Related articles
Current AffairsNew exhibition recalls 1989 East German exodus through Prague
Over 20,000 East Germans escaped to freedom via the West German Embassy in
Prague in mid-to-late 1989, as the communist edifice started to crumble
after four long decades. Their exodus is now recalled in a new exhibition
entitled "Cesta za svobodou" or "Journey to Freedom"
at
Prague's Police Museum. More
MailboxMailbox
Today in Mailbox: Bouncing e-mails once again, reception quality in India,
anniversary of Velvet Revolution, a listener's experience from Prague
trip. Listeners quoted: Gautam Kumar Sharma, K. Thiagarajan, Mary Lou
Krenek, Tony Armiger.
More
One on OneSimon Panek: a former student leader remembers the drama of November 1989
My guest in One on One is Simon Panek. Today he is well known as the
director and one of the co-founders of People in Need, one of the Czech
Republic's biggest non-governmental organizations. People in Need works
around the world to ease the suffering of people in times of crisis - be
it war, famine or flood, and has become hugely respected far beyond this
country's borders. But Simon Panek first came to the public's attention
for a very different reason. It was seventeen years ago this month that he
was at the heart of the events that came to be known as the Velvet
Revolution. As a twenty-two-year-old student, he was one of the organizers
of the demonstration on the 17th November that was the catalyst for the
rapid collapse of the communist regime. For several months students had
been trying to play a more active role in bringing about change.
More
Special17th November 1989: dealing with the complex legacy of the revolution
The dramatic events of the Velvet Revolution began on the 17th November
1989. A student demonstration was put down brutally by the police,
resulting in a huge public outcry. Protests and further demonstrations
gained such rapid momentum that within days the regime was doomed, and by
the end of the year Vaclav Havel was president. Any Czech over the age of
thirty-five will have vivid memories of the time, but in the meantime a
generation has grown up for whom these events are no more than history. So
how, seventeen years after the fall of communism, should the Czech Republic
be dealing with the complex legacy of totalitarianism, and making sure that
future generations will not repeat the mistakes of the past? This is a
subject that has remained every bit as controversial as it was in the
first days after the fall of the regime, as I shall be exploring in this
special programme to mark the anniversary of the events of November 1989.
More
Current AffairsNovember 17th anniversary of small interest to Czechs
November 17th is a state holiday in the Czech Republic - marking the brutal
police crack-down on students which led to the fall of the communist regime
in 1989. On the eve of the state holiday the CVVM agency conducted a poll
to find out what people know about the anniversary, how they feel about it
and whether they will mark it in any special way. The results were somewhat
surprising.
More
SpecialOccupation, Esperanto and Mushrooms: 70 years of Radio Prague throughthearchives
If we delve into the Czech Radio archives, we find recordings in English
going right back to Radio Prague's beginnings 70 years ago. Some of the
extracts we are going to feature in this programme have not been aired for
well over half a century. They capture some of the most interesting and
dramatic moments in our history. More
One on OneAlexandr Tomsky - publisher, journalist, politician: Part 2
In yesterday's programme, the journalist and publisher Alexandr Tomsky
recalled his early life and the decades he spent as a rather reluctant
exile in London. Now, in the second part of this One on One special, Mr
Tomsky talks about his return to Prague, his career in politics and why
believes in monarchy. But first he recounts his impressions of former
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. More
One on OneAlexandr Tomsky - publisher, journalist, politician: Part 1
My guest today in this special two-part One on One is the multi-faceted
Alexandr Tomsky. Mr Tomsky has been a journalist, a teacher, an advisor to
Margaret Thatcher and a right of centre politician. He set up the exile
publishing house Rozmluvy (Debate) in England in 1980, before later
running the prestigious Academia publishing house in Prague. When he
visited Radio Prague the other day, I asked Alexandr Tomsky to tell us a
little bit about his background.
More
Czechs TodayThe 'Dutch Rhapsody' of Jan Stavinoha: A Czech writer in Amsterdam
The writer Jan Stavinoha was born in Prague in May 1945, a couple of weeks
after the Soviet Red Army freed the Czechoslovak capital from Nazi
control. In 1968 the Soviet Army returned to Prague not as liberators but
as oppressors. Stavinoha, then a 23-year-old student of classical music,
forged paperwork saying he was a "reliable person" worthy of a
passport — and fled to the West. Today, nearly 40 years later,
he is a popular 'Dutch' novelist, and, he says, a "tourist" in
his homeland. More
One on OneNatasha Dudinska - A Slovak Jew who swapped Prague for Israel
My guest for One on One this week is Natasha Dudinska - a former Prague
resident who now lives in Israel, but who recently came back to the Czech
capital to do some research on an upcoming documentary on Prague's Jewish
cemetery by the academy award-winning filmmaker Allan Miller. Originally
from Slovakia with Jewish roots, Natasha first came to Prague in the late
1980s to study at Charles University. Like many students of that era she
ended up getting embroiled in the events of the Velvet Revolution. I
started by asking her what memories she had of those tumultuous events 15
years ago. More
+1
