Events: February 2020
January 2020
March 2020
A Christian Struggle – Anastáz Opasek and Opus Bonum
February 6, 2020, 19:00
Petr Placák will introduce his new book Křesťanský zápas o českou věc – Působení opata Opaska a organizace Opus bonum v čs. exilu (A Christian Struggle with a Czech Focus – Abbot Opasek’s Activities and the Opus Bonum Organisation in the Czechoslovak Exile Community). The book explores one of the most notable anti-communist initiatives when thanks to their openness a broad variety of streams in the exile community managed to come together via the Roman Catholic Church. These included conservatives, liberals and greens, as well as former Communists, members of the Czech nobility, representatives of the Czechoslovak underground, Catholics and Evangelicals and activists of Jewish origin. More
Václav Havel: The Memorandum
February 10, 2020, 19:00
The theatre group at Prague’s Jan Neruda Gymnasium will perform the play, directed by Filip H. Härtel. More
Debate with Respekt
February 11, 2020, 19:00
Discussion involving editors from the weekly Respekt and their guests on a topical issue. For more information visit www.Václavhavel.cz
Czech Hoaxes – The Green Mountain and Queen’s Court Manuscripts Within Us
February 12, 2020, 17:00
How did it come to pass that among the key symbols in the shaping of modern Czech identity were hoaxes that, what’s more, also represented the Czechs in 19th century Europe? Were contemporary journalists who claimed that the entire Czech National Revival was built on a lie correct? How did Czechs encounter and contend with these hoaxes? And how is that clash instructive today in the 21st century, when eternal national identity is again a political issue and new techniques of manipulating it are being employed? More
Argo Publishing House Presents
February 13, 2020, 19:00
Five Czech novelists who publish on the Argo imprint will present their latest works. The writers will also discuss revolutionary changes in the method/quantity/quality of reading today and the influence of readers’ new habits on their art, the need for fantasy in real life, the necessity of knocking the realist novel off its pedestal and the motivation and the passion of the author. More
Valerian Pidmohylny: The City
February 18, 2020, 19:00
An encounter with a Ukrainian cult novel translated into Czech by Miroslav Tomek. Valerian Pidmohylny’s The City is both an adventure and philosophical novel that stands up creditably, and playfully, within the context of European modernism. The story of a young man who leaves his native village to become an engineer and spread learning initially comes across as schematic, even naive. But only because the young man is himself naive. Will the city grind down the hero and rob him of his ideals? Yes and no. The city doesn’t respond to these questions but raises fresh ones. It forces the protagonist to encounter himself, to run up against his own desires and sexuality, to let himself down, to find a calling. It was just this ambivalence and non-schematic approach that saw the novel dubbed anti-Soviet. Its writer Pidmohylny (1901–1937) died during the purges. More
Women on Women
February 19, 2020, 19:00
Twenty-eight interviews with 29 film and literary documentarians working in the Czech Republic have been published in the volume Ženy o ženách (Women on Women). In the book, author Barbora Baronová explores her interviewees’ artistic motivations, how they select themes and their relationship to key aspects of documentary work, such as censorship, engagement and therapy. Last but not least, she discusses with her subjects the issues of gender, the role of institutions in documentary work and financing. More
How Kiev’s Maidan Changed Ukrainian Society
February 20, 2020, 19:00
On February 20 it is six years since the bloody events of the revolution of dignity at Kiev’s Maidan square. Its primary outcome was not political change in the country but first and foremost the birth of a strong civic society that has been an active participant in, or even initiator of, positive change in recent years. How did Ukraine change during and after the Maidan? How did former revolutionaries turn into reformers of their country, and how successful have they been? More
Faces of Normalisation
February 25, 2020, 19:00
Normalization has earned a reputation in society of being a bearable, “goulash” communism, during which people escaped to their cottage or the records of Karel Gott. In reality, it spelled years of devastation. Societal apathy, lethargy and unwillingness to accept liberty or responsibility were all rooted not in the gallows of the 1950s or Jáchymov’s Tower of Death, but in the regime brought in by Soviet tanks in August 1968. Precisely because of a creeping degradation of the spirit and will of the majority, it is worth remembering how tremendously evil and distorted the period was. More
An Orwellian Ministry of Truth? Debate on the Czechoslovak Judicial System of the 1950s
February 28, 2020, 17:00
Two new publications exploring the Czechoslovak judicial system of the 1950s, Lexikon nejvyšších představitelů československé justice a prokuratury v letech 1948–1989 (Lexicon of Senior Representatives of the Czechoslovak Judicial and Prosecution Systems, 1948–1989) and Ministerstvo spravedlnosti v letech 1948–1953 (The Ministry of Justice, 1948–1953), will be presented during this discussion with representatives of Charles University’s Faculty of Law and the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. More
Screening of The Last Cyclist
February 28, 2020, 19:00
Virtually unknown in the Czech Republic, Karel Švenk’s satirical and allegorical cabaret comedy The Last Cyclist was created at the Terezín concentration camp but never made it past dress rehearsals. More