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PanoramaInconspicuous plastic toy that has made it to the National Museum
The Czech National Museum has decided to enrich their collection with the
addition of cecka - little plastic hooks in the shape of the letter C,
which could be linked up in chains and hung in the doorframes as beads
curtains. How did this inconspicuous piece of plastic earn its place among
the National Museum's exhibits? Believe it or not, for a generation of
people who grew up in the 1980s in communist Czechoslovakia, it is a
symbol
of their childhood. For reasons unknown, the pressed plastic
"Cs"
became a collecting craze among the children soon after they appeared on
the market. More
Talking PointVitkov Memorial to house museum dedicated to Czechoslovakia's turbulent history
Vitkov Hill, with its famous memorial and nine-metre tall equestrian statue
of Hussite general Jan Zizka, is one of Prague's most instantly
recognisable sites, an enormous mass of marble and granite overlooking the
city. But it is also one of Prague's more enigmatic destinations, a
memorial to statehood imbibed with unexpected layers of meaning following
a number of dark twists in Czech history, the most damning being the Nazi
occupation in 1939 and later, 1948's communist putsch. More
PanoramaCzechoslovakia: 'Island of Democracy' and refuge between the wars
Czechoslovakia was one of the few states in Europe between the wars with a
genuine parliamentary democracy. The First Republic, as it became known,
was a multiethnic one: apart from Czechs and Slovaks, nearly a quarter of
its people were ethnic Germans; the Tesin region in the north had a large
Polish minority, while South Slovakia and Ruthenia were home to some
three-quarters of a million Hungarians. Up until the Munich Pact of 1938
and subsequent Nazi occupation, Czechoslovakia was a magnet for refugees
from Hitler's Germany, communist Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere, says Dr
David Kraft, curator of the new exhibit "Exile in Prague and
Czechoslovakia 1918-1938". More
Talking PointForced displacement of Czech population under Nazis in 1938 and 1943
The transfer of the German-speaking minority from Czechoslovakia after the
end of the Second World War remains the topic of discussions between Czech
politicians and their counterparts and pressure groups in Germany and
Austria. It is also a subject of extensive historical research. Much less
is known about the mass exodus of the Czech population from the border
regions of Bohemia and Moravia, surrendered to Nazi Germany following the
Munich Agreement in 1938.
More
Current AffairsCzechs mark 65th anniversary of Munich Agreement
It's 65 years today since the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy
gathered in Munich to sign a document which would have lasting
consequences not only for Czechoslovakia but also the whole of Europe.
Under the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia's German-speaking border
regions were sliced off and handed to Nazi Germany, in what has been
described as one of the greatest betrayals of the 20th century. Rob
Cameron looks back at Munich 1938.
More
