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Current AffairsCzech Radio History Part I: Do we need a public service broadcaster?
This year, the public broadcaster Czech Radio celebrates its eightieth
anniversary. Throughout history, its meaning and role have changed from a
revolutionary invention to an everyday companion, from a source of
entertainment to a trumpet calling on Czechs to fight invaders, from a
mouthpiece of communist propaganda to the voice of democracy. Radio Prague
has prepared a series of reports to illustrate the eighty-year history of
Czech Radio, and from now you can hear them in our programme or find them
on our website every Friday. In the first part, we look at the role Czech
Radio has played as a public service broadcaster, and whether it still has
something to offer among the multitude of commercial radio stations now
available in the Czech Republic.
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Current AffairsThe Battle of the Airwaves: the extraordinary story of Czechoslovak Radio and the 1945 Prague Uprising
Welcome to a special programme to mark the 58th anniversary of the end of
the Second World War, a national holiday in the Czech Republic. The
anniversary has a special significance in Prague, because it was here that
some of the last shots of the war in Europe were fired, long after most
European cities had been freed. The liberation of Prague by the Red Army
on the 9th May 1945 was preceded by three days of fierce fighting in the
streets of the city, and over 3000 people lost their lives fighting for
Prague's freedom. In the uprising, the radio and the very building from
which we are now broadcasting, was right at the heart of events.
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ArtsPrague Radio Orchestra clarinetist talks about Smetana's 'My Country'
November 5th was the 120th anniversary of the premiere of Bedrich
Smetana's cycle of symphonic poems, 'Ma
vlast' or 'My Country'. This
work, one of the most popular in the history of Czech music, consists of
six parts that reflect ancient Czech history and try to explore the nature
of Czech people.
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Current AffairsCzechoslovakia marks 57th anniversary of liberation
On May 5th, 1945, Czechoslovak Radio issued a call for people to rise up against the Nazi occupiers. The fiercest fighting
took place in Prague, where 1,700 Czechs lost their lives in the struggle for freedom. Rob Cameron and Olga
Szantova look back at the liberation of Prague.
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WitnessErstwhile enemies meet behind bars
This week is the anniversary of the Prague Uprising, which began on the 5th May 1945, in the last days of the German occupation of Prague. At the time Antonin Sum was in his mid twenties. As a young Czech patriot he was active in the uprising, which saw heavy street-fighting against the residue of the German army of occupation. In three days nearly three thousand people were killed. On the other side of the barricades was the German General Rudolf Toussaint, the chief of the Wehrmacht forces in Prague. After the war Antonin Sum became secretary to the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister, Jan Masaryk, but with the Communist putsch of 1948, as a democrat, he became an enemy of the state more or less overnight. Like thousands of non-communist Czechs who had held positions of influence, Antonin Sum was thrown into prison during the show-trials of the later 40s and early 50s. By a strange twist of history, one-time freedom fighters found themselves in jail with former prominent Nazis and collaborators, and it was there that Antonin Sum had the strange experience of meeting his erstwhile enemy, General Toussaint. Here he remembers that meeting.
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