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Josef Lada’s paintings have reached iconic status here in the Czech Republic, and you may be familiar with them too, without even knowing it. Lada was the illustrator who gave the smiling, rotund, Good Soldier Svejk his form. In the course of his career, he illustrated over 200 books - some, fairytale anthologies for children, others, like Svejk, intended for grown ups. Now Josef Lada is the subject of a major new retrospective in Prague.

Prague’s National Theatre is one of the most important cultural institutions in the Czech Republic. Located by the River Vltava at the end of Narodni trida, the 19th century Neo-Renaissance building, with its distinctive gilded cupola, is also one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks. But today it is landmark in need of a facelift. Some work has already begun on the roof, while the main reconstruction work on its facades will get underway in around a year and a half’s time.

Originally from Olomouc, central Moravia, singer-songwriter Jaroslav Hutka established himself as one of the most original figures in Czech folk music in the late 1960s. In 1978, he was forced out of the country by the communist regime only to return in November 1989 when he became one of the faces of the Velvet Revolution.

Petr Zelenka has long been recognised as one of the most talented filmmakers of his generation, whose quirky films including a mockumentary about a famous Czech folk singer have been well received by both critics and wider audiences. This summer, the director completed filming on The Karamazovs, a film - as the title makes explicit - which takes inspiration from Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Zelenka is now in post-production, but already the film is being viewed with great anticipation, a story which

The Irish independent film Once has been a surprise success in the United States this year. Shot in just two and a half weeks for USD 160,000, it has taken in over 10 million at the box office since making a big splash at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Once tells the story of an Irish busker who gradually starts to fall for a struggling Czech immigrant as they begin writing music together. We spoke to the movie's stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova ahead of the recent Czech premiere.

David Zabransky caused a stir with the release of his first novel 'Slabost pro kazdou jinou plaz' (or 'Any Beach But This' as it will be titled when it comes out in English). In March, he was named 'discovery of the year' at the prestigious Magnesia Litera awards. Perhaps appropriately for such a fan of dichotomies, readers seem to either love Mr. Zabransky's book, or hate it. His style has been likened to that of Milan Kundera - which is not something he is overly thrilled about:

One of the highlights of Prague's cultural calendar in recent years has been the Music on Film Film on Music (MOFFOM) festival. It brings together often hard to find music documentaries, and also features live concerts and other events. The 2007 MOFFOM has just got underway, and continues until Sunday. On the eve of the festival, programme director Keith Jones explained how it had changed since its inception in 2004:

When you enter the gallery of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague these days, it is as if you have stepped back in time. Students of the university have prepared an exhibition dedicated to the housing culture of the 1970s - the era that saw the most building of standardized housing estates all over communist Czechoslovakia. Indeed, panelaky - grey, pre-fabricated blocks of flats - are a prominent feature of almost every Czech city or town. I asked one of the curators of the exhibition, Pavel Vancat, to explain its title: Husakovo

Throughout the Middle Ages, the Czech town of Dvur Kralove occupied an important and prestigious position. The town formed part of the Czech queen's dowry, as its name, which roughly translates as 'Queen's settlement', would suggest. With the disappearance of a Czech royal family, however, things went a bit quiet for Dvur Kralove. In modern times, the town has been most famous for its Christmas-decoration factory, and its zoo. But Dvur Kralove has also played host to one of the stranger and more gruesome episodes of modern Czech history - though

Exhibitions like this one are once in a lifetime: the loan of a famous Bohemian tome officially known as the Codex Gigas (but also as the Devil's Bible) to Prague. According to historians, the book, one of the largest medieval manuscripts in the world (almost a metre tall and half a metre wide), was completed some time in the 13th century at a Bendectine monastery in east Bohemia. The tome, once considered to be the eighth wonder of the world, is the oldest Czech chronicle written in Latin. Despite its devilish moniker, the Codex is by no means