vendulka Voglová: Escape to Freedom
April 18, 2019, 20:00
Evening with Ondřej Kundra dedicated to the life of Vendulka Voglová, who became a symbol of the Holocaust thanks to a photograph by Jan Lukas. More
Flickers of Freedom, or The Late ‘80s in the Photographs of Miloš Fikejz
April 24, 2019, 17:00 Exhibitions
Ceremonial exhibition launch. More
Long Journey Home: A Prague Love Story
April 25, 2019, 19:00
A launch and reading from this memoir, recently published in Canada, in which a four-year-old girl survives a harrowing escape across the heavily armed border of Czechoslovakia with her mother and brother after the Communist takeover in 1948, leaving everything behind to flee to freedom in Canada. More
Carnations and Velvet
April 30, 2019, 19:00
Meeting with Portuguese guests who as young students came to support the democratisation of Czechoslovakia in December 1989. In a discussion with Velvet Revolution student leaders, they will recall a gathering on Prague’s Národní boulevard, where the Portuguese presented those in attendance with 50,000 roses. There will also be special recollections of Václav Havel, whom the students met during their stay and via whom Havel invited the president of Portugal, Mário Soares, to his inauguration. More