“While the Prague Castle, above, is a must-see for visitors, a bus tour of a variety of city sites known for corruption has been a growing tourist attraction, according to the tour operators.” >full text (c) NYT, 2013; photo (c) Mlan Bures, IHT
Archive for Czech Republic
Guided Tour to a City’s Corruption
Posted in Uncategorized with tags corruption, Czech Republic, guided tour, Prague, tourism on 14 August 2013 by delclem“Scandal in Bohemia”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Bohemia, Café Slava, cultural analysis, Czech Republic, politics, Prague, scandal on 10 July 2013 by delclem
The Absinthe drinker’s “temptress seems a fitting muse for a city where the absurdities of the public realm have often encouraged a retreat into the alcoholic and the erotic.” Very good article by one of the leading Bohemists of our day (c) NYT, 2013
Citizen K.
Posted in Uncategorized with tags art, Czech Republic, identity, prank on 24 May 2013 by delclem
“Czech art pranksters, whose Ztohoven art collective gained international notoriety for implanting images of a fictional atomic blast on live television, faced legal action for their prank in which they were toying with the concept of identity.”
>text (c) ART OF THE PRANK, 2010
“God’s Gift”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Cold War, Czech Republic, heritage, military complex, Soviet Union, war history on 3 April 2013 by delclem
Hidden Soviet heritage in the Czech Republic: There’s a bit of the Cold War/
Warsaw Pact military complex left in the middle of country – abandoned, decaying & almost completely forgotten >text & photos from MOTHERBOARD.COM 2013
“The artist who would be president”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags arts, Czech Republic, Prague, presidency, tatoos, Václav Klaus, Vladimír Franz on 11 January 2013 by delclem
“It is impossible to miss Czech artist and composer Vladimír Franz in a crowd: the professor, who teaches Music in Theatre Performance at DAMU in Prague, is tattooed on all visible parts of his body, including his face and hands. Now Mr Franz is also one of the country’s most unusual – and most unexpected – candidates for president.” >text
(c) RADIO PRAHA, 2013
A Venial Sin of History
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 1992, 1993, Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia, dismembration, nation state, Nationalism, Postcommunism, secession, Slovakia on 1 January 2013 by delclem
“The Tragedy of Central Europe” (1945-1989)
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Central Europe, Communism, Czech Republic, essay, France, Lund, Milan Kundera, Russia, Soviet Union, Sweden on 19 December 2012 by delclem
On Milan Kundera‘s seminal and problematic, ie. almost racist,
essay from 1984 >text (c) EUROPEAN STUDIES IN LUND, 2010
“A Requiem for Europe’s Worst Prejudices”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Central Europe, Czech Republic, gypsies, Music, Prague, prejudice, Riccardo Sahiti, Roma on 3 December 2012 by delclem
“The concert is sold out, and Maestro Sahiti’s appearance is met with a long round of applause. On the podium, he looks the musicians in the eyes, smiles, and they smile back. Nearly 10 years ago to the day, Sahiti founded the Roma and Sinti Philharmonic. It started out as a small project, which was hardly taken seriously. Now Sahiti stands before 60 musicians, from Germany, Romania, Hungary. All the orchestra members belong to the ethnic minority called Roma or Sinti: Gypsies; some of them have been abused, others bullied. At the Rudolfinum, they are playing for the public, but also for themselves – and against centuries of stereotypes.” >full text (c) SZ / Wordcrunch.com 2012
Districts: Karlín, Prague
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Czech Republic, Karlín, Prague, urban history on 14 July 2012 by delclem
“The 8th district of Prague extending from the centre to the northern city limits has over 100,000 inhabitants. Apart from industrial estates in Bohnice and Kobylisy it has ten nature conservation areas. Slightly off the beaten tourist track and yet quite close to the city centre, the district of Karlín has undergone positive changes in the last decade. Its history and present status are examined in this article.”
(c) wieninternational.at, 2012
Lidice massacre anniversary
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Czech Republic, Germany, Lidice, Literature, Reinhard Heydrich on 10 June 2012 by delclem
The Czech village Lidice
was destroyed by German occupying forces on 10 June 1942 in reprisal for the assassination of Nazi deputy governor and Holocaust mastermind Reinhard Heydrich by British-trained Czech patriots in late May (“Operation Anthropoid”; see my earlier post on the subject matter). The exiled Bertolt Brecht dedicated his script to the Hollywood movie Hangman Also Die! from 1943 to Heydrich’s assissination; the director was the Austrian Fritz Lang). However, most inhabitants of Lidice perished after the attack… > Text on the literary legacy of the massacre (c) Radio Prague, 2012
Also see the letter the German president J. Gauck wrote to the Czech president on the occasion of the anniversary.
delirium clemens 