The atmosphere of this unlikely world premiere of a Havel play is recalled by participants, excerpts from a recording of the performance, the photographs of Bohdan Holomíček, a short documentary film by Andrej Krab and a new publication issued by the VHL, Gauneři z Horních Počernic (The Rogues of Horní Počernice).

This series dedicated to Václav Havel’s plays is prepared by Anna Freimanová.

Gauneři z Horních Počernic (The Rogues of Horní Počernice) is the title of a commemorative publication primarily featuring the photographs of Bohdan Holomíček and Ondřej Němec, previously unpublished letters by Václav Havel and period documents. The book, which will be presented during the evening, is being published by the Václav Havel Library in connection with the 40th anniversary of an amateur performance of Václav Havel’s play whose perpetrators and audience were pursued by the StB secret police.

Photo (c) Bohdan Holomíček

Thousands of security force officers were deployed in a manhunt for the escapees, all 10 of whom were captured. Tomík himself was shot and seriously wounded. Jan Horník will chair a discussion linked to the 60th anniversary of the escape.

A literary evening dedicated to Werfel’s novel The 40 Days of Musa Dagh. Confirmed guests include translator Hanuš Karlach, German Studies expert Milan Tvrdík, playwright Jan Vedral and Armenian Studies scholar Milada Kiliánová. Petr Vizina will chair the discussion.

Since 1988 he has lived in France where he works as a journalist for Radio France Internationale (RFI). He has written many short stories and several novels. He was awarded the Prix Ouest-France Etonnants Voyageurs in 2011.

The event is taking place in cooperation with the French Institute as part of the festival Crescent Moon over Prague. Interpretation from French to Czech provided.

How has the EU become involved and how can we get involved? Jana Hybášková, the EU’s former ambassador to Iraq, will discuss those questions with Jan Mrkvička, director of the Humanitarian and development section of the organisation People in Need.

The event is organised by the Common Law Society of the Faculty of Law of Prague’s Charles University.

Decades have now passed and we can explore whether that original concept has been fulfilled or abandoned. This meeting with writers from the Visegrad countries – prose author Attila Sirbik (Hungary), prose author and poet Darek Foks (Poland), poet Kamil Bouška (CR) and prose author and publisher Jana Bodnárová (Slovakia) – will be chaired by Tereza Semotamová.

The event is being organised by the Arts and Theatre Institute. The Central European Discussion Club, the Arts Institute, Villa Decius (coordinator), Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum and the Literary Information Centre are event partners.

The theatre piece draws on preserved literary and press sources, poems, memoirs and the works of Ivan Martin Jirous, Pavel Kosatík, Martin C. Putna and Michael Žantovský. The script is based on real situations that occurred during Václav Havel’s years as a dissident and his presidential career.

Under the title “Trutnoff in Prague” the show will be a celebration of 17 November and a reminder of what would have been the 80th birthday of Václav Havel, who was the chieftain of the Trutnoff festival. Other bands will be playing during the evening.

Tickets are available in the Eventim network.

The show is a unique depiction of the events of that time through the eyes of children of the revolution – both its creators were born in November 1989. The genesis of the production has been captured in a short documentary by students of the Silesian University’s Multimedia Technology Department, who themselves were born in the post-revolution period.

The Václav Havel Library is presenting the Czech premiere of the documentary Plné ruce revoluce (Hands Full of Revolution) as part of the Festival of Freedom. The evening will include a discussion with the creators of the play and the film, historian Jiří Suk and revolutionary Alexandr Vondra. Petr Jančárek will host the event.

The main heroes of the play are three real figures: Václav Havel, Jiří Křižan and Alexandr Vondra. Discussing its genesis, the director Lesák said: “They often say that we, the young generation, are no longer interested in the events of that time 25 years ago and that we don’t know anything about them. I have no problem admitting I don’t know anything about them, because we are unlikely to ever comprehend even a fragment of what a participant in a 100,000-strong demonstration experienced, or to grasp the atmosphere of such a place. But it’s not true it doesn’t interest us. We’re the generation in which parents and acquaintances spoke to us from a young age about how things were in the period when we were born. The revolution does interest us, not just because it markedly influenced the world in which we grew up and in which we live today, but also because it is closely linked to the first years of our lives.”

Trinh Hoi, lawyer and executive director of VOICE (http://vietnamvoice.org/), will discuss the development of civic society in Vietnam, its significance and ways that Vietnamese communities living abroad can support it.

The event is co-organised by the Van Lang civic society, which promotes and advocates for civic society principles and monitors adherence to human rights in Vietnam.

Interpretation from English to Czech provided.

Brno Plays Havel

19.00 Audience / Catastrophe

The best known “Vaněk play” Audience performed with the one-act play Catastrophe, which its author, Nobel Prize for Literature recipient Samuel Beckett, dedicated to the long-imprisoned and seriously ill Václav Havel in 1982 (duration: 90 mins)

Director: Ivo Krobot

Cast:

Audience: Jan Kolařík – Sládek, Alfred Texel – Vaněk

Catastrophe: Jan Kolařík – Director, Kristýna Hulcová – Assistant, Alfred Texel – Protagonist, Tomáš Tušer – Luke, Theatre Technician

This performance is held in cooperation with the Centre for Experimental Theatre.

21.00 From Husa Na Provázku

Screening of performances of Hunt for a Pig (58 min.) and The Garden Party (115 min.) by the Divadlo Husa na provázku theatre company

During the evening visitors can also check out the VHL’s permanent exhibition Havel in a Nutshell, part of which is dedicated to the theatre itself.

“Exotic” Bulgarian literature and shared melting pots: the shadow of Franz Kafka, the mysticism of Gustav Meyrink, cursed poets, the absurd plays of Václav Havel… Zlatina Jeřábková will discuss the poetics of the texts. The anthology is the first to present to Czech readers the literary work of four avant-garde writers: Svetoslav Minkov, Vladimir Poljanov, Čavdar Mutafov and Georgi Rajčev.

The initiators of the project and editors of the publication – Ginka Bakărdžieva, Marcel Černý and Vladimír Kříž – will take part in the event, while the book will be presented by the ambassador of the Republic of Bulgarian, Lačezar Petkov.

The evening is taking place in cooperation with the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Prague.

Rosa Maria continues in the struggle for Cuba’s freedom in the footsteps of her father and is now a member of the coordination committee of the Cuban democratic opposition. The conversation in English about the future of Cuba will be introduced and facilitated by Martin Palouš, President of the Václav Havel Library Foundation and Director of Václav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy at Florida International University.

The Václav Havel Library’s new publication Perzekuce Václava Havla. Dopisy a dokumenty z let 1968–1989 (The Persecution of Václav Havel: Letters and Documents, 1968–1989) will be presented during the evening. The book’s editor Jan Hron, historians Jiří Suk and Tomáš Bursík and literary historian Daniela Iwashita will explore prison correspondence from the perspective of experts, while direct participants Petruška Šustrová and Jan Ruml will remember their own authentic experience as writers of letters to/from prison. František Kreuzmann will read excerpts from letters. Tomáš Černý will serve as host.

The event is taking place as an accompanying programme to the colloquium Possibilities of and Perspectives on Interdisciplinary Research into the History of the Prison System in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s.

The evening is being organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the Institute of Czech Literature at the Czech Academy of Sciences and the association PoliticalPrisoners.eu.