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Current AffairsBrno capitulates in dispute over Villa Tugendhat
The city of Brno has relented. Brno's city council yesterday approved a
plan to return the Villa Tugendhat, a UNESCO landmark, to the children of
the original owners. The path to giving back the historic villa, however,
won't be so simple. More
Current AffairsAfter 69 years, Tugendhat family wants villa returned
The Villa Tugendhat in Brno is the Czech Republic's only UNESCO site built
in the 20th century. Considered a masterpiece of Modernism, the opulent
family home was completed in 1930. In December, members of the Tugendhat
family submitted a petition to have the house returned to their
possession. But the city of Brno, the villa's current legal owner, doesn't
want to give it back.
More
Talking PointCzechs and Rusyns: the ties that bind
National anthems are not just reserved for peoples with a state of their
own. What you heard there is the national anthem of Subcarpathian
Rusyns—or Ruthenians, as they are referred to by some. When Czechoslovakia
was established in 1918, Rusyns were a founding people of the new central
European state. After World War Two, the province of Subcarpathian Rus was
incorporated into Soviet Ukraine and lost to Czechoslovakia, yet the
relationship between Czechs and Rusyns was never emotionally severed and
since 1990 there has been a growing Rusyn revival throughout central
Europe. Although the numbers of Rusyns living in the Czech Republic is
considerably less than that in neighbouring Slovakia, Hungary or Ukraine,
Rusyns here represent a link to the past that's attracting new life.
More
Czechs in HistoryThe life and death of Jan Masaryk
Jan Masaryk was the son of Czechoslovakia's first president T.G. Masaryk.
Like his father, he would come be defined by his service for his country,
working as both a diplomat and later as foreign minister during some of
Czechoslovakia's darkest days. Following the Second World War he witnessed
the 1948 Communist coup that ended hopes of a return to democracy in
Czechoslovakia and paved the way for forty years of oppressive rule. More
