Book presentation: Hugo Vavrečka’s Private War
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: September 13, 2022, 19:00 – 21:00
The name of Hugo Vavrečka (1880–1952), journalist, diplomat, Baťa director, propaganda minister and grandfather of the Havel brothers, is marginal in Czech historiography. He has received only sporadic attention, while his final years have been entirely overlooked. The new book Soukromá válka Huga Vavrečky (Hugo Vavrečka’s Private War) by Jana Wohlmuth Markupová, who has long been focused on the Havel family circle, addresses just that period.
In discussion with Pavel Mücke from the Contemporary History Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University’s Faculty of Humanitarian Studies, the author will speak about Vavrečka’s wartime and post-war activities, false accusations of collaboration with the Nazis, his lifelong nurturing of contacts across political parties and the role his grandsons Václav and Ivan M. Havel played in his later years.