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Sparks of Freedom (Paprsky svobody) — that is the name of a new exhibition at Brno’s Moravian Museum. It tells how British academics and intellectuals reached across the Iron Curtain to support Czech dissidents in the 1980s, focusing on the work of the Jan Hus Educational Foundation and the quiet acts of courage that helped keep independent thought alive under communist rule.
The curators of the Department of the History of Culture with an Anti-Totalitarian Focus (LINK) present the story of solidarity between the British and Brno people. Its roots date back to 1980, when an organization called the Jan Hus Educational Foundation was established in Oxford, which systematically provided material and intellectual support to Czechoslovak dissidents. In Brno, co-operation began in 1981; in December 1984 the first seminar was held, and mutual cooperation lasted without interruption until the Velvet Revolution. In 1990, the Czechoslovak Jan Hus Educational Foundation was established in Brno, which continues its activities under the name of the Vzdělávací nadace Jana Husa to this day.
The focuses on Brno events over five years in the second half of the 1980s. It presents important areas in which the British provided material and intellectual assistance to the unofficial cultural world in Brno. Thanks to the Jan Hus Educational Foundation, British academics were able to come and give lectures in private households during the normalization period. The British also helped in the sphere of samizdat, video projections of banned or unavailable foreign films in Czechoslovakia, and supported independent Brno artists in the field of music and visual arts. The exhibition and the catalogue present topics that have not yet been given the attention they deserve. They reveal not only the blank spots of Brno’s cultural history, but also the strong bonds of British-Czech cooperation in the persistent search for freedom.
For the full story see How Oxford philosophers supported Czech dissidents — new Brno exhibition tells the story | Radio Prague International
Bishop’s Courtyard, Marble Hall
Opening hours
Wednesday to Friday 9am -5pm
Saturday 10am-5pm
Sunday 1-5pm
photo: Vít Pohanka, Radio Prague International
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