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December 19
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December 12
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December 5
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Year in review is the dominant topic this week and the Prague Post
notes in this respect that 1997 is a year Czechs and Slovaks would
like to forget. In the Czech lands the year began with a presidential
wedding and ended with a painful prime-ministerial divorce. In between
the country experienced the worst flood in living memory, strikes,
austerity packages, a Romany exodus and financial scandals that
toppled the government of Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus. 1997 will
always be remembered as the year the bloom came off the Czech rose and
the wheels came off the Czech economic miracle, Siegfried Mortkowitz
of the Prague Post notes. While Slovakia, spinning into yet greater
international isolation, definitely lost its place as a European Union
frontrunner and was passed over when NATO issued its invitation to
leading candidates for membership. The year was marked by
confrontational rhetoric and a series of diplomatic blunders such as
when the Slovak education ministry produced a history book that
praised the wartime Nazi puppet state of Josef Tiso and discussed how
well the Jews had been treated under the regime -when in fact some
70,000 had been deported to death camps. Five years after the break
up Czech Slovak relations reached freezing point...
Most appropriately, the headline which jumps out at you from the
weekly's front page reads "Let there be light" - a sentiment all Czechs
would wholeheartedly embrace at the end of this troubled year. The
story does not however refer to the political situation in the Czech
republic but to the first public celebration of Hanukah in Prague -
specifically the lighting of a 3 metre high menorah, or candelabra,
on Prague's Old Town Square by one of the two chief rabbis of Izrael,
Yisrael Meir Lau. A crowd of more than 100 people turned out for the
candle-lighting, the weekly reports.
Tyden magazine which carries a year-in-review report on an
international scale, has picked Martina Hingis on horseback for its
photo of the week. Czech-born Hingis is spending the Xmas holidays in
Roznov pod Radhostem, north Moravia, where she got her first coaching
at the local club. The worlds number one tennis star brightened lots
of kids' Xmas this year by turning out to play a laid-back game of
tennis with them and signing her name on just about anything they held
out to her -tennis balls, T-shirts, hands....
Culture-wise , the Oscar winning father and son team Jan and Zdenek
Sverak take pride of place on the list of successes for their film
Kolja. Other cultural highlights include Czech opera singer Eva
Urbanova at la Scala, Peter Ustinov in Prague and Yehudi Menuhin
conducting the Czech Philharmonic. The weeklies also note the Rudolf
II and Prague exhibition which has been a major success with Czechs
and foreigners alike, Nadim Karam's Archaic procession along Manes
Bridge, the appointment of Vladimir Ashkenzy to the post conductor of
the Czech Philharmonic, legendary Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya
who at age 71 danced at the National Theatre this year, the return of
the Plastic People of the Universe and sadly the death of Bohumil
Hrabal. And of course one mustn't forget the re-opening of cafe
Slavia, a well known and sadly missed Prague landmark.
Economically - there isn't a great deal to brag about. As the Prague
Post notes - 1997 brought the end of the Czech economic miracle and
headlines in that weekly and Tyden reflect that. Tyden shows a glum
looking Vaclav Klaus preparing to present his austerity package to the
nation, Ivan Kocarnik leaving his ministerial post to work for the
number one Czech insurance company and Premier Klaus addressing a
business forum at which he no longer generated trust and respect. The
only cheerful looking person on the economics pages is Viktor Kozeny,
who may well laugh , Tyden notes. The enormous capital he accumulated
in the Czech privatization process went with him when he left the
country - and he is now concentrating on greener pastures further
east. The surprise of the year is 34 year Ivan Pilip who after a
lacklustre performance at the education ministry gained instant
respect as finance minister - almost to the point of becoming
indispensable - all within a matter of 6 months. From the ODS' crown
prince he also turned into ODS chief rebel overnight. Tyden which has
profiled Pilip as one of the key figures on the Czech political scene
asked him about his make-or-break change of allegiance. "My main error
in judgement was that I truly believed the ODS was not a one man
party," Pilip told the weekly. "And I am glad I did what I did. Leaving
the education ministry I wasn't happy with how I handled things. Today
I really feel good about myself. I am eating well, sleeping well
and my decisions are long-term not here-and-now or self-serving."
And last but not least from the world of sports the stars are Dominik
Hasek, decorated with the Lester Award, the Vezina Trophy and most
recently the prestigious Hart Trophy, and world champions Sarka
Kasparkova - triple jump , Martin Doktor canoeism and Tomas Dvorak
decathlon -all gold medals won in 1997. Tyden also notes Jana
Novotna's triumph at Madison Square Garden, the Czech national hockey
team's incredible victory at the Baltica Cup in Moscow just over a
week ago and the Czech soccer team ranking third best on the world
ladder. It's a long list of successes and failures for readers to
digest at the turn of the year and the weeklies assist them in the
process by providing an equally long list of strong cocktails to
sample . Kindly, the Prague Post has added an enlightened article on
hangover cures.
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