Taking part in the discussion will be Eliška Vyhnánková, a social media and online communications analyst; Lubomír Kopeček, a political scientist at Brno’s Masaryk University; sociologist Daniel Prokop, an analyst at the Median agency; and František Vrabel, director of the company Semantic, which monitors the media and its impact. The debate will be chaired by Jaroslav Poláček, who in the last 15 years has been actively focused on election campaigning and is an analyst at the TOPAZ institute.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with TOPAZ.

Confirmed speakers this year include the fresh recipient of the prize Jana Klímová, an investigative journalist with Czech Radio, and the journalists Marek Wollner and Jiří Kubík.

The evening will be hosted by Jan Pokorný.

The author of the book Média, lži a příliš rychlý mozek (Media, Lies and a Too Fast Brain), Petr Nutil, is an independent journalist and cofounder of the journalism website Manipulátoři.cz, which is focused on media manipulation, propaganda and debunking hoaxes. Alongside unmasking fake news, in the text the author also explores the psychological phenomena that suppress reason and fan evil and irrationality.

The debate on the “post-truth world” will be chaired by Leoš Kyša, a journalist and deputy chairman of the Czech Club of Sceptics Sisyfos. Guests will include Michael Žantovský, director of the Václav Havel Library, Karel Strachota, founder and director of People in Need’s One World in Schools educational programme, Josef Džubák, founder of the website Hoax.cz, Ondřej Fér from the news site Info.cz and Kateřina Kadlecová from the weekly Reflex.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation the Grada publishing house.

Revoluce! (Revolution!) is a painfully humorous book about how a joy-filled walk in the forest can suddenly turn into an existential horror. It doesn’t take much: in the deep forest, with gentle birdsong in the background, an ordinary upstanding young man meets two single-minded police officers carrying out a task, which is creating and uncovering the enemy within…

The Charter 77 signatory and author Ivan Binar was imprisoned in the 1970s for sedition that he was meant to have committed during the musical Son of the Regiment. He was a Radio Free Europe editor while in exile and became a freelance writer following his return. He is one of the few contemporary authors focused on what might be dubbed the Christian roots of our civilisation. In his view, life, no matter how hard, has meaning; revenge is not a solution and leads at best to a chain of further injustices. While in his novels Binar frequently moves between very bizarre or dreamlike milieus, the effort to get to the essence of human existence is a constant.

The author will read from Revoluce! and host the evening. Jiří Šlupka Svěrák will appear as a guest.

The paper analyses history of professional theatres in Solovki prison camp from 1923 – 1936 and Vorkuta’s musicdrama theater 1943 – 1950. Both cases present theater directors and artists semi-conformism and resistance per development of feeling of dignity, aesthetic taste or humanity in unhuman conditions, between guarantees of cruel death. Vorkuta’s theater opera, operetta and even cabaret was completely exclusive case in the history of Gulag archipelago (A. Solzhenitsyn). Everyday fear of death and famine, witnessing of hundreds of deaths on the streets and cruelty of Nazi regime are conditions of the most human Ghetto theater. Why theatres show the classics and what does mean the Artaud conception of “cruel theatre” if the lifeworld was completely cruel? What is the role of theatric sublime in the reconstruction of the lost lives?

Prof. dr., philosopher, anthropologist, artist Gintautas Mažeikis is the head of department of Philosophy and social critics at Vytautas Magnus University. He was born in Vorkuta (arctic region of Russia, Komi republic) in 1964, studied in Sankt-Petersburg State university (History of Philosophy, Renaissance. The first PhD was devoted to the Symbolical thinking of Renaissance in Vilnius University, Lithuania.  In 1998 he created first Center of Cultural Anthropology in Lithuania in Siauliai University and started neoshamanist and subcultural researches. He did art exhibitions devoted the topics. His second PhD (habilitation) presented Pragmatics and analytics of Philosophical anthropology, in Vilnius University. Mazeikis interests are analysis, critics and performations of symbolical and iconic thinking through the dramatic events. He considered the historical drama, trauma and memory, the society of the spectacle, phenomenon of self-persuasion and contemporary propaganda, dramatic Gulagian and Ghetto theatres, event and contemporary praxis of museums from postmodern existential point of view.

The event will be held entirely in English. Czech interpreting is not provided.

His scholarly interests focus in 19th C. society, cultural and diaspora history, politics of memory and Lithuanian Historiography, as well as Post Soviet studies. He is an author of twenty books. Aleksandravičius is an active Visiting Professor at the Universities of Helsinki, Illinois and Warsaw and the School of Political Sciences of Bolonia University.

Aleksandravičius was awarded Cross of Commander of Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas, orders of Poland Republic and Kingdom of the Netherlands, and several other national and international prizes.

The event will be held entirely in English. Czech interpreting is not provided.

Themes: What is the situation in Cuba today? To what degree is direct support for the opposition, which is trying to undermine the credibility and solidity of the authoritarian regime from the inside, having an effect? Isn’t it better to negotiate with totalitarian leaders and put political and economic pressure on them to ultimately bring about change themselves? And what do ordinary Cubans who just “want to live and get by” and have turned their backs on politics make of human rights?

Debate participants: Taťana Fischerová (Helsinki Committee), Martin Balcar (Amnesty International) and Peter Moree (Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren). The names of Cuban participants will be posted on the VHL website.

At that time Hana was seven. Her life was marked forever by the tragedy and this was compounded by how little she knew about the history of her father and entire family. She spent several years reconstructing the story of her family as an adult, searching out and corresponding with relatives but mainly focusing on the archives of the Ministry of the Interior. The complicated, decades-long journey through ancient events and what she learned on that difficult pilgrimage are the subject of her tellingly-titled book Divný kořeny (Strange Roots).

“The result was that he was hanged. Mum suffered her whole life and I was buffeted about on the waves. The ones who paid for it the most were us, who loved each other so much, our little family, which fatefully found itself in the embrace of crushing stones.”

The songs of Jidiš ve třech will be performed at the launch of the audiobook of Strange Roots. The group are: Hana Frejková – vocals, Marianna Borecká – vocals (guest), Milan Potoček – clarinet and Slávek Brabec – accordion.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with publishers Radioservis.

Our voice is lacking in the public sphere but we are also interested in what the quality of the civic space of which we are part. We don’t want to needlessly fret over the futures of our children and grandchildren. The world is accelerating and we need to adapt to the changes and with us our families and female friends. We wish to create a space where we too can hold a discussion among ourselves and with the world around us. We are frequently silent but that doesn’t mean we have no opinion. Now you will hear it. After all, we are all 21st century women and mothers.

A panel discussion with the think tank CEW 21, the Central European Women’s think tank for the 21st century.

Speakers: Magda Vášáryová, Alexandra Alvar, Danuše Nerudová, Jana Michael and Pavlína Hájková.

Chaired by Jana Spekhorstová.

The Belarusian People’s Republic was declared in Minsk on 25 March 1918, a few months before Czechoslovakia. The newborn state managed to issue passports, began setting up military divisions and sought diplomatic recognition, including from Czechoslovakia. However, all those plans and hopes were soon crushed by the rise of the Bolsheviks.

The historical context will be discussed by Michal Plavec and Daniela Kolenovská, co-authors of the book Běloruská emigrace v meziválečném Československu (The Belarusian Émigré Community in Interwar Czechoslovakia), and Ivonka Survilla, chairwoman of the exile Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic in Canada.

The debate in Czech and English will be chaired by journalist Alena Kovářová Tichanovičová.

Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Belarusian association Skaryna.

A series created by the non-profit Nevypusť duši, which is run by a team of young psychologists, neuroscientists and students of those disciplines. It also comprises psychiatric patients and people with experience of psychiatric illness at a young age. Nevypusť duši circulates information, busts myths and informs the Czech Republic about mental health. It emphasises the importance of prevention, advising people how to keep their spirits up, shares personal stories and supports the timely obtaining of specialist help in the case of mental problems

Speakers: Marie Salomonová and Zuzana Pacholíková.

Entrance on the basis of prior registration. Forms are available here: goo.gl/66dagC