Events: January 2024
December 2023
February 2024
Launch of Jana Patočková Book on Theatre
January 4, 2024, 18:00
Introduction of Svět na divadle ukázat, a celý... (Show the World in Theatre, and In Toto…), an anthology of essays by the acclaimed theatre studies expert and journalist Jana Patočková. The editor of the book and author of its afterword, Eva Stehlíková, says of the writer: “Her criticism and studies are characterised by the high degree of exactingness, and the flawless familiarity with the topic, with which she connects current events on the stage with the history of plays’ production, careful attention to detail and a secure hierarchy of values. It is also a mighty experience to read her polemics with today’s critics, whom she often accuses of superficiality, cosiness and ignorance of context. The reader is offered a highly personal testimony about theatre from the 1960s to the present, as well as a testimony on critical responsibility and the constant nature of ethical criteria.” More
Ukraine as Task
January 9, 2024, 19:00
A discussion forum with Rostislav Prokopjuk on Ukraine’s past, present and future. For the names of guests, visit www.vaclavhavel.cz prior to the event.
Presentation of A Resilient Society: Between Helplessness and Tyranny
January 10, 2024, 18:00
The crises we are going through force us to think about what kind of society we are, and – if we are to face them – whether we have anything to draw. In public debates we encounter various analyses of Czech society: we are described as a divided, fragmented, narcissistic or impoverished society; in other contexts, there is talk of a fluid, accelerated, opportunistic or exhausted society. The documentary research that gave rise to the book Odolnáspolečnost. Mezi bezmocí a tyranií (A Resilient Society: Between Helplessness and Tyranny) explored, via interviews with influential actors in various spheres of public life, what the preconditions are for being a resilient society. Rather than an academic interpretation of the term “societal resilience”, or a general opinion survey, this research adopted a different approach. It focused on a detailed mapping of practical knowledge about what works in Czech society, what is available but needs to be further developed, and what we need to change, if we want to avoid two extremes in relation to crises: falling into powerlessness in the face of them; or replacing crises with a struggle for domination of one over the other. More
Free Ilham Tohti: An Evening for Ilham Tohti
January 15, 2024, 19:00
Ilham Tohti is a publicly known Uyghur intellectual from China and the laureate of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize for 2019. For over 20 years he has been engaged in developing dialogue and understanding between the Uyghurs and the Chinese. For this, he was sentenced to life in prison in a two-day rigged trial in 2014. More
Václav Havel Reads Temptation – Accompanied by the Plastic People
January 17, 2024, 19:00
Ceremonial presentation of a unique audio recording More
The Free Academy: Kateřina Sam
January 18, 2024, 19:00
The Secret Language of Plants, Insects and Birds More
Piro Milkani: Life Like In a Movie
January 22, 2024, 19:00
The book Život jako ve filmu (Life Like In a Movie) is a remarkable collection of memoirs by the well-known Albanian director Pir Milkani, who studied in Prague in the late 1950s and served as Albania’s ambassador to the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the late 1990s. More
Debate N: Has Taiwan Chosen China?
January 23, 2024, 19:00
Will the world be closer to another war after 13 January 2024, or will we breathe a sigh of relief? And what if both things happen? Taiwan’s presidential election could decide the future of us all. It’s no coincidence that it’s being described as the most riveting, and hardest to call, election. Find out for yourself at the January Debate N at the Václav Havel Library, moderated by Magdalena Slezáková from the foreign desk of Deník N.
With the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes on History, Memory and Freedom: Children and grandchildren. Totalitarianism and trans-generat
January 25, 2024, 19:00
European and Czech history of the 20th century is framed by the suffering of two world wars and the horrors of totalitarian regimes, especially communism and national socialism, which were characterised by genocidal features (the Gulag, the holocaust). In Czechoslovakia, too, hundreds of thousands of people fell victim to these monstrous ideologies between 1938 and 1989, and their descendants carry with them various traumas that, with few exceptions, are not reflected on, explored or healed in the Czech context. Therefore, as part of a series of debates called CIRCUS ÚSTR, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (ÚSTR is its Czech acronym) is raising the issue of trans-generational trauma in cooperation with the Václav Havel Library. More
The Olga Havlova Library, or Hrobka
January 26, 2024, 19:00
The folk self-help library Hrobka (the Tomb) was founded by Olga Havlová in the 1980s as a protest against official culture, influenced in part by her passion for so-called decadent trash culture. With the active support of fellow artists and intellectuals, including Olinka and Andrej Stankovič, Petruška Šustrová, Vratislav Brabenec and Zbyněk Benýšek, samizdat books began to proliferate and many banned authors who were not allowed to publish officially found refuge at Hrobka. During the desert that was normalisation, a distinctive cult began to spread among admirers of their unconventional work. Olga Havlová and her friends held stylish parties andcostume evenings and arranged live paintings, harvest festivals and “masopust” carnivals. The magazine Nový brak (New Pulp) began to circulate in the underground and independent intellectuals even made a horror movie, the black and white Lilian. More
An Iron Spike in the Body of the Era: Lenin’s Life and Long Shadow
January 29, 2024, 19:00
On January 24, it will be 100 years since the death of the man of whom Ferdinand Peroutka wrote that “he penetrated the body of the era like a sharp spike”. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the mastermind of the Bolshevik coup in Russia, imprinted his fixed ideas on a state that gradually turned into a world power under the name of the Soviet Union, to the misfortune of hundreds of millions. In a debate looking back at Lenin’s personality and times, threeguests will reflect on the causes and effects of the Bolshevik Revolution. What role did it play in the Russian historical story and in the history of the world? How is Lenin’s “work” perceived in contemporary Russia? Why was Lenin criticised by Vladimir Putin? We will touch on these and other questions with historian Daniela Kolenovská, political geographer Michael Romancov and journalist Libor Dvořák. David Svoboda will chair the discussion.
Let’s Get Stuck In!, or Literature and Politics Today
January 30, 2024, 19:00
Josef Chuchma’s Quarterly More
Ignatieff, Rupnik, Matějčková. Finding Solace in Dark Times
January 31, 2024, 18:00
How to find consolation in an era without faith? In his book On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark, a series of reflections on writers, artists, musicians and their works – from the books of Job and Psalms to Gustav Mahler, Albert Camus, Primo Levi and Václav Havel – acclaimed author and historian Michael Ignatieff shows how throughout time people in extreme situations turned to one another as a source of hope and resilience. He brings their stories into the present with the conviction that we can revive these traditions of consolation as we face the anxiety and uncertainty of our fractious 21st century. More