frantova jitka

Contents
“Our presidency comes at just
the right time,”
– says Ambassador Milena Vicenová,
Czech Permanent Representative to the EU.
pages 4 – 7
Editorial
Dear Readers,
This issue is devoted to the Czech
presidency of the European Union.
The presidency is always important, but
in this case it takes on special importance, since this is the first time the
Czech Republic will be filling this role.
Moreover, it comes at a time when the
EU will most probably be undergoing
significant institutional changes.
I see our presidency as having three
dimensions: organizational, marketing
and conceptual. It is an opportunity to
show that we are able to manage the
very difficult organizational task of
leading an organization of 27 countries. The Czech government takes this
very seriously, and on 1 January 2009
we will be prepared. The second
dimension is the opportunity to promote the Czech Republic, which will
find itself at the centre of enormous
media attention for six months. The
entire republic, all of its regions, will
be represented; thus there will be a
number of accompanying events taking place outside the capital city of
Prague. The third and final dimension
is the chance to impart to the Union
something of our opinions, our ideas
and our concept of Europe’s future.
This third dimension is represented
in the motto of our presidency: “Europe Without Barriers”. A Europe that
is liberal, open, flexible. A Europe
that does not impose economic, political or geographic obstacles. A Europe
that does not hinder enterprise, trade
or the free movement of people and
services. A Europe that is globally
competitive, that accepts new members and strives to build a political
community.
I have no illusions, and realize that
in terms of importance these three
aspects of our presidency will probably come in the order I have listed
them. Most of all it will be a hard
bureaucratic and organizational task.
The rest will consist of promoting the
Czech Republic abroad. Ideals will
be the smallest part: any country that
oversees the EU is glad if it can
achieve just one or two practical things
during its presidency. What these
will be, will be decided on the basis
of consultation just prior to the start
of our presidency. Even so, this broad
definition of priorities under the slogan “Europe Without Barriers” remains a useful exercise. It is not only
what can realistically be achieved
during six months while searching for
consensus among 27 countries. Ideas
do have an impact, and we want to
have an influence not just on the next
six months, but on the future direction
of the EU: towards expanding the
boundaries of freedom, which is the
fundamental European value.
Europe as a Task
– “We live at a time when Europe has
the opportunity, unprecedented in its
history, to put itself in order according
to the principles of equality and peaceful
cooperation.” A selection from speeches
by Václav Havel.
pages 8 – 11
“Schengen in Bohemia”
– Adam Drda on the country’s border
from 1948 to its disappearance in 2007
pages 12 – 15
Heading the Class in Transformation
– The Bertelsmann Foundation’s
evaluation of the Czech Republic
in terms of economic transformation
pages 16 – 19
Presidents
– Czechoslovak and Czech Presidents
from the creation of an independent
Czechoslovakia in 1918
pages 20 – 21
“We’ll have a hand in whatever
happens.”
– Marek Danihelka on Czechs working
in the “capital of the EU”, Brussels
pages 22 – 25
The Passionate Anti-lyricist:
Milan Kundera
– One of the world’s best known Czech
writers, as seen by Karel Hvížďala
pages 26 – 29
Twenty-four Islands of Czech Culture
– Twenty-four Czech Cultural Centres:
representing the Czech Republic in twenty
countries on three continents
pages 30 – 33
The Top 10
– Ten original Czech products granted
European Commission labels
pages 34 – 35
“We take our home with us.”
– Jiří Voskovec, Jan Tříska, Pavel
Landovský, Jitka Frantová – Czech
actors in exile
pages 36 – 38
The Heart of Europe appears six times a year and presents
a picture of life in the Czech Republic. The views expressed
in the articles are those of their authors and do not necessarily
represent the official positions of the Czech government.
Subscription orders should be sent to the editorial office of
the magazine. Publisher, in cooperation with the Foreign
Ministry of the Czech Republic, Theo Publishing.
Editorial office:
J. Poppera 18, 530 06 Pardubice, Czech Republic
Editor-in-chief: Pavel Šmíd, Art editor: Karel Nedvěd
Chairman of the Editorial Board: Zuzana Opletalová, Director
of the Press Section of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and spokesman for the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Members of the Editorial Board: Libuše Bautzová, Pavel
Fischer, Vladimír Hulec, Robert Janás, Milan Knížák, Martin
Krafl, Eva Ocisková, Tomáš Pojar, Jan Šilpoch, Petr Vágner,
Petr Volf, Marek Skolil
Translation by members of the Department of English and
American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno
Lithography and print by VČT Sezemice
Articles appearing in The Heart of Europe may be reprinted without the permission of the editors or authors
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in the magazine should contact the editorial office or the
individual photographers concerned.
ISSN 1210–7727
Mirek Topolánek
Internet: http://www.theo.cz
Publisher’s e-mail:[email protected]
Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
3
“Our presidency comes
at just the right time,”
says Ambassador Milena Vicenová,
Czech Permanent Representative to the EU
Since January of this year, Milena
Vicenová has been the Czech Republic’s representative to the EU. She
will have to face one of the most difficult tasks in modern Czech history: to
oversee the Czech presidency of the
EU Council in 2009. Ambassador Milena Vicenová, originally by profession a veterinarian, has served in a
number of difficult posts both in the
private and the government sphere,
and was Minister of Agriculture in
Premier Mirek Topolánek’s first government. Before that she was very
successful as director of the pre-acces-
4
sion SAPARD programme for drawing on EU funding, coordinated the
preparations of the Ministry of Agriculture prior to joining the EU, was
the spokeswoman for the EU Special
Committee on Agriculture and served
on the Advisory Forum for the European Food Safety Authority. She directed the work of the Prime Minister’s negotiation team for the European structural funds. Milena Vicenová has also been active as a journalist – she was President of the
national Club of Agricultural Journalists and Publicists, represented the
The flags of the ten new members of the European Union, with the Czech flag in the foreground, before the European Parliament, 3 May 2004
Session of the European Parliament
Politics
“Europe without Barriers”
Motto of the Czech presidency of the
European Union in 2009
Czech Republic on the Committee of
the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) and was
Editor-in-chief of the professional
agricultural journal Náš chov for the
publishing house Strategie. Ambassador Vicenová also has experience
from a number of foreign study trips
and postings.
What can we expect from the Czech
Republic’s presidency of the EU
Council?
Above all, the presidency is a major
opportunity for the Czech Republic.
It’s a chance to show our potential, to
make our mark as an important and
trustworthy partner on the international scene and demonstrate that since
1989 we’ve travelled the long hard
path of political, economic and cultural renewal – something that’s taken a
much longer period of time for other
countries. For us the presidency will
also mean bringing the EU closer to
our citizens, since the Czech Republic
has never experienced such extensive
participation in EU matters. It will
be a test by fire for the state bureaucracy and a test of our ability to work
intensively with the international com-
munity on a day-to-day basis. The institution of the presidency is, among
other things, an important instrument
for the presentation of national interests. During the first six months of
2009 the Czech Republic will have
to prove itself able to run the entire
EU Council.
How does the presidency actually
work?
The EU presidency – to be precise,
the Presidency of the Council of the
European Union – is exercised by individual member states for six-month
terms. The Czech Republic will chair
all meetings of the EU Council, its
preparatory committees and working
groups, and negotiate solutions that
are beneficial for all of Europe. It will
represent the Council during negotiations with other EU institutions and
departments, for example the European Commission and the European
Parliament, and represent the European Union vis-à-vis international
organizations and during discussions
with countries that are not EU members. The country entrusted with the
presidency is responsible for creating
the best possible conditions for the
EU Council to be as effective as possible and for coming up with compromise proposals during negotiations so as to reach consensus among
the member states. And every country
that takes up the presidency is also
faced with a major organizational
challenge. The Czech Republic will
have to be able to coordinate a large
number of conferences all over the
world as well as the 150 meetings or
so that will be held in all the regions
of this country. It will be responsible
for seeing to it that the participants in
the conferences and representatives
of the media have the proper conditions for their work.
Milena Vicenová with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg
5
Skateboarders in front of the European Parliament in Brussels
Is the Czech Republic really prepared for such a task? Isn’t it a bit
early?
Our presidency comes at just the
right time. Preparations are in full
swing – and next year it will be twenty years since the November revolution and we’ll have been EU members
for five years. There’re enough qualified Czech diplomats in Brussels, and
they have the support not only of VicePremier Alexandr Vondra but also of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by
Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. Originally it was also thought
that we would be the last member state
of the EU to begin its presidency under
the present rules and the first to finish
it under new rules, for it was expected
that that the Treaty of Lisbon would be
6
approved. However, its rejection by
Ireland has meant that we’ll have to
take on a great many new responsibilities during our presidency.
What does it mean for us when the
Lisbon Treaty doesn’t come into effect
in conjunction with the Czech presidency, as was originally planned?
The influence of the Treaty of Lisbon on the Czech presidency was connected among other things with the
creation of two new posts – the President of the European Council and the
High Representative of the Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The High Representative was to monitor all activities of the EU that have
an external aspect and be responsible
for ensuring that it acted in a coordi-
nated, unified and firm manner in its
relations with non-member states and
other international organizations. The
President of the European Council
was to represent the EU on the international scene, acting as a partner for
the world’s leading politicians. These
positions certainly won’t come into existence before the Czech Republic takes
up its presidency, so the Czech Republic is now preparing to take on the
full presidency. This means that we’ll
be in charge of all the negotiations
and discussions these two individuals
would have been responsible for.
And what does this mean concretely
for the Czech Republic?
As a result of the current situation,
there’s a whole range of practical tasks
And elections to the European
Parliament?
Czech Ambassador to the EU Milena Vicenová being
received by President Václav Klaus
the process of enlarging the EU more
complicated. Already voices have
been raised calling for a halt to further admissions to the EU, the reason
given being that the proper institutional changes needed for stabilizing the
EU have not been introduced. But the
Czech Republic is one of the countries
that support further enlargement.
During possible discussions on further enlargement, pressure might be
exerted for changes inspired by the
rejected Treaty of Lisbon to be made
part of European law.
Milena Vicenová, taking office as Minister of
Agriculture, with Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek,
Prague, 5 September 2006
They will be taking place from 4-7
June 2009, during our presidency.
During the first half of our presidency
the European Parliament will devote
intense attention to completing legislative projects that are underway
in order to have a “clean slate” by the
time of the elections, and also so the
Euro-representatives can present what
they have achieved in their election
campaigns. Roughly from April or
May 2009, Euro-representatives will
be busy with their campaigns, which
means that the Czech presidency will
in fact have only three months to be
able to pass all the necessary legislative texts. We’ll certainly use the
remaining time of our presidency to
negotiate a number of other important
non-legislative texts. For example,
we expect to begin the debate over
the future European Union budget
after 2013.
Mme. Ambassador, we wish you
every success in fulfilling your difficult task as well as possible, and
hope that the Czech Republic will
pass this difficult test with flying
colours.
Jan Vytopil, Alice Mžyková
Permanent Representation
of the Czech Republic
to the European Union
in Brussels
Photos: Jan Vytopil, ČTK
that we’ll have to see to that would have
been taken care of under the terms of the
Treaty of Lisbon. For example, once
again we’re faced with the commitment
to lowering the number of members of
the Commission that will take office on
1 November 2009. The number of commissioners is not laid down anywhere.
This issue may well appear on the agenda of the March meeting of the European Council, which was originally to
have been chaired by the “President”.
Our presidency will have to carry out discussions in such a way as to facilitate the
establishment of the new Commission.
So a stronger presidency is an advantage for us?
I wouldn’t say that. The negative
result of the Irish referendum makes
7
Europe as a Task
We live at a time when Europe has
the opportunity, unprecedented in
its history, to put itself in order according to the principles of equality
and peaceful cooperation. Until now,
order in Europe has been based on
the dictates of the great and the
powerful, to which the smaller and
less powerful were forced to submit.
Now, for the first time, there opens
up the prospect of a Europe ordered
in accordance with justice.
T
oday it seems natural that
all those curtains and walls that
divided Europe were destined to
fall. For the first time in our history there is a real chance for us to
bring order to Europe on the basis
of the principle of cooperation,
the principle of shared values, the
principle of mutual respect.
The Law of European Time
Europe is a space in which many
sources, in particular Classical, Jewish
and Christian, join together in a
remarkable manner in a single historical current. This current, in comparison with many non-European civilizations, has many distinctive features,
among which perhaps the most characteristic is that of a new or different
concept of time. In the European tradition – first in the form of the history of
redemption and later in the form of the
idea of progress – time has been above
all an occasion for, a call to, move-
8
ment – movement from the old to the
new, from the worse to the better.
The individual cast into European
time is certain that he comes to know
the world more deeply and more truly;
in the spirit of this knowledge, he feels
duty bound to continue bettering it
and to spread his knowledge and his
prescriptions for a better life. His element is movement, development,
progress, change. Quite naturally he
views his knowledge as universal, and
as he also has a sense of universal
responsibility, he feels authorized to
spread his ideas and his progress
across the planet. It is as though somewhere at the very heart of the European relationship to the world and of
European culture there are certain
powerful elements favouring expansion. In the depths of the European
spirit there is something doubly fateful: on the one hand the fantastic
development of a rational understanding accompanied by a deepening of
respect for the human being and his
rights, and on the other a fundamental
expansionism. In the end the typical
European feeling of responsibility for
the world takes on – rather paradoxically, but in a certain sense quite logically – the form of pride in the possession of the truth, embodied in individuals incapable of developing even the
most elementary feeling for the world
of others.
On the Path of Modern Civilization
The whole of Europe is crisscrossed
by ancient trails and pilgrims’ ways:
they are still discernible in the countryside, quietly crossing the borders
of modern states and even slicing
through the iron curtains of the recent
past, in the process reminding us all of
just how unnatural and impermanent
these were and are. This holds true not
only for the routes of pious pilgrims,
but also for those of merchants and
warriors. So our ancestors moved across Europe for spiritual and material
ends. Even when their journeys were
unbelievably long, and they had no
knowledge of whether or not they would
return, again and again they set out.
E
urope once set the course for the
whole of modern civilization, putting
it in motion and exporting it – in the
double sense of the word – to the whole
Václav Havel at his cottage in Hrádeček, 1976
world. And I put the question whether
the new mission of Europe today might
no longer be that of imposing everything on the rest of the world, much less
that of using force in the process, but
rather the opposite – of finding ways of
facing up to the ambiguity of some of
the civilization processes that are occurring at the present time, of selecting
what is good and avoiding the bad and,
through a kind of “self-improvement”
or search for a new and distinctive responsibility, of serving for the others as
a possible example and inspiration.
The time when Europe taught and
educated the world has come to a def-
inite end. And this is doubly true when
it comes to the question of forcing its
own culture on it as the best and only
true culture. I am deeply convinced
that the opposite is true – that the time
has come when Europe, in the spirit
of that humility that she once possessed as part of her spiritual heritage,
should begin to re-shape, tame and
change herself in a thorough and civilized manner. If this serves as an
example to others and has an influence on them, it will be a fine thing.
But to calculate in advance that this
will happen is not possible. It is simply necessary to begin.
9
Václav Havel on a visit to Easter Island, 1996
Europe as a Cathedral
We all know, and can name in our
sleep, the basic values that link together
so many varied European countries
and that form the roots of their present
integration. These are democracy, the
rule of law, respect for human rights,
civil society, the market economy.
But why exactly do we and should
we believe in these values? Simply
From a meeting of seven Presidents in the eastern
Bohemian town of Litomyšl, 1994
because we have agreed on them as
things that are beneficial to all? I
believe that what we are talking about
here is and must be something more
than a mere contractual arrangement.
And that, unfortunately, it is as a mere
contractual arrangement that it is increasingly being regarded.
Somewhere behind all agreements
there must also be what are called a
conscience and responsibility. What
else are a conscience and responsibility
than an individual’s relationship to what
extends beyond him, to the endless and
the eternal, to the transcendent and to
the mystery of the world, to the order
of being and to the omniscient?
I have the feeling that Europeans are
increasingly reluctant to acknowledge
this. It is as though they are increasingly inclined to regard it as a question of some kind of private whim or
personal hobby that does not belong
on the public stage of politics. This
embarrassed relationship to the transcendent aspects of one’s own endeavours is very dangerous. It is something
like the builders of a Gothic church
forgetting that they are building a ca-
10
thedral and starting to think that they
are only constructing a building that is
supposed to be tall, strong and capable
of holding a lot of people. If that was
their state of mind, the work they produced would of necessity cease to be
a cathedral, and would gradually become – as though in some fairy tale
– a mere heap of stones.
I believe that Europe does have a
mission. In my view, this is to incarnate
in its own distinctive form of being the
kind of responsibility for the world that
alone can save our world. I am not saying that Europe will save the world.
I am only saying that it is necessary
to begin at home. This does not mean
thinking up some kind of new ideology. It only means returning to the
authentic meaning and substance of the
spiritual richness that Europe has created in the course of her history.
Europe, as the historical entity that
is so deeply responsible for the glory
and shame of today’s planetary civilization, should be the first to bring to
today’s world an understanding of
how to really confront all the dangers,
threats and horrors that are rushing in
of post-Communism. In my opinion,
what we owe them is reflection on our
experience. We still have not been
able to express clearly enough what
it was that we experienced, what it
meant and what kind of general experience for humanity follows from this.
Perhaps it is impossible to communicate – I don’t know. But I lean towards
the view that we should not give up
trying again and again to describe this
Václav Havel and his second wife, Dagmar
on it. Who else should show how to
reverse the ambiguous development
of civilization than the society that
once gave it birth?
What Europe should do is recall the
shape that the idea of responsibility for
the world originally took in her cultural
tradition. For this was not pride in being
able to force her faith and her ideas on
others, nor a sense of the anthropocentric superiority of man to the order of
nature. It was something quite different: the humble path of example. Was
Christ’s redemptive sacrifice not in fact
an embodiment of the principle that if
we wish to change the world we must
begin with ourselves?
On Unpaid Debts
It seems to me that we people from
the post-Communist countries, countries that found themselves behind the
Iron Curtain, still owe something to
the developed Western democracies,
which had the fortune not to experience those decades of Communism
and which, as a result, know nothing
of all the conundrums and mysteries
experience, to analyze it and to offer
the world – and above all the democratic world – something like our
intellectual and spiritual contribution
to a better, shared future.
In my opinion, we continue to be the
West’s debtors, but at the same time
the West is also our debtor. I am thinking here of those countries that have
experienced many years of continuous
democratic development. The West
owes us, and through us itself and in
fact the whole world, a greater degree
of courage. It should not be so afraid of
those mysterious post-Communist countries with their weird speeches, with their
at times somewhat strange, surprising
political cultures and semi-cultures.
The West should also rid itself of its fear
of post-Communist mystery because
historically speaking it is not in fact
completely without guilt when it comes
to the actual existence of the Communist, and hence post-Communist, world.
The division of Europe after the Second
World War occurred to a considerable
degree with the complicity of the West,
and our many decades within the vast
Soviet empire were to a certain extent
caused by the restraint, the silence, the
detachment, the silent agreement of the
democratic Western world.
Václav Havel
Photos: Jan Šilpoch, Tomki Němec, Bohdan
Holomíček, editorial archives; painting (including
details) by Mikuláš Medek (Table of the Designer
of Tower I , 1968, oil, enamel, canvas) published with
the kind permission of Eva Kosáková-Medková
From speeches delivered by Václav Havel when
receiving the Civil Prize (Berlín, 2000), the Prince of
Asturias Prize (Spain, 1997) and an honorary doctorate at Trinity College (Dublin, 1996), when speaking
at the New Atlantic Initiative congress in Prague in
1996 and when appearing before the French Senate
(Paris, 1999), as well as from an interview with the
Czech daily Mladá fronta Dnes (2001).
11
“Schengen in Bohemia”
or The Late Demise of the Iron Curtain
At the end of 2007 the Czech border
controls disappeared. What does this
mean for the “average Czech”? In purely practical terms: if you go by car to,
say, Germany, you no longer have to
stop at that low square building that
looks like a petrol station, dig out your
papers and show them to the fellow in
the uniform. The Czech Republic has
belonged to European Union for four
years now, and so even for the past
while they didn’t look too much at your
papers any more, just asked “Going on
vacation?” and waved you through. So
without the border check there is less of
a holdup, less hassle.
of darkness and foreboding. The borders are a symbol of the vast prison
that most Czechs grew up in, a symbol
of fear and the police state. A wall
behind which lies freedom, beyond
which one may not pass – a place of
dying, half-decayed villages, a “noReconstruction of the capture of CIC agent
Eduard Bartuška in barbed-wire fencing
on the border with Austria, 18 September 1953;
Bartuška spent six years in prison.
B
ut it’s not quite that simple
with the borders – actually it goes a
bit “deeper”, shall we say. For people
who lived at least some of their adult
(or adolescent) lives under Communism, the borders are not just a line between countries, a staking out of territory. The words “border” and “border
area” still evoke a sense of adventure,
12
Statistics from the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes
of Communism show that 318 people died between 1948 and 1989 in attempts
to cross the border.
man’s land” of high-voltage barbed
wire, where people were shot and
died. When I say the word “border”, I
always think of the border separating
us from the West.
T
here is great interest in the former “iron curtain” on the part of the
public. Czech Television recently broadcast a special documentary series on
the border, and there are internet pages devoted to the topic as well (www.
zeleznaopona.cz, www.lahvista. cz).
But it is questionable whether these
“Eastern” feelings are understood by
people in the former Western Europe,
whether they are able to understand
that “Schengen” is not just a complicated technical and economic mechanism for making life simpler. It does
carry a certain risk, but it also marks
the end of a terrible chapter in history.
For some people it even provides an
effective inoculation against “personal
psychological problems” (something
I will explain at the end of this text).
Miroslav Svatoň, 32 years old, died on the barbed-wire fence, 16 May 1953.
Society
“The border isn’t some kind of
promenade where anybody can
just walk around!”
Gustáv Husák
(1913 – 1991)
last Communist President
of the Czech and Slovak
Socialist Republic
A paradise of stool pigeons and the
shots fired by Officer Kalivoda
the hospital about 10 minutes after
having undergone an operation.”
I’m reading a police report from
1949. State Security unit Mokřiny was
tipped off by a citizen of the village of
Nebesa that “a while ago an unfamiliar young man asked for directions
and the distance to the state border.”
The patrol caught up with him, and
Officer Kalivoda began to shoot. The
man ran and Kalivoda fired again,
after which “he found him lying on
the ground on his back, his hands
pressed to his stomach, from which the
officer concluded that he was wounded... He then saw that his trousers were
unfastened and his intestines coming
out.” The wounded man was treated
and taken to the hospital; from his documents the police learned that his
name was Josef Polek, but “despite
immediate medical care... he died in
olek was a typical victim of the
border. He would never have been given
permission to leave the country, so he
tried it himself in the western border
region of Karlovy Vary. And because
the borderlands were teeming with informers, it was enough for a “proper citizen” to pick up the telephone and –
Josef Polek was shot down like a dog.
How many people suffered the same
fate? Statistics from the Office for the
Documentation and Investigation of
the Crimes of Communism state that between 1948 and 1989, 145 people were
shot to death trying to flee to Austria or
Germany, 96 were killed by electricity,
11 people were confirmed drowned
while trying to escape, while another
50 were found by the police in the
P
Barbed-wire fence on the western boarder of Czechoslovakia (1956); the central wall was charged with 2000-6000 volts, guaranteed to cause death.
13
Tearing down the iron curtain along the Austrian-Czechoslovak
border not far from Hatě near Znojmo, December 1989
rivers in the border regions. In addition,
16 persons “committed suicide”.
During the period 1948-1989 many
more unfortunates were of course arrested than killed. I will probably always
remember the story of Otto Neumann,
who came from a mixed Czech-German family. They caught him on 30
October 1949 as he was trying to join
his sweetheart (herself originally a German-speaking Czechoslovak citizen),
who had emigrated from Czechoslovakia. He went the same way as Polek
– trying to go over the border near
the town of Aš. He was not especially
prepared; all he had with him was
a map and a pistol he had found
in the forest after the war. In Cheb he
naively confided to a taxi driver that
he was headed “over the hills”. The
taxi driver offered to take him to his
friend, a border smuggler – and took
him straight to the police instead.
O
tto Neumann later remembered: “They told me to get out of the car.
A soldier was standing there with a
submachine gun. He led me inside and
told me to open up my pack. There he
found my maps. He looked at me and
suddenly said, ‘Hands up!’ I knew this
was trouble. On my left stood another
soldier with a machine gun and opposite me a policeman. There was noth-
ing I could do. I started to put up my
hands, but then I said to myself, it’s
now or never. I reached into my pocket for the revolver. The sight caught in
my pocket. The policeman jumped on
me and knocked me to the ground.” They
beat Neumann, and he got nineteen
years for treason and attempted murder. He wound up in the uranium mines,
and never saw his girlfriend again.
14
Just after the accession of the Czech Republic and
eight other European countries to the Schengen zone;
cars and pedestrians passing through the crossing
at Schmilka-Hřensko on the Czech-German border,
2 January 2008
Kameny – a play directed by
the State Security
Stories about events on the border
are usually verifiable through memoirs
and archival documents. For example,
there were hundreds of agents who
went back and forth across the border.
These were often ex-soldiers who had
fled Communism and then begun to
cooperate with Western intelligence.
Sooner or later they ended up in the
hands of the Czechoslovak State Security (secret police) and were sent to
labour camps, like the writer Ota Ram-
bousek or the eastern front veteran
Jaroslav Grossmann, both turned in
by informers.
The State Security also used the border as bait, as in operation Kameny
(“Stones”), in which the police created
a cynical piece of theatre to catch unfortunates yearning to get out of Czechoslovakia. The supposed smugglers were
actually secret police agents. They led
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk, watched by German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, sawing through a barrier at a Czech-Polish border crossing
the would-be escapees to a “German
patrol”, again played by agents in disguise. They were then debriefed by an
“American officer” (another agent)
and questioned about their anti-Communist friends, only to be then “kidnapped” again by State Security agents
and taken “back” to Czechoslovakia,
where they were charged and their
friends arrested. Of course the whole
charade took place a safe distance
inside the border.
After 1953 a two-and-a-half metre
fence was put up around the border and
charged with high voltage, the so-called
wall of death. The fence was the idea
of Ludvík Hlavačka, a State Security
officer. He was reputed to have been a
Gestapo confidant. In the 1950s he was
an investigator for the State Security in
Uherské Hradiště, where he constructed
an electric torture device. After studying in the USSR he was made the head
of the border guard, and finally Deputy
Minister of the Interior. According
to historians Hlavačka was one of the
people who were directly responsible
A special “Schengenbus”, equipped with devices for
detecting counterfeit and doctored travel documents,
came to Prague on 6 November 2007.
something personal. Sometime in 1988
my friend Svatopluk and I thought of
a plan to get to the West. I was sixteen,
and it was a pretty adolescent idea:
Sváťa had a cousin in Austria who regularly travelled to Prague. So he got
the idea (the archives show that he was
not alone) of hiding in his Audi, in the
trunk or behind the back seat. He said
no one ever checked his cousin – it
was a sure thing. Fortunately his cousin
was a sensible person and told Sváťa
no way. But the plan impressed me,
and remained firmly in my memory –
and certainly it contributed to the fact
that whenever I crossed the border after
for the deadly installations on the border. The border guards Hlavačka commanded, who chased and shot people,
were presented by Communist propaganda as heroes, tough men protecting
the “people’s democratic” system. When
I was six or seven years old I met some
border guards at Pioneer camp. They
demonstrated the training of a “selfmotivated attack dog” that was able
to bring down a “violator”. In the Border
Guard Museum there was long a (stuffed) dog named Brek, who had personally assisted in the apprehension of
some 50 “violators”, and was accordingly decorated by the state.
People succeeded in crossing the
border by various means throughout the
entire era of Communist rule. In 1951
an engineer hijacked a train to Germany
with more than a hundred people on
it; thirty-four of them remained in the
West. In 1961 a home-adapted truck
smashed through the barriers with
seven people on board. In 1966 two
people galloped away from a police
patrol on horseback. During the “nor-
malization” era of the 1970s and 1980s
people tried to flee by hiding in the
trunks of western tourists’ automobiles
or, in one case, got away in a small tank
pieced together in a barn. One of my
friends from France helped get a persecuted Czech musician out – he resembled her French friend, so she got him
through on her friend’s French passport.
To close this article, allow me to say
1989, I felt a slight tingling and a relieved, almost blessed feeling when we
got to the other side. A polite policeman
is still a policeman; a formal border
check is still a check. Now it’s all gone,
and it seems I feel somewhat more normal than I did before.
Adam Drda
Photos: ČTK, Police Archives,
www.vlada.cz
Children in Zittau (Germany) celebrating the accession of Poland and the Czech Republic to the Schengen zone
15
Heading the Class
in Transformation
The Czech Republic ranks number
one among 125 countries that are
undergoing transformation or have
done so in the recent past, according
to a recent study by the Bertelsmann
Foundation. It compared the development of democracy and the market
economy in different countries and
came to the conclusion that in the
past few years the Czech Republic
has pulled ahead of the previous
transformation champions, Slovenia
and Estonia. Next after this trio
came Taiwan, with subsequent rankings going again to Central European countries. The Czech Republic
received 9.56 points on a ten-point
transformation scale.
16
Presentation of the Golden Steering Wheel
for the Škoda Fabia
The Bertelsmann Foundation
evaluation reports that the Czech
Republic is mainly an economic
champion. The report speaks of a
functioning and open market economy, macroeconomic stability, rapidly growing exports, a strong
inflow of foreign capital, a consolidated banking system, a mild rate of
inflation, relatively low unemployment and an appreciating domestic
currency.
A homogeneous society
The Bertelsmann Foundation is
a private non-profit organization
founded in 1977 by the German me-
The five-hundred-thousandth Škoda Fabia leaving the Škoda factory in Kvasiny
Škoda Auto also produces cars in a new factory in the Russian city of Kaluga.
The Škoda Superb at the auto show in Geneva, 2008
Škoda Auto has opened three special workplaces for the physically handicapped.
Economics
Toyota Peugeot Citroen Automobile – grand opening of the factory
“The Czech transformation in the
direction of democracy and a market
economy is a success.”
Josef Janning
the Bertelsmann Foundation
in the Czech Republic, they attain
much lower levels of education.
dia magnate Reinhard Mohn. The
goal of the foundation is to support
peaceful coexistence and become
involved in the areas of international
understanding, education, economics,
social issues and health.
Economy led by
auto industry
T
he Bertelsmann transformation
index reflects this goal as well. The
paradigm by which it is constructed
places strong emphasis on a wellfunctioning social network, the education system and fairness in incomes, which are areas in which, for
historical reasons, the Czech Republic maintains a good position. The
compilers of the index come mainly
from the academic community.
The foundation’s report praises
the fact that there are no conflicts
in the country stemming from disputes between religious denominations. Religious dogma has no influence on Czech politics and law,
as Czech society is among the most
secularized in Europe. There are
strong, independent, investigative
media sources in the country. Freedom of speech and the press are
guaranteed; people also make widespread use of the internet to gain
information. Czech society is very
homogeneous ethnically, so there
are no ethnic conflicts. Despite the
inflow of Ukrainians, Slovaks and
Vietnamese, who are seeking economic betterment in the Czech Republic, the largest minority in the
Czech lands remains the Roma.
According to the foundation report,
the Roma “experience economic
exclusion” and have difficulty overcoming the cultural and social barriers separating them from the majority society. Compared with the
majority population, but also with
the offspring of Vietnamese living
Training TPCA workers
Since the 1990s the Czech Republic has been led economically by
a competitive automobile industry.
After merging with the German concern Volkswagen, the automobile
maker Škoda has enjoyed great success on the world market. Today its
models are the Škoda Fabia, Octavia, Roomster and Superb. It is significant that the firm, though owned
by foreign capital, has remained a
fully-fledged automobile maker, not
just an assembler – it develops its
own new cars and prototypes, develops and manufactures key components such as engines and transmissions and has its own marketing
and economic strategy and its own
sales network. Besides Škoda Auto’s
three factories in Mladá Boleslav,
Kvasiny and Vrchlabí, a completely
new auto factory (TPCA) has been
built in Kolín in central Bohemia,
producing small Toyota, Peugeot
and Citroën cars. In the Moravian
Silesia Region in the northeastern
part of the country, construction is
17
Assistant brewer at Budějovický Budvar testing the quality of the beer
Director of the Secretariat
of the Czech Automotive
Industry Association.
The production base of
the Czech suppliers’ industry is complete; practically the entire car can
be assembled from parts
made in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is one of Europe’s
leading manufacturers of
automobile lights, tyres,
sparking plugs, brake and
injection systems, windscreens and plastic parts.
being completed on a
new assembly plant for
the Korean auto maker
Hyundai. According to
informed estimates by
the Automotive Industry
Association, this year’s
total of personal and
light utility automobiles
produced in the Czech
Republic may exceed
one million. Karosa, the
traditional Czech maker
of buses, is now owned
by the Italian company
Iveco. Its plant in Vysoké Mýto has become one
of the largest producers of public
transport vehicles in Europe. The
production of trucks is also undergoing a renaissance, especially with
the companies Tatra Kopřivnice and
Avia Praha.
Widespread economic
renaissance
Besides automobiles, the workhorse of the Czech economy in the
1990s, other sectors are developing
very successfully as well. At first
the Czech electronics industry went
through a decade of deep crisis,
during which the former Eastern
markets practically disappeared.
The highly qualified Czech labour
force has remained, however, and
during the last few years the Czech
electronics sector has experienced
remarkable growth, especially in
the areas of electronic parts, mo-
T
he Czech auto industry produces more than just fully-assembled vehicles. A major role is also
played by parts suppliers. “Thanks
to cooperation with Škoda Auto,
Czech parts suppliers have got to
the point where they’re gradually
able to form ties with every European automaker,” says Antonín Šípek,
18
Brewing room at Budějovický Budvar
On 18 June 2008 the Swiss weekly Sonntag declared Budweiser Budvar Europe’s champion beer.
nitors, televisions, computers and
security systems. During the last
five years the ability of Czech companies to export machines as well as
entire investment units has grown
considerably.
E
very region of the country has
experienced economic growth, even
where the economic transformation
to a market economy was the most
difficult. The Moravia-Silesia Region was particularly hard hit by the
decline of coal mining and the restructuring of heavy industry. “Machine tool production has made a
big comeback in the region,” declares the Governor of the MoraviaSilesia Region, Evžen Tošenovský.
“Software companies have come
here, too, in particular TietoEnator.
This has created a great demand for
educated people, and will lead to
growth in the entire tertiary sphere.”
In the Moravia-Silesia Region there
has already been a boom in the construction of shopping centres; now
loping civil society and an independent judiciary. However, according
to the authors of the study, the political culture lags behind. The society is sharply divided between right
and left, while the public is severely
Country
Transformation
index
Czech Republic
Slovenia
Estonia
Taiwan
Hungary
Lithuania
Slovakia
Chile
Uruguay
South Korea
Poland
Costa Rica
Latvia
Croatia
Bulgaria
Mauritius
Romania
South Africa
Botswana
Brazil
9.56
9.49
9.42
9.33
9.18
9.16
9.14
8.99
8.90
8.89
8.76
8.73
8.60
8.57
8.44
8.33
8.31
7.98
7.94
7.90
disillusioned with the behaviour of
its politicians. Elections are free and
fair, but the animosity of some politicians causes voter fatigue with
politics. The electoral system is such
that elections can – and did for
a time after the last elections –
lead to a stalemate. Elections to the
Chamber of Deputies in 2006 failed
to produce a clear outcome: candidates of the left (Social Democrats
and Communists) won a total of 100
seats, while right-wing parties (Civic Democrats, Christian Democrats
and the Greens) also won a total of
100 seats. “The Czech transformation towards democracy and a market economy is a success, which
gives it first place on the ladder of
the Bertelsmann Foundation transformation index,” says the Josef
Janning of the foundation. “These
good marks, however, should certainly not lead to the mistaken conclusion that there is no need for any
more big reforms, especially in the
areas of organized crime, the electoral system and environmental pro-
Source: Bertelsmann Foundation
there is a boom starting in hotel and
office construction.
Economics before politics
The reason for the overall leadership by the Czech Republic has
mainly been economic success,
along with a well-functioning social
system. As for political matters, from
this standpoint the report is more
critical. The Czech Republic is a
democratic state and a country functioning under the rule of law, with
all political freedoms, with a pluralistic, transparent and consolidated
spectrum of political parties, a deve-
tection.” The study calls for changes
in the Czech state administration,
particularly emphasizing “effectiveness and professionalization”.
A
ccording to Czech commentators it is fine to be first at something. However, Czechs no longer
wish to be compared to the transforming states; they would prefer to
see themselves alongside the most
advanced countries of Europe.
Petr Korbel
Editor of the weekly Ekonom
Photos: ČTK, archives of Škoda Auto, TPCA,
IVECO Czech Republic and Budějovický Budvar
IVECO Czech Republic is the largest domestic bus manufacturer.
When IVECO Czech Republic was still Karosa Vysoké Mýto, Slovak Bus Transport purchased sixty new Karosa buses, replacing a third of its vehicles.
19
20
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
Edvard Beneš
(7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937)
(28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948)
Philosopher, sociologist, teacher, politician, statesman. From 1897 professor
of philosophy at the Czech university in Prague. Author of many works, among
them Russia and Europe, The Czech Question, Humanistic Ideals and The
Problem of a Small Nation. From February 1916 Chairman of the Czechoslovak
National Council. On 30 May 1918 signed in Pittsburgh an agreement on a joint
state of Czechs and Slovaks. In 1918 elected first President of the Czechoslovak
Republic; re-elected in 1920, 1927, 1934. In December 1935 stepped down.
In 1918 he was not a member of any political party; he maintained his strong
influence on public life through his natural moral authority.
Profesor of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. Close
collaborator with T.G. Masaryk. Present at the birth of the League of Nations and
played an important role in its activities. Creator of Czechoslovak foreign policy
in the interwar period, during the Second World War and in the period immediately after. Elected President on 14 December 1935, accepted the Munich
Agreement under pressure in September 1938, in October 1938 resigned and left
for London, where in 1940 he set up a representative body of the country in exile.
After the end of the war reconfirmed as President, in 1946 re-elected. In February 1948 gave in to Communist pressure, refused to sign a new Constitution
and in June 1948 stepped down.
Emil Hácha
Klement Gottwald
Antonín Zápotocký
(17 July 1872 – 1 June 1945)
(23 November 1896 – 14 March 1953)
(19 December 1884 – 13 November 1957)
Lawyer, elected President in 1938, from 1939
State President of the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia. Under pressure from Hitler, signed a
document in Berlin in March 1939 agreeing to
the German occupation of the country. During the
subsequent occupation a passive tool of German
policy. Arrested in May 1945; died in prison
hospital.
In May 1921 one of the founders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Elected President
of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1948; served till
his death. Supported the Stalinist model of Communist dictatorship and the installation of a totalitarian regime. Bears main responsibility for the
state of unlawfulness, arbitrary rule and police and
judicial terror at the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s.
Worked in the Red Trade Unions and from 1928
a member of the Executive Committee of the Red
International of Trade Unions. Imprisoned in a
concentration camp during World War II. After the
war headed the trade union movement. From
1948-1953 Prime Minister, 1953-1957 President.
State of unlawfulness and totalitarian practices
continued under his rule.
Presidents
Antonín Novotný
Ludvík Svoboda
Gustáv Husák
(10 December 1904 – 28 January 1975)
(25 November 1895 – 20 September 1979)
(10 January 1913 – 18 November 1991)
Member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1921; imprisoned in a concentration
camp during World War II. President from 19571968. Contributed to the state of unlawfulness in
the 1950s; in the 1960s obstructed re-examination
of show trials and the process of political rehabilitation. Under pressure from the public, resigned
from all his positions in 1968.
Member of the Czechoslovak legions in Russia
during World War I. In 1939 escaped to Poland
and then the USSR, where he became commander
of Czechoslovak military units in 1942. Minister
of National Defence in the post-war period (19451950); in February 1948 supported the Communist
coup. Served as President 1968-1975.
Slovak politician. After 1945 laid the groundwork in Slovakia for the Communist coup;
in February 1948 its main protagonist. Arrested
in 1951 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Amnestied in 1960. After the occupation of
Czechoslovakia in 1968 the main supporter of the
pro-Brezhnev faction in the Communist Party.
Served as President 1975-1989.
Václav Havel
Václav Klaus
born 5 October 1936
born 19 June 1941
Politician and playwright. In the 1960s worked for the Theatre on the
Balustrade; forced to leave after 1968. Employed subsequently as a worker,
at the same time continuing his writing and civic engagement. Co-founder and
signatory of Charter 77. Imprisoned several times in the 1970s and 1980s. In
November 1989 emerged as leading figure in the opposition. Elected President
of the Czech and Slovak Socialist Republic in December 1989; re-elected in July
1990. In February 1993 elected President of the Czech Republic; re-elected
for the period 1998-2003. Most important literary works include the plays
The Garden Party, The Memorandum, Audience, Unveiling, Largo desolato,
Temptation, Redevelopment and Leaving, the essays “Words on Words” and
“The Power of the Powerless” and the collections On Human Identity and Letters
to Olga (letters addressed to his wife when he was in prison).
Economist and politician. Jointly responsible for the model used in the transformation of the Czech economy after 1989; proponent of the transition to a
market economy. Researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak
Academy of Sciences from 1963-1970; employed at the Prognostic Institute
of the same institution 1987-1989. Co-founder and Chairman of the Civic
Democratic Party. Czechoslovak Minister of Finance 1989-1992, Prime Minister
of the federation 1992, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic 1993-1997.
Elected President in 2003; re-elected in 2008. Author of many books, among
them The Road to a Market Economy, Economic Theory and Economic Reform,
The Face of Tomorrow, Macroeconomic Facts of the Czech Transformation and
Blue Planet in Green Shackles.
21
“We’ll have a hand in
whatever happens.”
Czechs becoming established in the EU capital
Fifty years ago, at Expo ’58, the
Brussels World’s Fair, the whole world
marvelled at the Czechoslovak exposition. Leading figures such as Walt Disney and many others paid
glowing tributes to the imaginativeness of Czech artists
and architects. Even so, no
one could have imagined
then that Brussels would
one day host the largest
group of Czech diplomats,
professionals and businessmen abroad. Yet today some
one thousand Czechs “stand
out” very successfully among
the forty thousand bureaucrats and employees of the
European Union.
22
Diplomats
“In the dim, bygone era of the early
1990s, Czech diplomats had their
offices at a chateau near Brussels, in
the company of the squirrels that had
the run of the park there. They went
to town only sporadically, usually for
lectures at various research
institutes, where they pondered – and are still pondering – the meaning and direction of European integration.
Not that there was nothing
to do, but what was done did
not require a concentrated
presence on union ground.
The main issues were dealing
with anti-dumping disputes,
comparing legislative codes
and haggling over the political issue of when they would
finally accept us as EU mem-
A large crowd of locals drawn to a performance by Czech musicians at the opening of the Czech House in Caroly Street in Brussels
Representatives of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Czech state and Czech businessmen at a working breakfast
of the Czech Business Representation to the EU, May 2008
bers.” This is how Czech
Press Bureau reporter Karel
Barták described the beginnings of the new era of Czech
diplomacy in Brussels.
Since the Czech Republic
joined the EU in 2004 the situation has changed dramatically. The number of Czechs
in and around EU institutions
has grown rapidly in the last
two years. At the top of the
pyramid are European Commissioner Vladimír Špidla
and Ambassador Milena Vicenová, who will lead the Czech Republic’s Permanent Delegation during
the Czech presidency of the European
Council in 2009. The broad pool of
Czechs in Brussels includes directors
and leading members of European
institutions, officials, translators and
interpreters. The Czech Republic has
its representatives to the European
Parliament, diplomats in the Czech
Republic Permanent Delegation and
representatives of the regions. “Every
country sends its smartest people to
Brussels, the aim being to win as great
an advantage as possible for their home
team in the endless struggle for every
minor benefit,” as Lucie Tvarůžková,
correspondent for the daily Hospodář-
ské noviny, pointed out, commenting on
the personnel structure of the European
institutions. Partners of EU employees
make up a large group of new arrivals;
they are are now dealing with the typical difficulties of catching on in Belgium, which still does not allow Czechs
to work freely in the country.
Architects
Architects from the Czech lands have
left an indelible mark on Belgium.
Every Belgian knows the Stoclet Palace on Tervuren-Laan in Brussels, with
its mosaic by Gustav Klimt. The building is the work of the architect Josef
Hoffmann, who came from the town of
Czechs in Brussels, as seen by the photographer Tomáš Jacko
Brtnice near Jihlava in
Moravia. Many locals regard the palace as the
architectural jewel of the
capital city, and last fall
the Belgian government
applied to have it listed
as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The architect Čestmíra
Veselá is the co-architect
of the building that currently houses the European Parliament. “This is
my contribution to Europe,” says Veselá with a touch of selfirony, pointing to a modern building on
the edge of the European Parliament
complex. The building’s soaring, slim
form, with its polished black stone cladding, is reminiscent of a modern cathedral. The Parliament’s employees
flow into the building through high
glass front doors. This building was
born in the imagination of this Czech
woman who has lived in Belgium for
twenty years. CERAU, the architectural
firm in which she is a partner, is one
of three firms designing new buildings
for the European Parliament.
Veselá took part in designing two sixstorey buildings built in recent years
just a few dozen metres from “her”
23
Some of the several thousand fans of Czech culture who crowded Caroly Street for the second Czech street party,
featuring a performance by Gipsy CZ.
The first Czech Ball in Brussels
building. They cost over 300 million
euros, and are connected to the original
complex from the early 1990s by skywalks. This graduate in architecture
from the Czech Technical University is
even more proud of two of her other
works, the reconstruction of the interiors of the famous Royal Museum
of Fine Arts and the Museum of Natural History.
Experts
Czechs are an important part of the
group of experts seconded to Brussels
by their national governments – what
in European jargon are called SNEs.
The head of the Czech scientists is the
nanotechnology specialist Rudolf Fryček. They apply their talents in many
fields, from taxes, law and international
relations to agriculture and food analysis. Some Czech scientists work for
the Joint Research Centre, overseen by
the European Commission’s General
Directorate for Research. Here Jalal
Younis takes part in the development of
a European system for forecasting and
early warning of floods, and his colleague Jan Kropáček models various
climate change scenarios. The number
of individuals who find work in
Brussels after work placements is also
growing. Czechs are to be found among
the students at the College of Europe,
situated in Bruges.
“Bohemists”
This year marks the tenth anniversary
of a “little Slavonic island” at a highly
respected local Francophone institution
– the Czech studies centre at the Free
University of Brussels (ULB). In 1996
then-ambassador to Belgium Jaroslav
Šedivý asked the university if it would
have anything against having a Czech
24
professor there paid by the Czech government. The place for one Prague
teacher developed into a full-blooded
field of studies where students may be
examined on such things as “the influence of Communist ideology on Czech
culture in the 1950s” or write their thesis on Czech Cubism. “Jacques Rupnik
and A. J. Liehm came to lecture here,
we organized a Czech language summer school and suddenly we got noticThe first Czech Ball in Brussels
ed,” says Jan Rubeš, director of Czech
Studies at the university. “And we aren’t
producing any unemployed graduates.
Our graduates can find work as translators in Belgium and a good third of
them end up in Prague, where they teach
French or work for Francophone companies.” Rubeš’s twenty-two-year-old
student Thibault Deleixhe adds, “When
you talk about a Pole in Belgium, everybody has a clear idea. But the Czech
The first Czech Ball in Brussels
mic world, having lived among Iranian
and Turkish immigrants and travelled
through Asia and the Middle East.
She has published two books based on
the Muslim environment – The Veil and
Jeans and Bars in Paradise. Today she
works in the office of European Commissioner Vladimír Špidla. Petr Bližkovský (born 1963), Director of the Secretariat General of the European Council
of Ministers, is co-author of a unique
book, Europe: An Idea Taking Form. It
defines Europe with the help of original
citations of European historical figures
from the thirteenth century to the establishment of the EU. Eduard Hulicius
(born 1980), who otherwise works at the
European Parliament, has written brief
histories of Belgium and Luxembourg
Republic has somehow lacked a clear
image. I see it as an opportunity for me
to promote Czech culture.”
Writers
for his Czech compatriots. The life of
young people on work placements
in Brussels was summed up under the
apt title A Confusion of Languages, or
A Brussels Travelogue, by translator
Veronika Valentová (born 1974).
photographs by Jan Saudek in every
bookstore with an art section, the glasses
that a local businessman commissioned at the Květná glass works for a new
brand of beer or the ‘Made in Czechoslovakia’ leather chairs with spruce
frame that can be bought for 300 euros
in stores on the Grand Sablon square,”
says Hospodarské noviny correspondent
Lucie Tvarůžková. Various organizations
and government agencies do a significant part of their work in Brussels. For
example, there is an office of the Czech
Academy of Sciences and two offices
of CzechInvest. The newly-opened Czech
House in Brussels is home for eighteen
offices representing Czech regions,
firms, agencies and governmental departments. Lobbyists and firms (Czech
Rail, Czech Power, etc) also have their
representatives to the EU institutions.
Brussels is also the headquarters of the
largest community of Czech journalists
and commentators abroad.
“No longer are our diplomats to be
found in the chateau with the squirrels
on the outskirts of Brussels but instead
in a big office building in the European
Quarter. It’s not a question of ten of
them, as before, but hundreds, when
assisting personnel is included. The
Czech language echoes down the endless corridors of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the
European Council and offices in Brussels and Luxembourg, and no one bats
an eyelash. The expanded European
Union may not face easy times, but
this time we’re a part of it. We’ll have
a hand in whatever happens,” concludes the Czech Press Agency reporter
Karel Barták.
Czech culture, howver, is not totally
unknown in Belgium. Among the new
Euro-employees are Czechs active in the
literary world. Madalena Frouzová (born
1977) is a respected expert on the Isla-
“The Czech Republic is quite a good
brand. Take for example the books of
Prof. Jan Rubeš, head of Slavic Studies at the Free
University of Brussels
Čestmíra Veselá, who shared in the design of new buildings for the European Parliament and the refurbishing
of the interiors of the famed Royal Museum of Fine Arts and Museum of Natural History.
Businessmen, lobbyists and others
Marek Danihelka
with materials supplied by Jan Vytopil
Counsellor, Permanent Representation of the
Czech Republic to the EU
Photos: Tomáš Jacko, Jan Vytopil, Kateřina
Šafaříková, archives of Čestmíra Veselá
25
The Passionate Antilyricist: Milan Kundera
In Milan Kundera’s Art of the Novel, first published in Paris in 1986,
there are seven chapters – as with
most of his other books. Chapter 6
came about like this: “I was reworking a translation of some novel of
mine and spending whole weeks on
the second floor of the Gallimard
publishing house with my proofreader. At the end of the day, exhausted, I would stop in one floor
below to visit my friend Pierre Nora,
the Editor-in-Chief of the journal
Le débat. He teased me on account
of my Sisyphean labours in forever
correcting translations and he said
to me, If all you’re thinking of now
are words, French, Czech, then write
a dictionary of your words for me.”
O
ne of the sixty-three words that
originally appeared in Le débat and
made it into the English translation
of The Art of the Novel is “Interview”:
“(1) The interviewer asks you questions of interest to him, of no interest to you; (2) of your responses, he
uses only those that suit him; (3) he
translates them into his own voca-
26
bulary, his own manner of thought.
In imitation of American journalism,
he will not even deign to get your
The novels of Milan Kundera
“The only thing I care about of
what I ever wrote, the only thing
I’ll allow to be re-published, are my
novels.” Like composers of music,
Kundera sometimes gives his works
an opus number. Opus one: The
Joke, finished in 1965 and first
published in Prague in 1967; later,
in 1968, in France, with an introduction by Louis Aragon, in which
he takes Communism to task after
the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The introduction includes Aragon’s
oft-quoted remark: “I refuse to believe that Czechoslovakia will become a spiritual Biafra. However,
I see no light at the end of this path
of violence.” The Joke was filmed
by Jaromil Jireš. Opus two: Laughable Loves, in fact a collection of
short stories written during the years
from 1958 to 1968, first published
in three parts, then as a single volume, in Prague, and in definitive
form also in Paris (1970). Opus
three: Life is Elsewhere, completed
in 1969 and first published in Paris
in 1973. Opus four: The Farewell
Waltz, finished in 1971 and first
published in Paris in 1976. Opus
five: The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting, written after his exile in
1975 and first published in French
in Paris, 1979. Opus six: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, completed 1982, published in French
in 1984; a book that the French
queued up for, something the country had not experienced for years.
Opus seven: Immortality, completed
in 1983, first published in 1988.
Opus eight: Slowness, published in
Paris in 1995. Opus nine: Identity,
published in Paris in 2000. Opus ten:
Ignorance, published in Paris, 2003.
approval for what he has you say.
The interview appears. You console
yourself: people will quickly forget
it! Not at all: people will quote it!
Even the most scrupulous academics
no longer distinguish between the
words a writer has written and signed, and his remarks as reported … In
July 1985, I made a firm decision:
no more interviews. Except for dialogue co-edited by me, accompanied
by my copyright, all my reported remarks since then are to be considered forgeries.”
I mention at length Kundera’s attitude towards interviews for two reasons: First, so it will be clear to readers that I did not speak with Milan
Kundera before writing this article
(in 1979, when I asked him for an
interview for Czech Conversations
in the World, he promised that he
would give an interview only if he
got the Nobel Prize; as one of the
most often-translated writers in the
world he has been nominated for
years). And secondly so it is clear
what a deep and committed feeling
Milan Kundera has for words. In
1979, together with his friend the
From The Joke (directed by Jaromil Jireš, 1968), probably the most successful film adaptation
of a literary work by Kundera
Literature
“I want to be annulled as a person
and leave behind only my novels.”
Milan Kundera
(born 1929)
writer
writer Claude Courtot, he spent
every day for three whole months
working through the translation of
his novel The Joke. This is another
reason why he is so exceptional in
the Czech tradition as a writer of
novels. Most of the prose written in
Czech has a narrative, storytelling
character, as with Jaroslav Hašek
or Bohumil Hrabal, based on a beer-
hall torrent of words, while Milan
Kundera walks in the footsteps of
the French Cartesian novel à la thèse,
which is conceived and constructed
like a Gothic cathedral, full of high
vaults of precisely cut stone, of carefully fitted words and ideas.
Milan Kundera was born on 1 April
1929 (“I came into the world on April
Fool’s Day, which has its metaphy-
Covers of books by Milan Kundera, represented in the Czech Republic by Atlantis publishers
27
sical significance.”) in Brno, into the
family of a music scholar and subsequent Rector of the Janáček Academy of the Performing Arts (19481961), and music was long the most
important thing in life for him. He
finished secondary school in Brno
in 1948. After spending a few semesters at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, where he studied the
theory of literature and esthetics as
well as musical composition, he left
the university. Why he ended his
studies I never learned, but one thing
is sure: in 1952 he graduated from
the Faculty of Film at the Academy
of Performing Arts in Prague. There
he worked until 1970, first as a lecturer and from 1964 as Associate
Professor.
H
e began to publish at the age
of sixteen in the magazines Gong
(translations of Mayakovsky) and
Mladé archy. His main body of work
consists of novels. Besides novels,
he lists among his works the plays
Jacques and his Master: A Homage
to Diderot, which is a free variation
loosely based on Diderot’s novel
Jacques the Fatalist, and his alreadymentioned volume of essays called
The Art of the Novel. In 1993 he added another volume of essays, published in the original as Les Testaments trahis (Testaments Betrayed),
and in 2005 a third book of essays
Le rideau (The Curtain). For his books
he has received fifteen major international literary awards.
From his body of work Kundera
rejects his first work, Man: A Wide
Garden, where we find verses celebrating Communist “comrades”, his
28
book of poetry The Last May, honouring the Communist myth surrounding
Julius Fučík (a journalist executed by
the Nazis) and analytical verses published in the collection Monologues.
He regards two of his theatre pieces,
The Owner of the Keys (premiered
at the Czech National Theatre) and
The Blunder, both written in the 1960s,
in the same light (though he has
allowed the latter to be re-premiered
at the Činoherní Theatre in Prague).
He also excludes from his collected
works some incidental texts, including his legendary speech at the 4th
Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers in 1967. This occasion
touched off the subsequent social
changes in Czechoslovakia known
today as the Prague Spring. In his
speech Milan Kundera emphasized
the precariousness of the existence
of Czechoslovakia in the European
context as well as tolerance towards
plurality of opinion as the basic ethical principle of modern culture. The
message of that text is still a timely
one for Czechs even today.
Kundera became politically active
at the age of eighteen, when he joined
the Communist Party. He was soon
expelled (1950) along with another
future writer, Jan Trefulka. He wrote
about the experience in his first novel, The Joke. His party membership
was restored in 1956, but in 1970,
after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the “friendly” armies of the
Warsaw Pact, he was again expelled
and fired from his job. He made a living by, among other things, writing
horoscopes – under a pseudonym of
course – for the magazine Mladý svět.
In 1973 he was awarded the Prix
Medici for his book Life is Elsewhere. Two years later he was invited
to France at the behest of François
Mitterand; there he became a Visiting
Professor at the University of Rennes
and, in 1978, at the École des Hautes
Études en Sciences Sociales. All his
books have been published in France,
and to this day he still. To this day he
still lives mostly in Paris. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in
1979 after the publication of The Book
of Laughter and Forgetting. Two years
later he became a French citizen.
Since the mid-1980s he has done more
and more of his writing in French.
The central theme of his novel Immortality, which is sometimes considered a synthesis of his novelistic and
essay work, is a picture of man in the
technologically developed world at
the end of the twentieth century as a
being manipulated by illusory images
created and disseminated by journalism and advertising. In Kundera’s
eyes, people are inundated by a tidal
wave of information but are forgetting their own identity and the value
of basic interpersonal relationships.
If we return in conclusion to The
Art of the Novel, we find there in his
From the film The Unbearable Lightness of Being (directed by Philip Kaufman, USA, 1988), based on the novel of the same name by Milan Kundera
Europe”, and points to its singularity,
uniqueness, multi-layeredness and colourfulness. His message was immediately understood by elites in Hungary and Poland, and he was soon
seconded by György Konrád and
Czeslaw Milosz.
According to Milan Kundera,
Central Europe, that is the “abducted
West”, took part in all of the important cultural trends of the West until
1945. After the Second World War
it was fenced off with barbed wire
and mine fields with automatic
machine guns, and became a prisoner
of the East. It was abducted from
the West by Russian peasants from
the steppes, plundered and made into
a Gulag.
With this essay Kundera tries to
characterize our spiritual convertibility to the West. In this lies his legacy
for us and future generations. If we
fail to fulfil it, we will remain, as he
has said, “a beautiful garden lying outside of history”. But then again, maybe
that’s not such a bad prospect.
Acceptance of Kundera’s work
in his native country is not – unlike
in the rest of the world – entirely po-
dictionary the word “Czechoslovakia”. In 1985 Milan Kundera wrote
the following:
“I never use the word [Czechoslovakia] in my novels, even though
the action is generally set there. This
composite word is too young (born
in 1918), with no roots in time, no
beauty, and it exposes the very nature
of the thing if names: composite and
too young (untested by time). It may
be possible in a pinch to found a state
on so frail a word, but not a novel.”
The word “Czechia”, so widespread
today, is even younger. Since Kunde-
ra’s serious approach to language led
him to prophesy a bad end to Czechoslovakia, we can interpret Kundera’s
work as a warning about the danger
posed to us by our own lack of seriousness towards language.
K
undera also wrote an essay
entitled “The Tragedy of Central
Europe” (The New York Review of
Books, 1984), in which he argues for
the term “Central Europe” as a political and intellectual alternative to the
grey, Soviet and moribund “Eastern
sitive. Kundera is resigned to this. In
his essay “The Unpopular Son of the
Family” he chalks this up to the precarious existence of small countries,
whose artists, if they pose dangerous
questions, are damned as traitors.
This doesn’t happen in big countries;
otherwise, says Kundera, the Germans would have had to abandon
Nietzsche, and the French would
have banished Stendhal.
Karel Hvížďala
Photos: Kirké Agency, Atlantis,
HOST magazine archives
Thanks to an innocent joke about the regime, written on a postcard send to a fellow student, the protagonist of The Joke
is drafted to a part of the Czech military where alleged subversives form work brigades.
29
Twenty-four Islands
of Czech Culture
Czech Centres can be found in twenty
countries on three continents. Sponsored
by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they provide contact points abroad
for Czech culture, business and tourism. The mission of linking the fields
of culture, education, business and tourism while representing the Czech Republic abroad is unique among Czech
institutions, and places the Czech Centres in an exceptional position. This
network of “Czech islands” allows Czech
culture and enterprise to promote themselves independently all over the world.
ing the tradition of the Czechoslovak
Cultural and Information Centres located since 1949 in a number of foreign
countries. In many places these centres
grew beyond their primary function
of giving information and became the
source of broader discovery and education. As Michael Wellner-Pospíšil,
current director of the Czech Centre
in Bulgaria, explains: “The Czech
Centre in Sofia is the oldest (and one
of the largest) in the whole network.
For a whole generation of Bulgarians,
T
he Czech Centres are not a new
institution. They took on their current
form shortly after the creation of
the Czech Republic (1993), continu-
30
the former Czechoslovak Cultural and
Information Centre was an oasis of
relative freedom. The regime in our
country was always a bit more open
than in Stalinism-bound Bulgaria, and
to this day people tell me how they
bought phonograph records with ‘revolutionary’ jazz and other ‘bearers of
freedom’ at the Cultural Centre.”
T
he structure of the individual
Czech Centres is not identical. They
differ in number of employees and
the space they have at their disposal.
Sometimes the centre is part of an
embassy, in other places it is limited to
a single office. Some branches have
their own exhibition spaces, library
and café. Larger capacity is undoubted-
Opening of an exhibition of designs by Eva Eisler in the Czech Centre in Bratislava;
the designer with Czech Ambassador to Slovakia Vladimír Galuška
The most recent exhibition in the Czech Centre in Tokyo,
“Michal Žabka‘s World of Animation”
“Design Match” at the Czech Centre in Bratislava
Opening of an exhibition of photos taken by Jan Šibík in Africa
at the Czech Centre in Sofia; the photojournalist (left) with Director
of the Czech Centre Michael Wellner-Pospíšil
Gathering of Directors of Czech Centres in Prague, 2007
Representation
The mission of linking the fields
of culture, education, business and
tourism while representing the Czech
Republic abroad is unique among
Czech institutions, and places the
Czech Centres in an exceptional
position.
ly an advantage, but on the other hand
where you don’t have your own turf,
contact with the local cultural scene
tends to be that much more intensive.
B
esides Europe, there are also
Czech Centres in the USA and Japan.
On 26 March of this year the first
branch in Latin America was officially opened. The Czech Centre in
Buenos Aires opened with a review of
contemporary Czech cinematography,
attended by the Argentine Minister
of Culture. At present a new branch
office is preparing to open in Tel Aviv.
Another part of the network is the
Czech House in Moscow, which plays
an exceptional role in the area of support for Czech enterprises on the
Russian market.
The most prominent place in the
entire network is held by the Czech
Centre in Prague. It is the link between the Czech Republic and its
foreign branches. The Centre’s premises are used by foreign partners
and cultural institutions; many of the
events here are repeated later at other
branches. For example, during the
cycle of regular meetings given the
tongue-in-cheek title “I’m the Lion
of the Salon” the general public was
able to meet with leading personalities
from the cultural scene. This year the
centre, in the context of regular talks
on architecture, will welcome the prominent Japanese professor of architecture Terunoba Fujimori. The project
“Women in Diplomacy” recently presented exotic cultural milieus through
the eyes of Czech officials, women
serving in foreign countries.
T
he political and administrative
headquarters of the Czech Centres is
in Prague. The office that oversees the
centres abroad is located on Wenceslas Square and is headed by General
Manager Jaroslav Kantůrek.
The individual centres are led by directors whose mission is simple: on
the basis of experience and contacts
they are to organize programmes attractive to the local public and media. “The
most important things usually go on
outside business hours and the workplace. The ideal director of a Czech
Centre should be well acquainted with
the realities of both his own country and
the host country, should be not just an
official but partly even an artist, be able
to conduct business meetings and have
the quick reactions of a producer.” Thus
Michael Wellner-Pospíšil describes the
experience he acquired in his previous
post as head of the Czech Centre in Paris.
President Václav Klaus autographing his book Blue Planet in Green Shackles at the Czech Centre in Berlín
From an event forming part of the Music Marathon, organized by the Czech Centre in Paris
31
The Czech Centres are funded by
the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But in addition to the “normal” budget,
the director must be skilled in making
use of various forms of sponsorship
as well as resources from state and
public funds. With these he or she can
obtain sufficient material backing for
his ideas and projects.
E
ach year the Czech Centres
hold a bidding competition for the
support of Czech cultural projects,
which are then promoted abroad
through the network. In this way they
help many Czech artists to break
through on the local scene and make
contact with their colleagues abroad.
Winning projects are diverse. One
group of successful candidates last
year presented the Czech electronic
music scene in Germany and France,
another performed contemporary
Czech dance in France and arranged
an exchange of dancers between
the two countries. The third winning
project was a multimedia presenta-
32
tion, Living Score, linking classical
art to new technologies.
“We appeared twice in Romania
at the invitation of the Czech Centre
in Bucharest. During a concert on the
terrace of a major hotel in the centre
of the city we were enthusiastically
applauded by 600 excited teenagers,”
relates Miroslav Papež, frontman for
the group Moimir Papalescu & The
Nihilists. “The organization of our Romanian mini-tour by the Czech Centre
Celebration of the Czech national day, organized
every year by the Czech Centre in New York
was perfect – accommodation, interviews, meetings with reporters and MTV,
effective publicity, the programme finetuned down to the second...”
And the Czech Centres in the field
of business cooperation? Last year’s
presentation in Japan of Czech Airlines and the Czech Republic’s biggest
airport at Ruzyně was an important
marketing event. At present preparations are being made for the project
Czech Stars, planned for the period
when the Czech Republic will be
chairing the EU. Attention is focused
on the most prominent Czech firms
and traditional brand names, which
will be given room for their presentation through the network of centres, as
part of the promotion of the country’s
cultural heritage.
A central theme last year was Czech
architecture and design. An exhibition
is currently underway at the Czech
Centre in New York entitled “CI.CZ”,
a presentation of company culture in
the Czech Republic. The new director
of the Czech Centre in Berlin, Martin
Krafl, describes the current situation
Literary evening with the poets Petr Král, Prokop Voskovec and Stanislav Dvorský
at the Czech Centre in Brussels
Inside the Czech Centre in Prague
Moravian Easter customs being explained at the Czech Centre in Berlin
Outdoor fashion show at the Czech Centre in Košice
Concert by Moimir Papalescu & The Nihilists, organized by the Czech Centre in Bucharest
in Germany: “To present Czech culture
and the Czech Republic in all its breadth
is a joy. The most popular events are
exhibitions of photography and architecture at the CzechPoint gallery,
readings by Czech authors from their
new books, courses in the Czech language certified by Charles University,
film presentations and jazz concerts.”
T
he Czech Centres made a major
contribution to promotion abroad of
the world-class theatre design exhibition Prague Quadriennale 07, and
have continued their successful cooperation with Czech theatres. Leading
Czech theatre and puppet ensembles
have been able to travel abroad with
the help of the centres. In 2008 the
Czech Centres network will feature an
exhibition of photographs by Viktor
Kronbauer, capturing the best contemporary stagings in Czech theatres.
As for activities in the field of the
fine arts, the Czech Centre in Dresden
hosted the first comprehensive exhibition of all fifteen winners of the
Jindřich Chalupecký Prize for young
Czech artists. In Italy the Czech Centre
in Rome was involved in the 52nd annual International Art Bienniale. The
world premiere of Jan Švankmajer’s
illustrations for Alice in Wonderland
was held at the Czech Centre in Tokyo. The travelling exhibition “Czech
and Slovak Glasswork in Exile” maps
the product of Czech and Slovak fine
glass makers living abroad.
One of the most difficult areas of
Czech culture to promote is literature.
However, the Czech Centres have
found ways of introducing Czech literature to the foreign public. An exhibition of Alois Nebel’s literary comics
project has met with enormous interest. Another exhibition documenting
the life and work of Petr Ginz, a talented young boy who perished at
Auschwitz, was presented in Munich.
During the “Literature Night” orga-
nized by the Czech Centre in Prague
thousands of viewers enjoyed a close
encounter with foreign literature, set
against the backdrop of unusual Prague localities. In return, contemporary
Czech writers presented their work to
the Spanish public at the Czech Centre
in Madrid.
The Czech Centres are active in the
area of education and science as well.
They encourage students to study in
the Czech Republic, provide assistance to students of Czech Studies and
maintain libraries of Czech literature.
They organize their own Czech language courses, with more than a thousand students taking part in 2007. The
centres in Moscow and London provide students with the opportunity to
take a certification test in Czech. More
information about the Czech Centres
is available at www.czechcentres.cz and
the web site of the quarterly CzEcho.
“In all of the twenty-three foreign
offices and the one in the Czech Republic, 2,491 events were organized
last year, attended by some 1.2 million
people. We managed it all with a minimal budget and minimal staff,” adds
Jitka Stavinohová, responsible for
programmes at the Czech Centres.
the editors/Hana Matochová
Photos: Archives of Czech Centres, Nicole Zahour,
Lucie Fialová, Tomáš Jacko, Martin Babic
Orange Thursday in the Violet Salon, a regular (and regularly sold out) event at the Czech Centre in Sofia
33
The Top 10
10 Czech Products Granted European
Commission Labels
was left of the Tartar camp were some bags
– full of ears cut from Christian heads. In memory of those evil times they bake a delicacy
in Štramberk known as Štramberk Ears – a sort
of pastry cone seasoned with honey and spices
(cinnamon, anise, cloves and star anise).
Ten Czech food products can now boast
the EU’s Protected Designation of Origin
(PDO) or Protected Geographical Indication
(PGI) labels.
Třeboň Carp
Štramberk Ears
The appellation Třeboň Carp – in German
“Wittingauer Karpfen” – has been in use for
over a hundred years. The label was given
its first international protection in November 1967 under the Lisbon Agreement. In
Czechoslovakia the designation was registered back in March 1939. This traditional
product of southern Bohemia has been raised
for centuries using the same technological
methods in the unspoiled environment of the
Třeboň Basin. The fishponds are fed by the
Golden Canal, a masterpiece of technology
dating from the Renaissance, from the waters
of the Lužnice River. This is the secret behind
the fish’s characteristic taste and is a guarantee of quality for consumers of the Třeboň
Carp. The Třeboň Carp is noted for its highquality meat and minimal fat content.
České Budějovice Beer
The quality and fame of beer from the
town of České Budějovice, with a history dating back to the thirteenth century, were the
reasons why the original recipe and name
34
Pohořelice Carp
were often copied or imitated. The long-running court battle over the brand names
Budweiser and Budvar is a case in point. The
rights to use the geographical brand names
referring to the town of České Budějovice
were decided in 2004. It was the first and
only geographical brand name secured by the
Czech Republic as part of the entry agreement with the European Union.
Štramberk Ears
Legends about the origin of the treat called
Štramberk Ears go back to the Secret Chronicle of the Mongols, written thirteen years
after the death of the founder of the unified
Mongol state, Genghis Khan. In 1241 the village of Štramberk in northeastern Moravia
was pillaged by the Mongol Tartars. When
the local people hiding on Kotouč, a nearby
mountain, were just about to run out of supplies and out of strength, the clouds gathered
and released a terrific downpour. The enemy
camp was washed away by the flood. All that
The origins of fish farming in the area
of Pohořelice and the Lednice-Valtice complex in southern Moravia reach back to the
twelfth-thirteenth centuries. The major date
in modern history was 1 April 1994, when
the former State Fisheries Pohořelice became
the private company Pohořelice Fisheries.
Pohořelice carp are known for their vitality, hardiness and excellent health. The Pohořelice carp is a purely biological product,
as its production is based on the use of the
natural products of the fishpond combined
with feed of whole grain meal. One of the
parent breeds, the Pohořelice scaleless carp,
is grown by no other fishery outside the geographical area.
Lomnice Rusks
According to tradition, Antonín Kynčl,
“the baker in house no. 6”, began to bake
these pastry products in the town of Lomnice nad Popelkou in northern Bohemia
After baking the gingerbread is decorated
with coloured sugar frosting or chocolate.
back before 1800. Today Lomnice rusks are
still made according to the original recipe
and in the traditional manner, which involves work by hand. Their quality and distinctiveness are also ensured by careful selection of ingredients.
Nošovice Sauerkraut
Nošovice sauerkraut is made of raw cabbage treated to a process of lactic fermentation. It is produced in the villages of Nošovice and Nižní Lhota in the Moravia-Silesia
Region. The Nošovice agricultural cooperative grows cabbage on 40 hectares (approximately 100 acres) in the village of Pazderná
in the Beskyd Mountains of northeastern Moravia. Around thirty people are employed at
the concern. The sauerkraut has always been
made according to the original recipe. And
it is still tramped down by Nošovice women
in giant barrels, as of old.
Hořice Rolls
According to legend a Mrs. Líčková was
given the recipe for Hořice Rolls in 1812 by
a general and cook in Napoleon’s army as a
reward for the care she gave them after the
retreat from Russia. The existence of this delicacy in France is documented in an illustration from 1630. The recipe was handed down
within the family until the confectioner Karel Kofránek married into the family, after
which they were successfully marketed as
Kofránek’s Rolls. They soon became a widely-known product. After 1949 all bakeries
in Czechoslovakia were nationalized, and
production was gradually moved away from
Hořice, although residents of this small town
in northeastern Bohemia continued to make
them for themselves.
The firm Pravé hořicské trubičky (Genuine
Hořice Rolls) was founded in 1999, when
it bought a share in the existing traditional
producer of Hořice Rolls. The new owner
immediately began a sweeping transformation process, and within a year became one of
the most important producers of this famous
favourite.
Nošovice sauerkraut
Žatec Hops
The labelling of hops according to quality
and place of origin dates back to the sixteenth
century. The first government legislation in
this area goes back to 1769 when, in order to
prevent false attribution, Empress Marie Theresa issued a patent on the official certification of hops and a document attesting to its
origin. The cultivation of hops has a thousandyear-old tradition in Žatec. They are smooth,
somewhat early-ripening, aromatic hops, which
thanks to their excellent properties are used
by breweries the world over. Most of the hops
grown here are shipped to Japan.
Pardubice gingerbread
Carlsbad Rusks
Pardubice Gingerbread
The history of gingerbread-making in the
eastern Bohemian city of Pardubice dates
back to the sixteenth century; in 1759 gingerbread makers were given certain privileges
by Empress Marie Theresa. Pardubice gingerbread is sweet and dark brown in colour.
Its original ingredients were honey, flour and
pepper. Pardubice gingerbread is the most
widely known type of gingerbread in the
Pohořelice carp
Hořice Rolls
Czech Republic. Because it was transported
for long distances, it was made to withstand
the journey without losing its quality. It
owes its long freshness to a healthy dose of
spices, hardness and dryness. The gingerbread dough is often cut into various shapes:
round, or in the shape of a heart, for example.
Carlsbad Rusks have been made for decades in the same manner in and around
the famous spa town of Karlovy Vary. Along
with the famous sweet round wafers, they are
among the most famous local products.
A traditional bakery product, often included in special diets, Carlsbad Rusks have a distinctive taste, as they are made using Karlovy
Vary mineral spring waters and mineral salt.
Žatec hops
35
“We take our home
with us.”
“They say we’ve lost our home, our
native country. But we found the world.
And anyway: home isn’t necessarily a
place. Home is also an idea. A feeling.
And a memory... Everything that is in
you. Home is more what is inside us
than where we are. This can be taken
with you, and no one can take it away.”
Thus exiled Czech actor Jiří Voskovec
described his fate. First he and his colleagues from the Liberated Theatre
barely escaped from the Nazis in 1939.
When he returned to Czechoslovakia
after the war, Communism was just
around the corner. He was welcomed by
Karel Teige, the guru of pre-war leftwing culture, with amazement: “What
do you think you’re doing coming here?”
The poet František Halas warned him
outright: “They’ll come after you. They’re
already after me. This isn’t socialism, it’s
treason.” Voskovec later left for Paris
legally, as a publicist and organizer in
the service of UNESCO. From there he
moved on to New York as an exile.
36
Voskovec was one of those fortunate ones who, after a forced departure
from their native land, succeeded in
catching on relatively well abroad. He
reaped praise on Broadway and won
awards for his theatre and television
performances. Czech viewers saw him
in Sidney Lumet’s famous film Twelve
Angry Men. The gasp of recognition
by audiences in nationalized cinemas
back home reflected audience sympathy for the actor, overshadowing the
film as a whole and the performance
of Henry Fonda in the main role.
In exile Voskovec maintained a rich
correspondence with the dramatist
Josef Topol (“So far a friend of mine
has read your play, an excellent young
actor named Robert Redford... He
really loved it.”), and also helped out
younger exiled actors like Jan Tříska.
T
říska was the Czech acting idol
of the 1960s. After exile he got his
first role in New York, in The Master
and Margarita. Voskovec helped
him prepare for the role. “With loving patience he went through my
entire role, line by line, and corrected
my pronunciation. Whenever I study a
Jiří Voskovec: informal, theatre and studio portraits
Theatre
Jan Tříska in Shakespeare’s Tempest
“We alone decide how far our
boundaries extend.”
Jitka Frantová
actress
new role, I cant’ help but think of him,”
recalls Tříska.
The role of Woland was a success
for Tříska and opened the door to
other work, not only in the theatre but
in film. After the fall of totalitarianism
he returned home and began to appear
again in Czech films. He returned to
the Czech theatre after 27 years when
he got the offer to play King Lear for
the 2002 Shakespeare Summer Festival. With his sterling performance
Tříska fully rehabilitated himself on
the domestic scene.
His latest film work has been Jan
Švankmajer’s philosophical horror film
Lunacy. He continues to work in the
USA as well, however. In June 2006 he
appeared at the Kirk Douglas Theater
in Los Angeles in the premiere of Pyrenees, by the Scottish author David
Greig. After thirty years abroad Tříska’s home remains Los Angeles.
The reasons why so many Czech
actors and filmmakers inevitably ended
up in exile were summed up in Private
Rebellion by one of the most original
Czech actors, Pavel Landovský. “You
can stuff you writing away in the bottom
drawer, but acting? You can’t stuff
your acting into a drawer.” Landovský left for exile in Austria in the
1970s, when the Communist regime
was introducing “normalization” in
the wake of the international armies.
Landovský caught on abroad as well,
at Vienna’s Burgtheater.
Among the others to feel the consequences of the invasion of the “friendly armies” in August 1968 was one
of the protagonists of the Prague
Spring, the politician, publicist and
director of Czech Television Jiří Pelikán, who was accompanied by his
wife, the actress Jitka Frantová. Both
were forced to leave Czechoslovakia
under dramatic circumstances in 1969.
They found a new home in Rome.
T
he life of Jitka Frantová demonstrates very well that Czech artists are
not lost in the big world. After leaving
Prague she found herself without a
stage, without a language and with no
way to realize herself. “I couldn’t live
without the smell of the greasepaint.
I was so unhappy, I almost became
ill.” She didn’t know Italian, and no
one knew her. She began from the
absolute beginning. In 1972 an order
came from Czechoslovakia prohibiting Czech artists from working with
Frantová outside the country as well.
That same year she was sentenced in
absentia to three years in prison (only
after the fall of the regime in 1989 was
she fully rehabilitated).
“I found out for myself that it’s one
thing to perform somewhere as a guest
Tříska scored a major triumph with his Lear in a production of Shakespeare’s great tragedy directed by Martin Huba for the Summer Shakespeare Festival in 2002.
Informal photograph of seventy-one-year-old Jan Tříska
37
Jitka Frantová in her “one woman show” Primavera di Praga, a major hit with Italian audiences
actress, and another as a foreigner
who has to fit in as a full member of
the company. They didn’t give me anything for free.” Thanks to her determination she succeeded, as she also succeeded in “smuggling” onto the stage
her beloved Czech drama – Ludvik
Aškenazy’s Tonka Šibenice as well as
Karel Čapek’s The Makropulos Affair.
After she learned Italian she started
appearing at the Teatro di Roma. “The
director Gabriel Lavia gave me the role
of Charlotta in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard. He told me: You’re the only one
who can play this role – she doesn’t
know where she came from, how old
she is, who she is and she can have any
kind of accent. Rehearsals were terribly difficult; once I was so exhausted
that I broke down in tears and he told
me, what are you crying on me for, I’m
making yours the leading role.”
A
nother key moment was her
meeting with the Italian director and
actor Giorgio Albertazzi, who directed
the film The Angels of Power, based
on Pavel Kohout’s play Maria Battles
the Angels. She played a role inspired
38
by the life of the Czech actress Vlasta
Chramostová, who was banned for years
from performing publicly.
Today she is the only Czech actress
who can act in three languages – Czech,
German and Italian.
She speaks of her own life in the
staging of Primavera di Praga (Prague
Spring), which was presented under
the auspices of the Italian President,
Giorgio Napolitano. As the sole author
and performer in this monodrama,
presented in late February by the Teatro
India in Rome, she received ovations
from Italian audiences and critics. The
piece was devoted to the events forty
years ago that drove tens of thousands
of talented Czechoslovaks into exile –
the hope of the Prague Spring, which
ended under the tracks of the tanks
sent by Moscow to suppress a nonexistent “counterrevolution”. In the drama Frantová vividly evokes the years of
the “building of socialism” and politically-motivated executions, of enthusiasm both genuine and fanatic, of the
erection and subsequent demolition of
monstrous monuments, of tanks in the
streets of Prague; of helplessness, desperation and humiliation.
One Italian reviewer praised Primavera di Praga for its “telling and
passionate narrative, which says more
to us about the events in Prague than
all the films and documentaries,” but
even more for the performance of the
actress, who was able to transform her
own story into a parable of the times.
the editors/Radmila Hrdinová
Photos: archives of Radmila Hrdinová,
Adriena Borovičková, editorial archives,
the Summer Shakespeare Festival
(www.shakespeare.cz)