British Czech and Slovak Association

Osmicky
2018-09-01 10:00 - 2018-09-08 18:00 (Europe/London) | Esterhazy Palace, Namestie Ludovita Stura 4, Bratislava, Slovakia (Slovak Republic)
A series of small exhibitions in the atrium for the anniversaries of the eights: February 1948, August 1968 and October 1918. The basis of the exhibition is a 3-metre high wall or “gallery noticeboard” on which collages will be rotated according to the anniversary.
The collages will consist of various types of artistic materials (paintings, photographs, documents), primarily from the collections of the Slovak National Gallery.
From August the board commemorates the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 and in October it will commemorate the declaration of Czechoslovak independence in 1918.
Part of the project will include a noticeboard dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Slovak National Gallery, on the other side of the panel and will be displayed throughout the year.
The gallery is closed on Mondays. Admission is free.

Occupation 1968
2018-08-23 19:00 - 21:10 | Czech Embassy cinema, 26 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY
Occupation as the occupiers see it. Five Warsaw Pact countries occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968. 50 years later five film directors from these countries shot the stories of five soldiers who took part.
A tribute to the 108 people who were killed in Czechoslovakia during the 1968 invasion, the film tells the story of the young men who left their homes for a secret mission to save communism, but came to be hated by the people they had come to rescue. Bored and confused pawns in the political strategy of the Warsaw Pact allies, they returned home as heroes only to be seen as occupiers when history was rewritten.
Mixing a road movie with a love letter, an investigative documentary, re-enactments and hitherto unseen archive footage, the film reveals personal stories and explores the constantly changing perspectives on historic events.
We meet a Russian general and his ex-comrades reliving the experience of their journey from Odessa to Prague, fall for newlyweds whose intimate love letters are intercut with reports from the Sopoty Music Festival, discover the unknown role of 16,000 East German soldiers waiting on the Czechoslovak border for a mission which never comes, and get acquainted with the young Hungarians who, while playing soldiers, find love and friendship in a local Slovak village. And there is the mysterious death of Sergeant Nikolov Tsekov, who left his post and never returned…
THE LAST MISSION OF GENERAL ERMAKOV – Evdokia Moskovina, Russia
RED ROSE (FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE IN THE TIME OF OCCUPATION) – Linda Dombrowszky, Hungary
I’M WRITING TO YOU, MY LOVE – Magdalena Szymkow, Poland
VOICES IN THE FOREST – Marie Elise Scheidt, Germany
AN UNECESSARY HERO – Stephan Komandarev, Bulgaria
Stephan Komandarev, Marie Elisa Scheidt, Linda Dombrovszsky, Magdalena Szymków, Evdokia Moskvina, SK/CZ/Pl/ BG/Hu 2018, 130’
Tickets: £7 + booking fee via Eventbrite (see link below)

Anniversary of 1968 invasion remembered - SOLD OUT!
2018-08-21 18:30 - 20:30 | Czech Embassy cinema, 26 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY
On 21st August 2018 the BCSA will commemorate the 50th anniversary of one of the most shocking events in recent Czech and Slovak history: the invasion of Dubcek´s Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops.
London is still full of people who remember the day well. Czech and Slovak students rushed to make use of the unprecedented freedom of travel to the West that summer and Britain was one of the most popular destinations. After 21st August 1968 they were stranded – and quite a few remain here today.
Likewise, some British visitors to Czechoslovakia came suddenly face to face with tanks and armed foreign soldiers on the street and the memory stayed with them for the rest of their lives.
So, come and join us to share your memories or simply listen to others doing so.
Nigel Peace is going to read from his novel Broken Sea which centres on those events. Professor Robert Aish, who as a student witnessed and photographed the invasion in Prague, will share his reminiscences and his photographs. Ivan Hartel, a poet and one of the leaders of the student resistance during the Prague Spring, will describe his experience and read a poem devoted to those days.
And we shall hear from those of you who are willing to tell us about your memories of those days – or even of your parents or grandparents. Join us and listen to history coming alive.

BCSA "Get to Know You" Social Evening
2018-08-08 19:00 - 22:30 | Czech and Slovak National House, 74 West End Lane, London, NW6 2LX, United Kingdom
Join us and have a fun evening chatting to friendly people. Czech and Slovak food and drinks are available from the restaurant and bar.
Anybody with Czech or Slovak connections or interests is welcome to our monthly socials to meet, chat and get to know each other a little better in a relaxed and informal gathering.
We usually have about a dozen people there at various times during the evening but, whatever the number, there will be good conversations for you to have.
We will be in one of the rooms at the Czech and Slovak National House, normally the first room on the left. There will be a BCSA sign on the door.

Make Love Not War Or We’ll Kill You; Prague Spring 1968 in Cartoons
2018-07-30 10:00 - 2018-08-31 18:00 | Czech Centre, 30 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY, United Kingdom
Fifty years since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia quashed the Prague Spring we look at how cartoonists in the Czech and British press interpreted the politics of the time through humour.
Armed with a stack of original 1968 satirical cartoon drawings under his arm, a collector walked through the Czech Centre London door and the idea for an exhibition was born. Fifty years ago this summer as Soviet tanks supported by Warsaw Pact countries rolled into Prague and crushed a heady few months of emerging political freedoms in what is known as the Prague Spring, the world looked on and leading political cartoonists on both sides of the Iron Curtain drew.
On loan from private collections, we invite you to take a peek at how both British and Czech leading illustrators saw the politics of the time through cartoon humour; to see how both perception of events and graphic design styles differed on opposing sides of the Iron Curtain.
The exhibition takes its name from a caricature by John Jensen which first appeared in The Sunday Telegraph and the exhibition includes works by other leading British cartoonists including Nicholas Garland, Leslie Gilbert Illingworth, Kenneth Mahood, Michael Cummings, David Myers, Jon Jones, Stanley Frankin and Emmwood (John Musgrave-Jones) all published in leading UK newspapers between March and October of 1968.
Czech cartoons are by firm favourites Jiri Jirasek, Jaroslav Malak and Miroslav Lidak who was himself sentenced to a year in prison for a public display of cartoon rebellion.
Vitrinka Gallery is open Monday to Friday

Small nations and global identities: Czech questions
2018-07-05 09:30 - 17:30 | Ikon Gallery, Brindley Place, Birmingham, B1 2HS, United Kingdom
A one-day symposium considers the formation of modern Czech identity in the arts, politics and the media, focusing on key global events of the 20th century.
In addressing the relationship between the small nation and its global identity, the programme explores three themes: the mythic portrayal of interwar Czechoslovakia as a Western oriented state and of the Czech people as passive victims of global events; the cyclical gain and loss of state sovereignty, covering the separation of the Czech and Slovak Republics in 1993; the construction of Czechs identity in relation to ‘others’, including German, Slovak and Roma diasporas.
For full programme details and booking link see below. Free admission.

Lonarc Oboe Trio
2018-06-17 18:15 - 20:45 | Burgh House, New End Square, London, NW3 1LT, United Kingdom
A fundraising concert of 18th century oboe trios composed for the Princes Schwarzenberg of Cesky Krumlov.
For programme details see link below and use the Eventbrite link to buy tickets.

BCSA garden party
2018-06-09 14:00 - 18:00 | Czech & Slovak Embassy gardens, 26-30 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY
Our summer social will be held in the gardens of the Czech and Slovak Embassies. All are welcome – not just BCSA members. Bring your friends, bring your family! Enjoy an afternoon relaxing among Slovak, Czech and British people.
As always, there will be barbecued spekacky (sausages), a continental buffet from the Czech and Slovak National House plus cakes and desserts and a cash bar serving Czech beer and wine.
Live entertainment from Pieter Magusin playing his accordion and popular folk songs from Daniel Dobias with his band and singers.
There will be a secondhand bookstall offering books in Czech, Slovak and English plus Jantar Publishing will showcase their English translations of works written in Central European languages.
And don’t forget our raffle with attractive prizes for children and adults; donations are welcome, including homemade cakes.
Entrance from the Czech Embassy in Notting Hill Gate. Dress code is smart casual.
Admission by pre-paid ticket only: £12.50 (BCSA members) £16 (non-members) £10 (full-time students) £30 (family – 2 adults, 2 children).
Book online with Eventbrite (see link below)

Dvorak’s less familiar career: networking in the salons of Prague and the long road to operatic success
2018-05-29 18:30 - 20:30 | Czech Embassy cinema, 26 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY
Although Dvorak is unarguably the best-known composer from the Czech lands, his fame rests largely on music from his later years. His early path to recognition, however, throws fascinating light on the friendships and support he received from the leaders of Prague’s developing cultural community. Jan Smaczny’s talk looks at how Dvorak became recognised in the salons of Prague in the 1870s and also focuses on his quest to establish himself as a composer of opera in the Provisional and National Theatres.
Jan Smaczny is a well known authority on many aspects of Czech music, in particular the life and work of Dvořák. He was the Sir Hamilton Harty Professor of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast, and is now Professor Emeritus in Music.
£15 including a glass of wine. Online booking www.czechfriends.net

From asylum seeker to UK policeman, a talk by Petr Torak MBE
2018-05-15 18:30 - 20:30 | Czech Embassy, 26-30 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY
Born in Liberec in the Czech Republic to Roma parents; after several racially motivated attacks, the family moved to the UK and applied for asylum. He joined the Cambridgeshire Constabulary as a Police Community Support Officer in 2006 and two years later became a Police Officer. In 2010 Torak co-founded a community group COMPAS (see our links page) that provides cultural and educational support for the Czech and Slovak communities in Peterborough. He was awarded an honorary MBE in 2015 “for services to the Roma community”.

Czechoslovakia 100
2018-05-11 10:00 - 19:00 | Cardiff University
The British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Czech and Slovak Study Group is marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak state with a Czech and Slovak Study Day held at Cardiff University.
Czech and Slovak specialists (including language experts and postgraduate students) from around the UK, together with Czech and Slovak diplomats, policymakers and stakeholders are invited to reassess the Czechoslovak state’s origins, significance, and legacies.
Conference fee £35 (including light refreshments and lunch)
Register online by 20 April using the link below

Iva Bittova & Abraham Brody
2018-05-09 19:30 - 23:00 | Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Rd, London, E1 6LA
The premiere of a playful new lyrical collaboration drawing separately from Czech and Lithuanian folk traditions.
Iva Bittova is a Czech avant-garde violinist, singer, and composer; her music is a blend of rock and East European music. Lithuanian-American musician, composer and performer, Abraham Brody draws inspiration from rituals, roots and folklore; he combines composition, improvisation and multimedia.
Admission £12-£15
Book online using link below

'New' fiction from 'Old' Czechoslovakia
2018-05-08 18:30 - 20:00 | Waterstones, 82 Gower Street, London, WC1E 6EQ
Tim Beasley-Murray, translator David Short and Slovak author Richard discuss three novels from the country that would have been 100 years old this year but disappeared 25 years ago.
£8 tickets (£6 student) are available via Eventbrite (below) and in store.

Leamington Music Festival Weekend
2018-05-04 19:30 - 2018-05-07 12:30
Friday 4 May at 7.30pm
Prazak String Quartet, Ivan Klansky (piano)
Suk – Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale ‘Saint Wenceslas’
Smetana – Quartet no 1
Dvorak – Piano Quintet
Saturday 5 May at noon
Prazak String Quartet
Suk – Quartet no 1
Smetana – Quartet no 2
Dvorak – Quartet no 10
Saturday 5 May at 7.30pm
Guarneri Trio
Smetana – Trio in G minor
Suk – Trio in C minor
Martinu – Bergerettes
Dvorak – Trio on B flat
Sunday 6 May at noon
Jana Vonaskova-Novakova (violin) Martin Kasik (piano)
Smetana – From My Homeland
Schulhoff – Suite for violin & piano
Dvorak – Mazurek
Suk – Violin solo from Raduz & Mahulena
Sunday 6 May at 3.30pm
Dr Katya Kocourek & Patrick Lambert
Talk on the creation of Czechoslovakia and music during the Great War.
Sunday 6 May at 19.30
Ensemble 360
Reicha – Wind Quintet
Janacek – Mladi
Schulhoff – BassNachtigall
Smetana – Polkas
Martinu – Sextet
Monday 7 May at 11am All Saints Church (free entry)
Organ recital, Nicholas Wearne
Martinu – Vigilia
Janacek – Adagio and organ solo from the Glagolitic Mass
plus works by Bach, Parry, Brahms and Mendelssohn
Monday 7 May at 12.30pm
Martin Kasik (piano)
Janacek – In the Mist
Smetana – Three Czech Dances
Dvorak – Humoresque no 7
Schulhoff – Etudes de Jazz
Fiser – Sonata no 8
Slavicky – Three pieces
Tickets available from royalspacentreandtownhall.co.uk Booking opens 29 January 2018

Czech & Slovak Tech
2018-04-17 19:15 - 20:30 | Slovak Embassy, 25 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY, United Kingdom
Following the formal AGM, Roger Aitken, a Forbes contributor and ex-FT staff journalist, delved into the extent of inventions.
The Czech and Slovak lands could be said to have punched above their weight when it comes to inventors and their inventions. There is even an old adage – Zlate ceske rucicky a chytre ceske hlavicky – meaning “golden Czech hands and clever Czech heads.”
From the father of modern genetics, Johann Gregor Mendel, to the invention of the ship’s propeller (despite the nations being landlocked) and the first sugar cube sweetener back in 1843, there are more beside.

Working with Vaclav Havel and Czech culture in New York
2018-03-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Czech Embassy cinema, 26 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY
Reminiscences of Edward Einhorn, American theatre director and writer
In honour of Vaclav Havel’s 70th birthday, at the time of his residency at Columbia University, Untitled Theater Company #61 and other artists and companies from New York and around the USA came together in 2006 to present, for the first time anywhere, the complete plays of Vaclav Havel.
Edward Einhorn is a playwright, director, translator, librettist, and novelist. He is the artistic director of Untitled Theater Company #61 which has been performing in New York City for over 20 years. Other Czech projects include The Velvet Oratorio, an opera-theatre production retelling the events of The Velvet Revolution; Cabaret in Captivity, songs and sketches from Terezin, performed in January at Goodenough College in London; The Pig, or Vaclav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig, adapted from the work by Vaclav Havel and Vladimir Moravek and original plays Rudolf II and Golem Stories. He is currently working on a filmed version of Karel Svenk’s play,The Last Cyclist, originally written in Terezin.

The Labyrinth of Czech History
2018-02-28 10:00 - 2018-06-30 18:00 | Imperial Stables, Prague Castle, Prazsky hrad - II. nadvori, Prague 1 Hradcany, 119 08, Czech Republic
A Prague exhibition of rare Czech historical documents, including Vladislav’s privilege of 1158, the oldest preserved document proving the existence of the Czech state. Visitors go back in time from modern history until the very beginning of the Czech history.
Various media evoke the atmosphere of particular periods, such as video recordings of television news from the communist era or contemporary documentaries from the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany. Throughout the exhibition, authentic audio recordings are played and period images are screened on the wall.
From recent history, the countries’ accession treaties to NATO and the EU are displayed. The 20th century is represented by the draft of the declaration of independence written by Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the first Czechoslovak president, and the blood-stained shirt of Franz Ferdinand d’Este, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, which he wore when he was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914.
The exhibition also presents documents that are hundreds of years old, such as the request of hangman Jan Mydlar, in which he asked for the payment for the execution of the twenty-one Czech noblemen in Prague’s Old Town Square in 1621. Some old documents may be on display for only one month and then they will be replaced by copies. Some originals, on the other hand, will only be displayed later and they are currently replaced by copies.

Gaudeamus - a Slovak novel by Richard
2018-02-13 18:30 - 20:30 | Slovak Embassy, 25 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY, United Kingdom
This thriller/ love story reflects – and is critical – of the atmosphere and in particular people’s mindset first in normalized Czechoslovakia and then in post-1989 Slovakia.
The author and the translator, David Short, discussed the book, read out passages in Slovak and English and answered questions.
Here are a couple of quotes:
“We hoped that in gratitude for the freedom we’d been given we ‘d all want to be kind and just. But so far, that’s not how it’s looking. Freedom has stirred the worst in us.”
“We used to joke that anyone who didn’t steal was robbing his family. We don’t make jokes like that any more. An A+ in thievery is the basic requirement for the successful businessman or politician. It won’t be long before we start consigning freaks who pay their taxes and never exceed the speed limit to the asylum.”
The English translation will be published by Jantar in May.

Is it all about time? Gender equality in Czech law and practice
2018-01-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Czech Embassy cinema, 26 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY
A talk by Dr Barbara Havelkova.
While EU directives on anti-discrimination law have been transposed into Czech law, their implementation has been overwhelmingly ineffective in promoting the cause of gender equality. Dr Havelkova examines why this should be so in her recently published book Gender Equality in Law: Uncovering the Legacies of State Socialism.
Looking back at the history of gender equality in law in the Czech Republic, her work traces the roots of contemporary attitudes to the socialist past, when a degree of equalisation was achieved without however the underlying intellectual grounding or understanding about inequality and its causes. It reveals the widespread belief among current Czech legislators that differences between men and women are natural, that inequality is thus understandable and that the law should not intervene. With no follow-up to ensure that EU member states are actually enforcing the law, it is unsurprising that very few anti-discrimination cases are being won.
Dr Barbara Havelkova teaches at Lincoln College and the Faculty of Law at Oxford University, where she is the Shaw Foundation Fellow in Law. Former advisor to the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic on issues of gender and law, Barbara’s research and teaching interests include gender legal studies and feminist jurisprudence, equality and anti-discrimination law, constitutional law, EU law and law in post-socialist transitions. Her book, ‘Gender Equality in Law: Uncovering the Legacies of Czech State Socialism‘, was published by Hart/Bloomsbury in June 2017.

BCSA Christmas concert
2017-12-05 18:30 - 20:30 | Slovak Embassy, 25 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY, United Kingdom
A full house at the Slovak Embassy enjoyed an evening of chamber music performed by Diversions. The programme included pieces by the well-known Czech composers Bohuslav Martinu and Antonin Dvorak and Gustav Mahler, born near Jihlava on the border between Bohemia and Moravia. It was also a rare opportunity to hear a work by Erwin Schulhoff, born in Prague to a German-Jewish family who began his musical studies at the Prague Conservatory when he was 10 years old.

Programme
Bohuslav Martinu Sonata for flute and piano
Gustav Mahler Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden
(arranged by Arnon Zimra from the last movement of Symphony no. 4)
Antonin Dvorak Sonatina for flute and piano
Erwin Schulhoff Susi

Genevieve Usher soprano
Chiawen Kiew flute
Ed Cooke clarinet
Chris Underhill piano

BCSA/LSESU Bridging the generations
2017-10-30 18:30 - 20:30
Different generations, different experiences: the BCSA staged an intergenerational event on 30 October, in conjunction with the Czech and Slovak Society of the London School of Economics Student Union. A full house at the Slovak Embassy heard four speakers talk about their sometimes dangerous journeys from communist Czechoslovakia to Britain, and the kind of welcome they received when they got here. This compared with the experiences of the newer arrivals, who had largely come since the accession of the Czech and Slovak Republics to the EU in 2004.
The four speakers were:
Karel Sling, the son of Otto Sling, who was one of the accused in the Stalinist show trials of the early 1950s and was shot in 1952. Karel signed Charter 77, suffered for it and emigrated to Britain in the 1980s.
Professor Gerta Vrbova who spoke of her discovery when she came to Britain that there were different types of freedom: here she could travel where she liked, make friends with whom she liked, say what she liked, but also as a woman she felt much less free than she had been in Czechoslovakia, where women had many more opportunities. She praised the British for their tolerance, but not for the difficulty of finding childcare so she could work.
Eduard Strouhal escaped across the Austrian border in 1948, with the help of reusable forged ID to get past the Russians, and of Austrian police who (literally) looked the other way. As a refugee he had to take work allocated him by the Ministry of Labour, which included a stint clearing unexploded mines and ammunition from an Army training range on the North Yorkshire moors.
Dr Jana Buresova arrived in Britain in 1952 at the age of two, coming from a Displaced Persons camp in Germany, where her mother had been placed following the 1948 communist coup in her home country. As her mother expected repatriation, Jana’s early childhood was ‘very Czech’. She had always seen herself as Czech, though sometimes she felt that Czechs thought she was English (while the English thought she was Czech).
A common theme was that for many, or even most, of those who came to Britain to escape communist Czechoslovakia, their time here was intended to be temporary. They expected to return home once things changed for the better. But as the years wore on they realised that this was not to be. This found a kind of echo in the contributions from the younger members of the audience. They had come here as students, or for an international experience, or to earn money, and they expected to return home or at least to move on elsewhere before too long.
[Edward Peacock]
[photograph, speakers left to right – Karel Sling, Professor Gerta Vrbova, Eduard Strouhal, Dr Jana Buresova

An illustrated talk by an Anglo-Czech artist
2017-09-28 18:30 - 20:30 | Slovak Embassy, 25 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QY, United Kingdom
Jan Mladovsky presented his work in the context of contemporary visual art. He studied art at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague and then at the Slade School of Art, University College in London where he has been living since 1968. In addition to the famous Serpentine Gallery and Riverside Studios in London, he has exhibited at venues in Japan, Iceland, Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands and in his native Czechoslovakia.

Roughing it in Prague: a talk by Rob Humphreys
2017-05-04 19:30 - 21:00
Rob’s introduction to things Czech and Slovak was through the children’s games his father (a lecturer in Czech and Russian at Leeds University) brought back from trips behind the Iron Curtain. He was asked in 1988 to write the Rough Guide to Czechoslovakia which was published in 1991 and then followed by the Rough Guide to Prague. Rob described the adventures, mishaps, strange encounters and surprises experienced during the writing of his guidebooks, as well as commenting on the changes brought about by the Velvet Revolution and by the internet.

Daria Klimentova, prima ballerina - my life and work, an illustrated presentation
2017-03-27 18:30 - 20:30
Surprising the world of ballet with her appointment as principal dancer with the Prague National Ballet Company at the early age of 18, Daria Klimentova went on to have a stunning international career, including 18 years as principal ballerina with English National Ballet. Since her retirement in 2014 she has devoted herself to the education of new generations of dancers, notably by founding and teaching the International Ballet Master classes at Prague’s Narodni divadlo. Her autobiography Daria Klimentova – Agony and Ecstasy – My Life in Dance was published in 2013.

The Renegade Count - a talk by Milan Kocourek
2017-01-26 18:30 - 20:30
Diplomat and member of the Austrian parliament, Count Franz/Frantisek von Luetzow (1849-1916) was that rarity, a German-speaking Bohemian aristocrat whole-heartedly devoted to the Czech national cause. With a British mother, he wrote prolifically in English, attempting almost single-handedly to dispel anglophone ignorance about Bohemian history and the contemporary Czech scene. The talk covered some of Count von Luetzow’s endeavours in the years before 1914 as well as his wartime activities.
