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An Englishwoman who has lived in Prague for over six decades – ‘war bride’ Ivy Kovandová
04.02. 2012Ivy Kovandová is one of the few remaining so-called war brides in the Czech Republic. ‘War brides’ are Englishwomen who married Czechoslovak pilots or soldiers stationed in the UK during WWII – an estimated 10,000 soldiers and about 2,500 pilots from Czechoslovakia fought alongside the allies, and many of them married local women. Some of those women accompanied their husbands back to their native land after the war. But most left Czechoslovakia due to the strain that the arrival of the communist regime placed on their lives, or simply because they felt lost and homesick. Ivy Kovandová, however, still lives in her cozy apartment in Prague’s Vršovice neighborhood and says she has never even considered leaving. Just a few weeks ago, she celebrated her 90th birthday. I recently visited Ivy at her home, where she told me all about her adventurous life over cake and coffee.
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Paul Robeson in Prague: paying homage to Dvořák and socialism
04.02. 2012In last week’s From the Archives we featured Martin Luther King, interviewed by Czechoslovak Radio in 1963. But Dr King was not the first civil rights campaigner to address Czech and Slovak radio listeners. Four years earlier, in June 1959, Paul Robeson came to Prague, to take part in an international left-wing cultural congress. Robeson was a man of many talents – singer, actor, athlete, writer and civil rights activist. He never concealed his sympathies with the communist regimes of the Eastern Bloc, and his political views – combined with the colour of his skin – earned him virtual pariah status in many sections of the US political establishment. This culminated in 1950 when he was refused a passport.
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Jaroslav Foglar and his “Rapid Arrows”
31.01. 2012Writer and youth movement activist Jaroslav Foglar left a deep trace in Czech popular culture. Besides more than 25 novels for children, Jaroslav Foglar is also the father of Rychlé šípy, or “Rapid Arrows”, a legendary comics that has earned a following with generations of Czech readers. Persecuted by the Nazis and the communists, the writer also single-handedly founded his own youth organization which, in its heyday, had tens of thousands of members across the country.
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Transforming token integration into good faith: Martin Luther King talks to Czechoslovak Radio
28.01. 2012“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’” The unforgettable words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., delivered on August 28 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. The speech, addressed to a crowd of a quarter of a million, was a defining moment in the American civil rights movement, and its echoes reached as far as communist Eastern Europe. In Czechoslovakia the civil rights movement had already aroused considerable interest, and not just because of the pleasure that the regime took in pointing to America’s shortcomings; Czechoslovak Radio's correspondent in the United States, Karel Kyncl, had already interviewed Dr King in March of that same year. Here is a short extract from the interview, where Dr King has just been outlining the progress made so far in ending segregation:
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Karlín – Prague’s first suburb
28.01. 2012Prague’s leafy central suburb of Karlín may best be known outside of the Czech Republic for the devastating floods that laid ruin to it in 2002, but much of the world has been using the machines and products born of Karlín factories for more than a hundred years and aside from that it is also Prague’s oldest suburb – a point recalled by an exhibition being held this year at the City Museum in Prague that was created by historian Dr. Zdeněk Míka:
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Tell of Bubeneč reveals oldest evidence of ploughing in the Czech lands
24.01. 2012The Prague district of Bubeneč, in the bend of the Vltava river, is a quiet, mostly residential part of town, and a scene of continuous archaeological discoveries. People have been living in the area since at least the 5th millennium BC, when the phenomenon of agriculture began to spread through Central Europe. Only last year the district made the international news with the discovery of an atypical burial site from the ancient Corded Ware culture. Now archaeologists working on the site of the new Canadian embassy have found what appears to be the earliest use of agricultural ploughing in the Czech lands. In this episode of Czech History, Christian Falvey speaks with Petra Maříková Vlčková, one of the members of the archaeological team.
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Shared destinies: Kissinger and Dienstbier meet in 1964
21.01. 2012The early 1960s saw dramatic developments in the Cold War, with the building of the Berlin Wall and then the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But there were also signs of a greater pragmatism in East-West relations. One channel for dialogue was a series of international gatherings, where scholars and public figures discussed how to reduce the risk of armed conflict. These were known as the Pugwash Conferences, named after the town in Canada where the idea was first launched back in 1957. In September 1964, one such conference was held in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.
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Charles Ota Heller: a soldier at the age of nine
21.01. 2012In the last days of World War II, nine-year-old Ota Heller picked up a revolver and fired it at a German soldier. He did not wait to see if the man was still alive. For decades afterwards he talked to no one about the experience, and only recently has Ota Heller – or Charles Ota Heller, as he is now called – felt able to return to his memories of the war, collecting them in his book “Out of Prague”. In this week’s Czech Books he talks to David Vaughan.
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Science Journal 21.1.2012
21.01. 2012There’s a hole in the middle of Prague, and we want you to know what’s in it. The early 1980s metro station at Národní třída is the scene of a fascinating archaeological dig that we’ll be visiting in this month’s Science Journal.
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Through Emperor Rudolf’s water tunnel under Letná
18.01. 2012The Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II left a deep mark in Czech history. Various legends and myths surround the 16th century ruler who made Prague his imperial seat and whose diverse interests made the city a centre of Renaissance arts and sciences. One monument from his time is hidden beneath the surface of the earth – a water tunnel carved deep into the rock of one of Prague’s hills.
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New website presents the life and sacrifice of Jan Palach
17.01. 2012Czechoslovak Radio, January 16, 1969: The municipal office of public order in Prague reports that at around 3 p.m. today on Wenceslas Square a 21-year-old arts student, J.P., set himself o n fire. He doused himself with a flammable liquid, set fire to his clothing and suffered serious burns. The fire was extinguished with the speedy assistance of passerby and he was taken to hospital by rescue services for treatment. The motive for the act is under investigation…
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Seeking asylum in communist Czechoslovakia
14.01. 2012Czechoslovakia played an active part in the Soviet Union’s propaganda war with the United States during the 1950s, a time of edginess and paranoia on both sides. There was no shortage of people trying to flee across the Iron Curtain to the West, but every now and then the flight would be in the other direction, and someone from the West would actively seek asylum in the Communist Bloc. For the communist regimes this was a propaganda opportunity not to be missed.
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From Karel Čapek to Graham Greene: a Scottish poet’s memories of Prague
14.01. 2012In a recent edition of Czech Books we looked at the Prague-inspired poetry of the Scottish poet, Edwin Muir. But it was not just in his poetry that Muir evoked the atmosphere of the Czech capital. David Vaughan finds out more in this week’s Czech Books.
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President Gustáv Husák, the face of Czechoslovakia’s “normalisation”
10.01. 2012The last communist president of Czechoslovakia Gustáv Husák became the symbol of the oppressive regime that ruled the country after the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Himself a political prisoner in the 1950s, he oversaw the persecution of opposition activists in the 1970s and 80s – an intellectual who supported the reforms of the Prague Spring turned into the Soviet Union’s lackey. We look at the life of Gustáv Husák on the 99th anniversary of his birth.
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Lucan portrait of Leonardo da Vinci to be shown at Zbiroh Chateau
10.01. 2012With its rich history and impressive neo-Renaissance architecture Zbiroh Chateau is a big attraction in its own right. In the course of the next two months it will moreover boast a rare exhibit – the Lucan portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, an alleged self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, which has never before been shown outside Italy.
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A Proustian moment in 1960s Czechoslovak Radio
07.01. 2012By the mid 1960s political control over many aspects of cultural and social life in Czechoslovakia had relaxed considerably. This was the height of the “New Wave” in Czechoslovak cinema, in theatre socialist realism had long gone out of fashion and in music the swinging sixties were well under way. But it wasn’t just through the music it was playing that Czechoslovak Radio tried to keep pace with the changes. One programme that broke the traditional mould was launched in 1966 and was called “The 33 Questions of Marcel Proust”. These were questions that the French novelist had compiled in the belief that by answering them you could better understand your inner self. In the programme, a well known personality would answer questions based on Proust’s list.
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Fighter against dictatorships: Cardinal Josef Beran
03.01. 2012Archbishop, later Cardinal, Josef Beran, become a symbol of opposition to totalitarian regimes. He was dubbed the archbishop who refused to be silenced. The punishment for speaking out was imprisonment first under the Nazi occupation and then the Communists.
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How the Velvet Revolution overturned the literary landscape
30.12. 2011Writers were at the forefront of the Velvet Revolution. But when the dust settled on the political changes they found a fast changing publishing revolution underway that left some of them sidelined. We look at the changes in the publishing and literary world over the last two decades.
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Village commemorates arrival of parachutists who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich
29.12. 2011The village of Nehvizdy, in central Bohemia, on Wednesday commemorated the 70th anniversary of the start of Operation Anthropoid, the targeted killing of the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich. Two Czechoslovak commandoes who carried out the killing, landed near the village on the night of 28 December, 1941.
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The Czechoslovak legions: myth, reality, gold and glory
27.12. 2011The Czechoslovak legions occupy an almost legendary place in Czech history. They comprise the armed forces that fought during and after World War I on the allied side in pursuit of an independent Czechoslovakia. The biggest force, and most potent myths, centre on the Russian force, which became embroiled in the civil war, spending three years and travelling thousands of miles before returning home. We look at the myths and facts about their exploits.
