Related articles
Czech HistoryThe life and legacy of Saint Agnes of Bohemia
This Saturday a special mass will be celebrated in honour of Saint Agnes of
Bohemia, on the 22nd anniversary of her canonization by the Roman Catholic
Church in 1989. In a couple of weeks’ time a large exhibition will open
in the convent of St Agnes in Prague founded by Agnes herself. Those are
just two events in a long series to mark the 800tha birth anniversary of
one of the country’s most revered patron saints. In today’s Czech
History we look at the life and legacy of this extraordinary noblewoman. More
SpecialA tale of two brothers, and the building of a nation
For the occasion of September 28, I’m here at a place that some people
actually call the real centre of the Czech Republic. Not the geographic
centre to be sure, but certainly the focal point for much of the Czech
Republic’s rocky modern-day history. It’s a statue of a man on a horse
(which people call ‘the horse’ when they arrange one of the hundreds of
meetings that take place here each day). But it’s of course the man on
the horse that has overseen everything over the last hundred years from the
declaration of Czechoslovak independence to the various political
demonstrations that gravitate here today. Above me is of course Saint
Václav, or Wenceslas, from which the surrounding square takes its name,
and his likeness has adorned this place for at least three hundred years,
in different incarnations. Legend has it that when worse comes to worst for
the Czech lands he will come un-petrified, and ride away to quash their
enemies – a disconcerting prophesy when one considers the parades of
Nazis and Communists that the statue saw come and go. But even in that,
there is a good point to be made: this symbol of Czech statehood is
indomitable; the legacy of St. Václav rides on through the ages, now for
about the 1,076th year. More
PanoramaBack to the Stone Age for a day
In 1997, just eight years after the Velvet Revolution, when Czechs were
making up for lost time and looking into the future, one man - archeologist
Radomír Tichý - was busy looking back. Like the rest of his countrymen he
was now fully able to realize his dreams, but those had little to do with
mobile phones, DVDs and exotic holidays. Mr. Tichý and his colleagues at
Hradec Králové University aimed to recreate history by building an open air
museum from the early Stone Age to the late Metal Age. More
Czech HistoryStone Age grave none the less queer for lack of ‘Gay Caveman’
The bustling Dejvice district of Prague is not where you would expect major
encounters with prehistory. Just a few hundred metres from the transport
hub at Vítězné Náměstí though, archaeologists are sifting through the
millennia and finding ever more evidence of the fact that Prague and its
environs have always been inhabited. In the case of the dig at Terronská
Street, by the enigmatic Corded Ware culture some 5,000 years ago. My guide
to the excavation is archaeologist Kamila Remišová Věšínová. More
+1
+10
