Events: October 2016
September 2016
November 2016
Wendy Holden: Born Survivors
October 3, 2016, 17:00
Czech presentation of the book Born Survivors (published as Narodili se, aby přežili, Mladá fronta, 2016), the incredible story of three women from Poland, Bohemia and Slovakia and their children, who were born in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and all survived. More
For Free Belarus: An evening with Mikalai Statkevich and Maryna Adamovich
October 3, 2016, 19:00
Debate with the Belarusian pro-democracy politician Mikalai Statkevich, a former political prisoner and opposition presidential candidate, and his wife, the activist and human rights campaigner Maryna Adamovich, about the current situation in Belarus. More
Tomáš Tožička: Who is served by sustainable development?
October 4, 2016, 19:00
All of the states in the world agreed at the UN to bring about sustainable development. The majority of world governments, including the Czech government, are now preparing a strategy to achieve that. Tomáš Tožička, an expert on development issues, will discuss what the chances are that we can deliver sustainable development for all of the people on the planet and how development maintains the status quo of a divided human race.
Tribute to Václav Havel in Prague 6 – Gala Opening
05/10/16 – 18/12/16 Exhibitions
Celebration of what would have been the 80th birthday of the first Czech president, intended not only as a tribute from the citizens of Prague 6 to their famous co-citizen but above all as an expression of respect for a person who served freedom and democracy in an extraordinary way, his literary work and his lifelong work for human rights around the world. More
Czech Radio Vltava: Mozaika on Václav Havel, Live
October 5, 2016, 16:00
Live broadcast of the arts programme Mozaika commemorating the birth of Václav Havel. Theatre Studies expert and Anticodes editor Lenka Jungmannová will discuss his literary and dramatic work; director David Radok will share his experience of working on Havel’s final completed play Leaving; and writer and Václav Havel Library programme director Jáchym Topol will explain the connections between the institution and the man whose name it bears. Monika Načeva will sing, accompanied by Michal Pavlíček on guitar.
And Everything Around is so Russian it Makes Your Head Spin
October 6, 2016, 19:00
Russian Studies experts Alena and Jan Machonin will present an anthology of poetry by Russian poets of the Lianozovo school, Zloději všedních okamžiků (Thieves of Every Moment), issued this year by the publishers Arbor vitae. The work of Yevgeny Kropivnitsky, Genrikh Sapgir, Igor Kholin, Vsevolod Nekrasov and Jan Satunovsky from the turn of the 1950s and 1960s is close in its poetics to Western experimental or minimalist poetry; at the same time, however, it grew out of the domestic avant-garde from the start of the century and the realities of Moscow’s peripheries. More
Babylon Review Conference: The Past in Us
October 7, 2016, 19:00
The editors of the Babylon literary review will moderate a discussion on the question: How does the totalitarian past influence the positions we hold today, be it on the immigration crisis, our position on authoritarian regimes and movements, or freedom and tolerance? How to react in the arts sphere to the rise in hatred in society? More
Rr at the National Theatrrre
October 9, 2016, 18:15
A trrragicomedy on the desirrre of Rrrobert Chrrroust to become an actorrr. Authorrrs Pavel Kohout and Václav Havel completed the play in 1973 and it was perrrformed just once, at a meeting of the banned wrrriterrrs at Hrrrádeček the following yearrr. Afterrr many yearrrs of silence, the Václav Havel Librrrarrry has decided to brrring it to life officially. More
Waclaw Radziwinowicz on Russia
October 10, 2016, 19:00
Meeting with Waclav Radziwinowicz, a Polish journalist with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza who is a leading Polish expert on Russia and whose articles represent a significant strand of Polish opinion on Moscow. He also serves as a Poland-based correspondent for the radio station Echo of Moscow. More
Directing Havel
October 11, 2016, 17:00
Debate with leading directors of Václav Havel’s plays. Confirmed guests: Jan Burian, Andrej Krob, Vladimír Morávek, Petr Oslzlý, Daniel Špinar and Břetislav Rychlík. More
Debate with Respekt
October 11, 2016, 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.
Václav Havel Human Rights Prize – Fences, Walls and Trenches: Freedom of Movement as a Human Right?
October 12, 2016, 08:30 Conferences
Fourth annual international conference in honour of the laureate of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize with the participation of this year’s three finalists and other eminent guests, including Michael Ignatieff, director of the Central European University, and Ales Bialiatski and Anar Mammadli, the 2013 and 2014 recipients of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize. More
Big Book Thursday – Václav Havel: Notes of the Accused
October 13, 2016, 17:00
Ceremonial presentation of a facsimile of a previously unpublished 1977 diary kept by Václav Havel. More
Varujan Vosganian: The Book of Whispers
October 13, 2016, 19:00
Presentation of a Czech version of Varujan Vosganian’s novel The Book of Whispers (published as Kniha šepotů, Havran, 2015), in which the author traces the history and complicated fate of Romania’s Armenian minority – massacres of Armenians at the end of the 19th century, genocide during WWI, subsequent flight of Armenians to Romania, communist nationalisation, deportation of Armenian elites to Siberia and voluntary repatriation back to Armenia. More
Havel@80 at Lucerna
15/10/16 – 16/10/16
Eighty well-wishers – figures from public life and the arts sphere – will appear to offer congratulations on what would have been the president’s eightieth birthday. Come along too and celebrate with us the still living legacy of the writer, dramatist, philosopher, human rights campaigner and Czechoslovak and Czech president Václav Havel! More
Karel Cudlín: Journeys and Pictures
October 17, 2016, 19:00
Evening with the photographer Karel Cudlín, whose series capture journeys he has made to the east, in particular to Carpathian Ruthenia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and later to the US and Israel. He has documented, for instance, Valdice prisoners and the departure of Soviet troops and entered the public consciousness as the photographer of President Václav Havel. More
Can a Politician Who Respects Values Succeed in the 21st Century?
October 17, 2016, 16:00
Today’s world demands quick solutions. Across Europe populists are coming to power. They like to present themselves as the defenders of the values that underpin Western civilisation. Their influence sometimes exceeds that of those politicians who are developing the legacy of the founders of the EU and refuse to take the populist route. What chance do politics based on values have today? Come along and ask current and former senior politicians from the CR, Germany and Slovakia. More
Turkey: Democracy Hijacked?
October 17, 2016, 21:30
Evening discussion within the conference Forum 2000 on the current political situation in Turkey. What will be the fate of Turkish democracy which – especially following a failed coup attempt in July – is under great pressure? Will President Erdoğan further consolidate his power? And what do current developments mean for the European Union and NATO? More
Conference: Country Houses, a Communal Way of Life in the Underground
October 18, 2016, 10:00
After the court trials of Czech underground figures (1976) and the subsequent proclamation of Charter 77, the normalisation regime began to carry out repression against the opposition. Underground types believed that if they were less “visible” they would be able to live freely. They were mistaken. The retreat to the countryside, generally to devastated farm buildings, seemed to be the last acceptable move to the margins. More
Jana Kopelentova: Czech Political Prisoners
October 18, 2016, 19:00
Evening with Jana Kopelentova Rehak, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Maryland who has long been focused on social and urban ecology and social inequality as well as the cultural history of Eastern Europe. In the 1990s she worked in the Czech Republic with refugees from the Chernobyl disaster and with the community of former political prisoners. She is now presenting her book Czech Political Prisoners: Recovering Face (2012), which focuses on the fates of political prisoners in the 1950s.
On dying
October 19, 2016, 17:00
Dying is a subject that is complicated and, for many, hard to comprehend and tabooised. Should we speak about dying at all? Why do we avoid even mentioning it, or at least try to tiptoe around it? Is it at all possible (and how) to prepare for the fact that departure from this world will also one day also affect us and our loved ones? More
Ladislav Heryán: Oddball on this Earth
October 19, 2016, 19:00
Exotem Na Této Zemi (Oddball on this Earth, Portál, 2016) by Ladislav Heryán, which is subtitled O božím milosrdenství mezi námi (On God’s Mercy Among Us), centres on an understanding for people’s life stories. More
Tereza Boučková: Life is Wonderful
October 20, 2016, 19:00
Celebration of the publication of writer Tereza Boučková’s new novel Život je nádherný (Life is Wonderful), which is just coming out on the Odeon imprint. More
New Dissidents in Contemporary Russia
October 21, 2016, 19:00
Meeting with Zoya Svetova, a journalist and human rights campaigner. From 2010 to 2014 she worked for the opposition periodical The New Times Magazine and she now writes for the website OpenRussia. More
Civic Disobedience, the Right to Resist and the Democratic Legal Order
October 24, 2016, 19:00
The right to resist and civic disobedience are instruments that are regarded as wholly legitimate in periods of repression. But what place do they have in a society dubbed democratic? Do we recognise democracy by the fact that it is capable of accepting debate about itself? Or do we need to rely solely on rules set by democracy itself? More
Oleh Kryshtopa: Ukraine, Scale 1:1
October 25, 2016, 17:00
Presentation of a Czech edition of a book by Oleh Kryshtopa, a writer, essayist and journalist who crisscrossed his native country, from West to East and back again, recording the testimonies of hundreds of people and accessing places that a regular tourist never sees. The book Ukraine, Scale 1:1 (published in Czech as Ukrajina v měřítku 1 : 1) is the result of many journeys and interviews. It delivers an authentic testimony as to how people live in Ukraine today and makes clear what led to the Maidan, the subsequent annexation of Crimea and the current war with Russia. More
Aluze Review Evening: Literary Magazines as a Cultural and Social Focal Point
October 25, 2016, 19:00
From the beginnings of modern Czech literature, through the famous 1960s era, into the recent samizdat period and even up to the present day, we have seen the publication of numerous literary magazines, small and large, brand new and unknown, and renowned and based on long tradition. What are they like? Do they comprise an ever-vibrant intellectual focal point? Or are they becoming a relic in the internet age? More
Evenings with Polish Reporters V: Phenomenon: Polish Literary Reporting
October 26, 2016, 19:00
Presentation of the book Fenomén: Polská literární reportáž (Phenomenon: Polish Literary Reporting, Karolinum, 2016), the first publication of Polish literary reporting for Czech readers and the result of a conference and debate of the same title that took place last year. The title explores the genre’s history and present and features interviews with leading Polish reporters. More
Meeting Philip G. Zimbardo
October 26, 2016, 16:30
Debate with the American psychologist and populariser of psychology Philip G. Zimbardo. A professor at Stanford University since 1968, he is famous for his research in the field of prison psychology, in particular for the Stanford prison experiment of 1971, which was financed by the Office of Naval Research and attempted to discover why wardens tend to treat inmates cruelly. More
Alexej Sevruk: A Theatre of Dancing Puppets
October 27, 2016, 19:00
Evening with Alexej Sevruk, a prose author, translator of among others Yuri Andrukhovych and Serhiy Zhadan and editor of the magazine Plav, who presents his new debut book, the short story collection Divadlo tančících loutek (A Theatre of Dancing Puppets, Větrné mlýny, 2016). More
Timo Laine: Tanks and Roaches
October 27, 2016, 17:00
Timo Laine presents his book Tanks and Roaches. The Collapse of the Socialist System as Seen from the Inside (2014), which takes in the heart of events that were the focus of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The discussion evolves around the breakup of the Soviet empire, the nature of the Soviet state, communist ideology, cultural differences and ethnic conflicts. Laine has continued his travels in present-day post-Soviet countries, participating in demonstrations and democratic processes and observing the cleavage between the reality of everyday life and a media landscape distorted by disinformation. More
President Wanted, N.B. Democrat
October 31, 2016, 19:00
The presidential elections that will take place at the start of 2018 are drawing inexorably near. Politician Michael Kocáb, writer, translator and dramatist Radka Denemarková, diplomat Petr Kolář and Michael Žantovský will discuss the role played by the president in the Czech constitutional order and the prospects and strategies of potential candidates. More