Section Archive Czechs Today
Political commentator Bohumil Doležal: the web is great compared to samizdat
For many Czechs, politics is a world of its own, with its own rules and
strange characters. Some back their candidates based on things that have
little to do with their actual policies, or their record, and some get
their ideas from the media. One of the country’s most respected, and
wittiest, political commentators is Bohumil Doležal.
More
Sorbian culture promoted in Prague’s Malá Strana
The Lusatian Sorbs are a small Slavic minority who can mostly be found in
the East of Germany. But they have their history, and their friends, in the
Czech Republic too. Petr Kaleta is in charge of the Friends of Lusatia
Society – in Czech, the ‘Společnost přátel Lužice’ – I’ll let
him introduce himself to you in Sorbian:
More
Selling insects for a living
The endless sound of crickets chirping would make you think you were in a
field somewhere in the Czech countryside, but in fact, this is a country
attic, home to thousands of insects stored and raised by Czech businessman
Vlastimil Švingr. Fourteen years ago, Mr Švingr was inspired to start a
small farm to sell everything from larvae to crickets to cockroaches as
food for animals in pet shops and zoos: today he has more than 1,700
clients throughout the country and his business is a big success, with an
annual turnover of around 12 million crowns (around 630,000 US dollars). More
Radim Jančura – founder and head of Student Agency, the Czech Republic’s most popular transport company
If you happen to have travelled between Prague and Brno on the D1 motorway
in recent years, you might have wondered why those large yellow buses
running between the two cities have Student Agency written on them. If you
thought that Czech students travel more frequently than in other countries,
you were wrong. Student Agency, now a multi-billion business, is the Czech
Republic’s most popular transport company. In this edition of Czechs
Today, we talk to Radim Jančura, its founder and sole owner.
More
Karel Barták on life inside the European Union
For the past two years, Karel Barták has been the chief of the European
Commission’s youth and culture communications unit, making him one of
the
highest-ranking Czechs in Brussels. Prior to that, he spent over a decade
as the Czech News Agency’s European Union correspondent. So how was the
transition from reporting on the EU to becoming an official himself? Karel
Barták told me over a café a la russe on Brussels’ Place Madou: More
Zdeněk Mahler – part two
This is the second part of a special Czechs Today dedicated to the writer,
journalist and filmmaker Zdeněk Mahler. Over the years, Mahler, who is
80,
has worked at the Communist Ministry of Culture, Prague’s Laterna Magika
Theatre, and with his life-long friend Miloš Forman on the film
Amadeus. But what about more recently? Well, Mahler has spent the
last decade researching the life and work of Czechoslovakia’s founder,
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. He has made several TV documentaries about the
first Czech president, and has even been elected head of the Masaryk
Democratic Movement: More
Author, playwright and journalist Zdeněk Mahler - part one
For this edition of Czechs Today I met octogenarian Zdeněk Mahler, born
and raised in Prague’s Industrial Vysočany district. Over the last
three
quarters of a century, Mahler has repeatedly found himself involved in
some
of the country’s best-known cultural exports. He helped prepare the
famous winning Czechoslovak exhibit at the Brussels Expo in 1958, and
lived
and worked with a certain Miloš Forman throughout the period of the Czech
New Wave. More
Gaming in the Czech Republic
When most people think of games the first thing they probably think of are
video games, with young kids or young adults lining up for the latest
title
for their Xbox or Playstation or PC. But increasingly in the Czech
Republic
and other parts of Europe the pastime of board gaming, yes board gaming
(!), has found increased audiences. You may be wondering “What?” if
you’re new to board games, but there is a world of designs and titles
out
there beyond old "classics" like Risk and Monopoly. More
Antonín Holý: one of the country's most renowned scientists
Antonín Holý is one of the Czech Republic’s most renowned scientists.
Most recently, his name was put forward by the Czech Academy of Sciences
to
be nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work finding
compounds
to fight both the AIDS virus and cancer. Learn more in Czechs Today. More
Comics publishing in the Czech Republic: from Garfield to the avant garde
In the past when Czechs thought about comics, classic children’s
publications like Čtyřlístek (Fourleaf Clover), about four animal
characters, or Fast Arrows – adventure stories for kids - came to mind.
But after 1989, conceptions of comics gradually changed as comics not seen
here before gradually entered the market. Soon, many grew instantly
recognizable to most teenagers: classic superheroes like Spider-Man, Batman
and others; on the other, newer genres also began to come in, edgier
so-called new wave productions, of which Art Speiglman’s classic Maus was
one of the most famous. What is being published now and how has the
audience come of the age? Find out in Czechs Today.
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