Events: October 2017
September 2017
November 2017
Evenings with Polish Reporters: Memory of the Borderlands
October 2, 2017, 19:00
Why did a small town near the Czech-Polish border disappear? The Polish reporter Filip Springer spent two years searching for an answer to the question of why Miedzianka/Kupferberg no longer exists. The once thriving mining town suffered ill fortune several times in history. However, its fate was sealed definitively by the post-war expulsion of the original German inhabitants and the Soviet plundering of uranium deposits between 1948 and 1952; Polish returnees who came back in search of their homes ended up in apartment complexes in Jelenia Góra… More
Forsaken Society
October 4, 2017, 17:30 Participation on local events
Debate linked to the publication of Erik Tabery’s book Opuštěná Společnost (Forsaken Society), which explores the development of the Czech state and the challenges it faces today and will face in future. Are we capable of learning from our hitherto mistakes? What advice can history give us? It is possible to completely change the basic values of a state, the values it was originally built on? Is populism a driving force today? These and other issues will be discussed. More
Sokol, Kroupa, Palouš: Philosophy and Václav Havel
October 5, 2017, 19:00
The debate will take place on what would have been Václav Havel’s 81st birthday. It is more than fitting, therefore, to focus on his philosophy and philosophical works. Jan Sokol, Daniel Kroupa and Martin Palouš have accepted invitations to the discourse. More
Štětina, Romancov: Memory Doesn’t Burn
October 6, 2017, 17:00
A debate with the journalist, writer and politician Jaromír Štětina and the Russia Studies expert Michael Romancov focused in particular on Russia as a security threat. Chaired by Jana Spekhorstová.
Vášáryová, Brožová: She-Wolf
October 6, 2017, 19:00
Vlčice (She-Wolf) is a book by Karel Hvížďala of interviews with Magda Vášáryová (a candidate for the Slovak presidency, among other things) and Iva Brožová (winner of a dispute with the Czech president, among other things). The author borrowed the title from English history, where clever, ambitious and diplomatically adroit queens were dubbed she-wolves. More
FORUM 2000 and the Václav Havel Library present:
October 9, 2017, 12:00
FORUM 2000 and the Václav Havel Library present:
October 10, 2017, 15:00
What Price Human Rights?
October 11, 2017, 09:00 Conferences
In democratic societies, there exists a fundamental consensus about the importance of human rights and adherence to human rights standards. This consensus, however, begins to falter when specific human rights are found to be in an apparent or genuine conflict with other important human sights, such as security, prosperity or the majority principle in a democracy. The upcoming 5th international Václav Havel Human Rights Prize Conference, which is awarded by the Václav Havel Library in Prague together with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Charta 77 Foundation aims to discuss these conflicts and their resolution. Its three panels dedicated to human rights and security, human rights and prosperity, and human rights and democracy will offer the floor to leading Czech and international experts, activists and politicians. The audience can also look forward to a special appearance of one of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. More
FORUM 2000 and the Václav Havel Library present:
October 11, 2017, 17:00
The Impact of Floods of Information on Democracy More
Zdeněk Urbánek – Poet, Writer, Translator, Gentleman
October 12, 2017, 13:30
“I actually grew up my whole life in a spiritual space whose only sign or pointer was that lifelong friend of mine.” Václav Havel, 1997 More
Orly Castel-Bloom: Textile
October 16, 2017, 19:00
Israeli author Orly Castel-Bloom has received numerous literary awards and is regarded as one of the most influential intellectual voices in Israel today. She has taught at Oxford and Harvard and is now based at Tel Aviv University. Her new novel Textile is a humorous, at times almost surreal story about a family living in a wealthy suburb of Tel Aviv. While the father of the household, Irad Gruber, is an eccentric scientist and is working on a suicide-bombing resistant jacket for the army (and the entire planet), the mother, Mandy Gruber, heads a family clothing factory making pyjamas for an ultra-orthodox clientele… More
The Nineteen-Sixties, or (Not Just) a Spawning Ground for the Emergence of the Czech Underground – A Conference
October 17, 2017, 10:00
If Ivan Martin Jirous defined the Czech underground in February 1975 this could only happen because he was describing “something” that had already existed for some time. No community emerges out of thin air. More
I Have a Place to Live, Therefore I Am – How to Ensure Dignified Housing for People in Distress
October 17, 2017, 19:00
The panel discussion will explore the issue of how to increase access to social housing for people in distress. Among the matters discussed will be the experience of the Rapid Re-Housing project in Brno, which was set up by the Žít Brno movement with the aim of giving families with children the hope of dignified housing. We will evaluate the project and look at whether the ambitious project is influencing Czech practice in other cities and towns. More
Margaret Atwood in Prague – Hag-Seed and Other Work
October 18, 2017, 19:00
Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, feminist and social activist. From 1984 to 1986 she was president of the PEN Club. More
From Puzuk to Sakatek: Ivan M. Havel 1938–1989
October 19, 2017, 19:00
Jana Wohlmuth Markupová’s publication Od Puzuka k Sakatekovi. Ivan M. Havel 1938–1989 (From Puzuk to Sakatek: Ivan M. Havel 1938–1989) introduces readers to the life of an important continuator of the Havel family, a scientist, intellectual and writer who has been active in a number of different, at first sight incompatible worlds, on the boundary between the official and unofficial spheres, a person who brings together science and art. This effort to understand the personality of Ivan M. Havel is accompanied by an awareness of his broader, in particular family, context, reaching back to the early 20th century. More
Zdeněk Velíšek: Them Up Close, Us Under the Microscope
October 24, 2017, 19:00
The phenomenon of migration has accompanied the history of mankind through the ages. And intensively and in a helter-skelter manner here in Europe right now. More
Evenings with Polish Reporters: The Caucasus, Distant or Near?
October 26, 2017, 19:00
Wojciech Górecki has got to know three post-Soviet republics, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, at close quarters, as a journalist, foreign mission participant and diplomat. He is able to speak in an absorbing and erudite manner about their long and rich histories, traditions, cultures and contemporary problems, which frequently have their roots in history and lead to armed conflict today. As a reporter he has also spoken with many people, from politicians to people in the streets. His book Toast za przodków (A Toast to the Ancestors) is now coming out in Czech. More
The Church and Charter 77 – Protest as a Debt and Mission
October 31, 2017, 19:00
The non-political politics of Christians during normalisation and today. More