2010-02-09T17:16:22+01:00 Radio Prague http://www.radio.cz/en/current/special urn:uuid:f8154958-a8b7-571d-806f-1fc90597a767 2010-02-09T17:16:21+01:00

Dr. Helena Illnerová is a biochemist, and one of the top minds in the Czech Republic. She is involved in practically every major academic committee there is in the country, from the council of the National Museum to that of Charles University; until 2004 she was the chair of the Academy of Sciences, and she currently heads UNESCO in the Czech Republic. It was with the study of biorhythms, though, that Dr. Illnerová’s work began in the 1960s, when she discovered that mice exposed to light for short periods of time in the night would have their hormones disrupted – that their bodies, and ours, were governed by a biological clock.

urn:uuid:d50eb007-86d8-52e6-8064-8007c3808d5f 2010-01-01T02:00:59+01:00

In this special New Year’s Day programme, we look back at some of the best of our interview programme One on One in 2009. Among those featured: Catholic intellectual Martin C Putna, historian Igor Lukeš, academic Peter Demetz, former Radio Prague man John Tregellas, jazz musician Rudy Linka and the great American cartoonist Robert Crumb.

urn:uuid:a762b740-b7e1-5b11-aa1f-090f73cd6b98 2009-12-31T02:00:59+01:00

Back by popular demand, it’s the New Year’s programme on Radio Prague! In this year’s edition Jan Velinger and Christian Falvey spoof talk radio as well as popular shows like Czechs Today. Along the way they also cover topics such as drinking in the workplace, cute sound technicians, and the future of the station in 2010.

urn:uuid:df96a5af-7475-5a38-b40a-43e6bdf3096c 2009-12-26T02:00:59+01:00

Prague is sometimes romantically called the City of a Hundred Spires. You can probably count even more overlooking the capital from Prague Castle or hills offering a view of the Vltava valley. Looking down on the city, the spires and towers rise up, and of course many of them have bells inside.

urn:uuid:335e32ec-1c47-54c1-8ad4-37aaf3b01760 2009-12-25T02:00:59+01:00

In today’s special Christmas show on Radio Prague we’ll introduce you to what is undoubtedly the most famous piece of Czech Christmas music, Jakub Jan Ryba's "Česká mše vánoční" or "Czech Christmas Mass".

urn:uuid:040a0211-5315-5afc-861b-e96983a99fa6 2009-12-24T02:00:59+01:00

Exactly 20 years ago, Czechs and Slovaks were celebrating their first Christmas for four decades without a hint of official disapproval. While the communists tolerated the trappings of Christmas – with Christmas trees and traditional Czech Christmas carp in abundance – their tolerance of Christian traditions was never more than skin deep. In the 1950s, priests and members of religious orders were often locked up for their beliefs, and the brief reforms of the 1960s were followed by another wave of persecution, following the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. For this programme I’m going to be talking to two people, who remember only too well what it meant to be a practising Christian in communist Czechoslovakia. They are the Protestant pastor, former Dean of the Protestant Theological Faculty of Prague’s Charles University and former dissident, Jakub Trojan, and the British translator Gerry Turner, who has lived in Prague for many years and has had close links with the churches here since before the fall of communism.

urn:uuid:a7d09f43-1616-5702-96d3-13d37219bdce 2009-11-17T02:00:59+01:00

Our special programme marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism was recorded on November 9 in front of a live audience at Prague’s celebrated film and TV academy. Radio Prague’s Jan Richter chaired a fascinating and lively discussion about the Velvet Revolution, its legacy and meaning for today. On the panel were: Jiří Stránský: a Czech writer who spent much of the 1950s in communist prisons; Václav Bartuška: a student activist at the time of the revolution and the first person to be given access to the StB (secret police) files – he is now the Czech Republic’s ambassador at large for energy security; Silvie Mitlenerová: a current Charles University Student and a student activist in Democracy Check-Up, a student initiative; Petr Slabý: a film maker and journalist, and a student activist at the time, studying at FAMU; Pavel Jech: the dean of FAMU, who spent the revolution in New York! The panel also answered questions from the audience. Here is a transcript of the discussion (shortened to fit the format of Radio Prague’s broadcasts), which began with Pavel Jech saying a few words about why it was taking place at FAMU:

urn:uuid:271890ad-737b-53d0-aadc-a0fe4cc8398f 2009-11-16T17:39:24+01:00

Celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution began at the weekend and, of course, they began with Václav Havel. The dissident playwright cum philosopher-president was the main figure behind the bloodless uprising that toppled 40 years of communism within just a few weeks. At the weekend, Mr Havel held a semi-private concert to commemorate the music that accompanied the overthrow of communism, inviting Joan Baez, Lou Reed, and Suzanne Vega, among others. In exclusive interviews, Radio Prague spoke to some of the guests who “laid the soundtrack”, so to speak, to the period of the revolution.

urn:uuid:58bf389c-a022-5ee0-bca7-85b7fc359505 2009-11-03T17:39:40+01:00

Some of the most important Czech films since 1989 have been screened in a kind of mini-festival that has just come to a conclusion at the famed Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York. Six days. 16 films. 10 guest speakers. The series? The Ironic Curtain. Czech Cinema since the Velvet Revolution.

urn:uuid:1d5a2271-b559-5618-a459-e84dab7f9d96 2009-10-27T23:59:59+01:00

October 28 is an important holiday in the Czech Republic as the day that the Czechoslovak - and thereby Czech - nation was born out of the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. That moment of independence was the triumph of a hundred-year mission to rebuild a national identity out of a dozen generations of Austrian rule. It is called the Czech National Revival, a cultural movement that re-awoke interest in Czech history, gave a new lease to the Czech language and pushed Czech art, and particularly music, to the forefront of Europe. As we mark the independence of Czechoslovakia, I’d like to take you through one of the greatest musical manifestations of the National Revival, and that is the symphonic cycle Má Vlast, or My Country, by Bedřich Smetana.