Attending the evening in person will be the author of the book, British writer Wendy Holden, and the three surviving children (Eva, Mark and Hana), who are today aged 71. The book will be “baptised” by Hana Hnátová, sister of the novelist Arnošt Lustig.

The book’s translator Miroslav Jindra will also be in attendance and journalist and writer Judita Matyášová will host the evening. 

After Alexander Lukashenko was declared the winner of 2010 presidential elections, Belarusians took to the streets to protest against the rigging of the vote. The Lukashenko regime responded with arrests and brutally quelled the demonstration. Statkevich was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison. He was one of six political prisoners released by Lukashenko last year, as a consequence of which the EU lifted most of its sanctions against Belarus. Lukashenko is again showing a friendly face to Europe and last year two representatives of opposition groups made it into the lower house of the Belarusian parliament for the first time. Does this mean that liberalisation has finally arrived? Or is it just a temporary thaw that will be followed by a new “freeze”?

Petra Procházková will chair the discussion and Kryścina Šyjanok will interpret.

In cooperation with the Slavonic Library in Prague, the East European Club and the Student Solidarity Movement. 

An outdoor exhibition of large-scale photographs by Oldřich Škácha, prepared in cooperation with the Prague 6 Town Hall, the Václav Havel Library and Post Bellum, will be accompanied over the following weeks by a series of concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and other events involving the National Technical Museum, the theatres Dejvické divadlo, Divadlo Semafor, Divadlo na tahu, Klicperovo divadlo and Divadlo Sklep, and other institutions. The whole event runs until 18 December 2016 and looks set to be the most extensive commemoration of a life and body of work that to this day continue to inspire with an unexpected urgency.

For the latest information on the programme go to: www.praha6.cz and www.vaclavhavel-library.org

6. 11. Divadlo Semafor: The Beggar’s Opera, Divadlo na tahu production, directed by Andrej Krob

13. 11. Divadlo Semafor: Redevelopment, Klicperova divadla production, directed by Andrej Krob

17. 11. National Technical Library: Symphonic Salome, Prague Conservatoire Orchestra, conducted by Miriam Němcová

19. 11. Dejvické divadlo, Anti.kvariát: Five candles for Václav Havel, 3rd candle – The Macabre Rhymer, evening with the poet J. H. Krchovský

21. 11. Divadlo Semafor: Dejvická Live special: Václav Havel – The Man

The Russian originals will be heard in period recordings and in renderings by the Russian minimalist poet and performer German Lukomnikov, the undoubted successor of the Lianozovo tradition.

Screenwriters, literary scientists and political scientists from Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary and Poland will come together in Prague for a debate held under Babylon’s wing. 

Doctorrr: Ivan M. Havel
Patient: Pavel Kohout
Dirrrectorrr: Michael Žantovský

Performance held within the Prague Crossroads theatre festival, co-organised by the National Theatre and the Václav Havel Library.

Find the whole festival programme at www.prazskekrizovatky.cz; tickets are available at the National Theatre

Debate on the Polish perspective on contemporary Russia politics chaired by Petr Janyška, a diplomat and director of the Czech Centre in Poland. 

Waclav Radziwinowicz

Born 1953 in Olsztyn (northern Poland). 1997–2015 Gazeta Wyborcza correspondent in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In December 2015 expelled from Russia in reaction to the extradition of a correspondent of Russian RIA Novosti agency charged by Polish authorities with “activities incompatible with the status of journalist”. The author of several popular books on Russia: Gogol w czasach Google’a (Gogol in the Age of Google, 2013, nominated for the prestigious Nike Polish literary prize, winner of the Radio Zet Prize competition), Soczi. Igrzyska Putina (Sochi: Putin’s Games, 2014, Dariusz Fikus Prize) and Crème de la Kreml (Crème de la Kremlin, 2016). 

Anna Freimanová and Michael Žantovský will host the evening.

The theme will be the world migration phenomenon and its influence on the policies of European institutions, the governments of EU member states and public opinion.

The conference will be simultaneously interpreted into Czech and English. For a detailed programme and registration formula, go to: http://www.vaclavhavel-library.org/en/vh-prize/4-rocnik-ceny-2016

The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize has been bestowed annually since 2013 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Václav Havel Library and the Charter 77 Foundation for extraordinary efforts in the defence of human rights and freedoms around the world. In 2015 it was awarded to Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a lifelong human rights campaigner.

The 2016 finalists were announced in Prague on 30 August:

Gordana Igrić (Serbia), journalist and human rights activist, founder of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN); currently its regional director, she is involved in the network’s educational programmes and oversees the majority of BIRN’s projects. Has earned numerous journalism awards for her work.

International Institute of Human Rights (France) / Institut international des droits de l'homme, IIDH (France), association based in Strasbourg established by René Cassin with the money from his 1968 Nobel Peace Prize. Active via education and research in the defence of human rights and freedoms. Its roughly 300 members comprise individuals and groups, including universities, researchers and human rights activists.

Nadia Murad Basee Taha (Iraq), a member of the Yazidi community who survived the massacre of her family and sexual slavery at the hands of IS jihadists. In December 2015 she delivered a speech at the UN Security Council on IS attacks on the Yazidis, calling for their international protection, the liberation of captives and the halting of the genocide and sexual slavery of Yazidi women.

The 2016 laureate will be announced at a ceremony in Strasbourg on 10 October.  

For a long time, nobody had any idea that the fragmented diary entries, written during his time in investigative remand, existed. Václav Havel never mentioned them and rarely returned to the subject of his experiences in prison. They were not discovered until almost two years ago, when David Dušek began sorting out the estate of his grandfather Zdeněk Urbánek – a translator, essayist and lifelong advisor and friend of Václav Havel.

The book Zápisky obviněného (Notes of the Accused) is a collection of essays by philosopher Martin Palouš, Canadian translator Paul Wilson, Václav Havel Library editor Anna Freimanová and diplomat and psychologist Michael Žantovský, who will attempt to uncover and elucidate Havel’s diary entries, which are frequently abbreviated.

The writer, who will be present in person, is the chairman of the Armenians’ Union of Romania and deputy chairman of the Writers’ Union.

The evening will be hosted by the Romanian Studies expert Libuše Valentová.

In cooperation with the Romanian Cultural Institute in Prague. 

Programme:

17.00 Ceremonial launch of the exhibition Hey, it’s Havel! and presentation of a book of the same title put together using pictures taken by non-professional photographers acquired by the Václav Havel Library through a public appeal.

18.00 Musical programme on four stages (two stages in the Lucerna Grand Hall, Lucerna Music Bar, and a folk stage in the large cinema hall).

18.00 Film screenings (café, small cinema hall)

The evening’s programme and further information will gradually be posted on the Václav Havel Library’s website www.vaclavhavel-library.org and at www.havel80.cz

Havel@80 at Lucerna is organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Lucerna Palace, PP Production and Palace Akropolis, which were previously responsible for Tribute to Václav Havel – an unforgettable farewell to Václav Havel in December 2011 (www.poctavh.cz)

Jáchym Topol will host a talk with the photographer about his travels, his working methods and the freshly published monograph Karel Cudlín (Torst, 2016).

Guests: Pavel Bělobrádek, deputy prime minister of the CR, Pavel Svoboda, MEP, Iveta Radičová, socialist and former prime minister of Slovakia, Georg Milbradt, economist and former prime minister of Bavaria, and Jan Sokol, philosopher and teacher.

Registration by email to prihlaska@ikdp.cz.

The debate will be conducted in Czech and English and simultaneously translated.

Organised within the Festival of Democracy at Forum 2000 by the Václav Havel Library and the Institute for Christian-Democratic Politics, in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

These questions will be debated by Jan Techau, Suat Kiniklioglu and Irena Kalhousová.

The discussion will take place in English and registration is not required.

In cooperation with the Forum 2000 conference. For more information go to www.forum2000.cz

The conference is primarily focused on everyday life in communes, their joys and sorrows and subsequent repression.

In cooperation with the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.

We will seek answers to these and other questions with sociologist Jiřina Šiklová, palliative medicine specialist Irena Závadová, hospice director Jiří Krejčí and moral philosopher and theologian Jaromír Matějek.

Discussion chaired by Stáňa Lekešová.

In cooperation with the Committee of Good Will, Olga Havlová Foundation. 

With a feel for Greek and Hebrew as well as for a witty point, Heryán, a priest known as “the pastor of the underground”, takes us on a tour of unexpected corners of the fates of particular individuals. The cleric, regarded by many as unconventional, has written a book that is completely exceptional in the context of Czech spiritual literature. Ladislav Heryán will accompany a reading and discussion with songs performed on guitar.

The evening will be hosted by Salesian Jaroslav Kuchař, director of the Portál publishing house.    

A reading by Boučková will be complemented by the singing of Bedřich Ludvík and the ensemble Mišpacha.

Kateřina and Yaros Loginov will inspire the audience to dance with Cuban-style Salsa.

Chaired by Ondřej Soukup (Hospodářské noviny).

In cooperation with the festival KULTURUS.

Lecture by lawyer and political scientist Pavel Uhl and political scientist Karel Šimka.

Moderator: František Korbel

The translator and poet Marie Ilyashenko will chair a debate with the author.

Bianca Bellová, Michal Šanda, Irena Dousková and others will appear at the evening organised by the Olomouc review Aluze. Aluze editor Lucie Faulerová will host the event.

The book is presented by its co-authors, Igor Borkowski, a professor at the University of Wroclaw, and Polish Studies expert Michala Benešová. A discussion between Ewa Winnicka and Petra Procházková on migration in contemporary Europe, both between individual states and from outside, will follow.

Another meeting in a joint discussion series held in cooperation with the Polish Institute in Prague in which we explore the phenomenon of the Polish school of literary reporting and its most notable contemporary representatives.

Ewa Winnicka

Polish reporter who previously worked at the daily Gazeta Wyborcza and currently writes for the weekly Polityka. Among her achievements is the book Angole (The Brits, 2014), a collection of reports on the wave of Polish migration to the UK, where in the last decade over 700,000 have gone for work. Winnicka recorded dozens of stories, from successful City managers to disillusioned rubbish sorters with no futures.

Petra Procházková

Lidové noviny reporter, war correspondent and the author of the reportage novel Frišta (2004) and other prose straddling documentary and literary fiction. Procházková is primarily focused on the countries of the former Soviet Union but also travels to crisis spots throughout the world. In 2015 she mapped the journey of a group of Syrian refugees, travelling with them from Turkey to Greece.

Zimbardo’s most famous titles include The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (2007), in which the results of the famous experiment are compared to the situation in a number of present day prisons (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo).

THE DEBATE WILL BE HELD IN ENGLISH. THERE IS NO OPTION FOR MAKING REGISTRATION OR RESERVATION.

In cooperation with the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival and the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague.

Discussion will be online on YouTube

In fantastical prose he explores the blending of the internal and external. Wanderings in exotic countries. A fascination with sex and death. The ego and the id. And the world perceived as a theatre for whirling puppets.

Timo Laine is a Finnish author and expert on Eastern European political history. Laine lives in Prague and works at Charles University as a teacher of Finnish language and culture. As a young student living in Estonia and travelling around the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, he witnessed the collapse of real socialism, entering conflict zones and gaining access to areas normally closed off to foreigners.

The discussion will be held in English.

In cooperation with the initiative Vraťte nám stát (Give Our State Back).