Events: January 2017
December 2016
February 2017
Reading for Josef Škvorecký
January 3, 2017, 17:00
Josef Škvorecký, one of the most important Czech post-war writers and founder of the émigré publishing house ’68 publishers, died five years ago, on 3 January 2012. More
Debate with Respekt
January 10, 2017, 19:00
Discussion with Respekt editors and their guests on a topical issue. More information will be posted at least one week before the event at www.vaclavhavel-library.org.
On Man’s Last Things
January 12, 2017, 19:00
How do we relate to death? Is our relationship to it marked by fear and passivity? And why we do attempt to erase it from life? More
Guardian of Memory
January 16, 2017, 19:00
Evening dedicated to Alexander Balogh’s biography of Ján Langoš, Strážca pamäti (Guardian of Memory). Michael Žantovský will chair a discussion with the author and Gabriela Langošová. More
Prague Pedestrian Josef Kroutvor
January 17, 2017, 19:00
Prague’s centre and periphery, the dark side of the capital which also hides cultural treasures. Since the 1960s the essayist and pilgrim Josef Kroutvor has wandered the city, discovering its quaint corners for the book Praha mizerná (Wretched Prague) (2016). In his essays, he has returned home from Venice, to which he dedicated an unorthodox guidebook, and from his Nové cest na jih (New Routes to the South), in which he discovered the half-forgotten histories of southern regions. More
The War-Time Fate of the Roma in Slovakia
January 18, 2017, 19:00
Programme focused on the persecution of Romanies in Slovakia, particularly, but not exclusively, in the World War II-era. More
Václav Cílek: Václav Havel on Potato-Picking Brigade Work, or A Study of Disconnected Worlds
January 19, 2017, 19:00
Most commentators were surprised by Donald Trump’s victory. A number of analysts admitted that a gap had opened up some time back between the views of what Karel Čapek called “the ordinary people” and journalists. The situation was later repeated with the “surprising” victories of Francois Fillon and in the France. More
On Being a Journalist in China
January 23, 2017, 19:00
For several decades, China has had a very low ranking in press freedom surveys. How did Czech journalists manage to work in a country where such strong censorship is in place? How did they come to terms with the Chinese ideology? More
The City’s Alive!
January 24, 2017, 19:00
Czechoslovak evening dedicated to an encounter between well-known campaigners to enliven public spaces in Prague and Bratislava. More
Belarus Beyond Belarus
January 25, 2017, 19:00
Since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Prague has been an important centre of Eastern European émigré communities, most of whose fates have been tragic. This year we will recall the 95th anniversary of the so-called Russian assistance operation, under which exiles from the former Russian Empire, not just Russians and Ukrainians but also somewhat overlooked Belarusians, were able to settle in Czechoslovakia. For the Belarusians the Czech Republic and Poland remain a refuge even today. More
The Dissent According to Women – the Polish and Czech Perspectives
January 26, 2017, 17:00
The successful documentary film Solidarity According to Women sparked a debate in Poland on the undervalued role of female activists in the anti-Communist opposition movement. Was there a difference in the position of women and men in the dissent? More
Holomíček, Stoilov, Žantovský: The Václav Album
January 27, 2017, 19:00
Bohdan Holomíček was one of Václav Havel’s closest friends. Armed with a camera and enthusiasm, but without a plan, records or date-keeping, he threw himself into joint celebrations, trips, theatre performances, conspiratorial meetings, weddings, private gatherings and ceremonies involving world politicians… and it is only now that he and Viktor Stoilov, head of publishing house Torst, have teamed up over a pile of photographs to do what is practially detective work and figure out who is who. More
Anticodes
January 31, 2017, 19:00
Stiff fiftieth, hopeful sixtieth and grey seventieth in a half-hour compressed group recital collage based on Václav Havel’s graphic poetry collection of the same title and put together at the studio of Prague’s DAMU drama school, Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre, and in part during a 2013 stay in Berlin. More