Czechmatediary

This year’s 18th (!!) anniversary of the Velvet Revolution is celebrated in kind of an untraditional way. The Wenceslav’s Square in Prague is exhibiting a mocked-up communist-era work camp that has it all: the barbed wired fences, a watch tower and - of course - the famous sign over the entrance gate reading “Praci ke svobode” (Let us work toward freedom). When walking through this camp one can see the cardboard cutouts of real-time political prisoners with a little attached side note briefly explaining about what their “crime” was and how were they punished for it. The director of this whole idea, Simon Panek, explains that one of the main reasons why this exhibition was built was to wake up the young Czech generation. (more…)

In September a group of Czech senators flew to the USA and Canada to visit the Czech patriots (patriot = a person with a Czech heritage who is currently living abroad, yet still interested/involved in the Czech happenings). They partied during the celebrations of the Moravian Day then left for Toronto to have a “discussion” with the locals about some current hot topics. The talk, however, didn’t lead anywhere - no questions from the audience seemed to be answered. As the Radio Prague Reporter, Vera Kohoutova states, ” anyone who was expecting no results ended up being correct.” Most questions from the fellow Czechs were regarding the issues of overseas voting, dual citizenship or the no-visa relationship with Canada. One of the Czechs also had a question regarding the restitution problems. When the answer from one of the hosting senators wasn’t going anywhere, the fellow got mad and yelled out:” I would like to know if you are waiting for all of the resistuents to die out or if you are waiting for their children to die too!”Many of the patriots here in America are complaining about the fact that no one in the Czech government really cares about their issues. (more…)

So, why did Czechoslovakia really split up?

• The arguments had started already back in 1989, right after the Velvet revolution in early November. Both sides were bickering about what should the future federation look like: “What it’s going to be called?” “Who is going to get “burned” on this whole deal? The Czechs or the Slovaks?”
• The very decisive moment came during the elections in 1992; the Czechs elected ODS as their major leading political party, where as majority of Slovaks voted for the HZDS. Both leaders of the party, Mr. Klaus (ODS) and Mr. Meciar (HZDS) just didn’t seem to agree on anything regarding the future federation.
• The negative atmosphere was also thickened by the fact that during the presidential elections in 1992 the Slovakian parliament decided not to support Vaclav Havel as a future president. (more…)
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An actor, writer and a poet George Voskovec, known as the “11th angry man“(from a famous American movie called “12 Angry Men“) definitely belongs to my favorite famous Czech American. He was born to a Czech father and French mother in Sazava in 1905 , went to high school in Prague, where he ended up meeting his best friend as well as the life-long acting partner Jan Werich. Together, while still university students, they joined the acting team at the Liberated Theater in 1927. Thanks to their wonderful acting and singing abilities the place soon became one of the most hip places in Prague. Even the German theater scene loved them until their performances became mostly anti-fascist which also led to closing the theater in 1938 and them immigrating to the USA in early 1939.

After the war both of them returned to Prague to their re-established Liberated theater where they again started happily performing until their humor became “not welcomed” by the communist party. Once again, Woskovec and Verich were under a political pressure. Voskovec did not feel like dealing with it anymore and went back to the United States, while Werich decided to stay in communist Czechoslovakia. (more…)