One Day Something Will Rebel in Our Green Grocer: Essays on The Power of the Powerless
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: November 29, 2016, 19:00 – 21:00
The Power of the Powerless is one of the most important and frequently discussed dissident texts. It was written in 1978 in the singular conditions of a Communist dictatorship. Nevertheless it is clear that, even nearly 40 years after its first publication in samizdat and with those circumstances now a memory, it has not lost any of its power to inspire, as attested to by new translations into languages such as Arabic and Ukrainian.
What was it about Havel’s essay that spoke to and didn’t speak to its age? And what can it offer the contemporary period? These framework questions will be considered by sociologist Miloš Havelka, political essayist Petr Pithart and literary historian Roman Kanda, who – alongside 27 other domestic and international authors – have contributed to the new book Jednoho dne se v našem zelináři cosi vzbouří. Eseje o Moci bezmocných (One Day Something Will Rebel in Our Green Grocer: Essays on The Power of the Powerless). The volume has been prepared for publication by Jiří Suk and Kristina Andělová from the Contemporary History Institute at the Czech Academy of Sciences.