Czech History | All stories

The name Jaroslav Preiss does not create many ripples when it is thrown out today. Perhaps one Czech in a hundred could identify who he was. But at the birth of Czechoslovakia and in the 1920s and 1930s, Preiss was an economic and business colossus and contributed to making the country into a major industrial player between the wars. Chris Johnstone looks at the life of the controversial figure.

Standing in the centre of the Clementinum – if you can locate such a thing in the labyrinth – you are surrounded by around a millennium of history and millions of volumes of books inside one of the most beautifully preserved masterpieces of Baroque art the city of Prague has to offer. This is the seat of the Czech National Library and the whispering and rustling that echoes through its grand halls add perfectly to its natural mysteriousness.

Ossuaries, grim collections of mostly medieval bones, are to be found all over Europe, with one of the most striking examples anywhere being the infamous Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora, sometimes called one of the spookiest places in the world. Only ten years ago though, archaeologists working under the streets of Brno discovered a crypt that would earn a new claim to fame; the largest collection of human bones in the country and the second largest in Europe after the Paris Catacombs.

Some figures are cast as heroes and others as villains. Emanuel Moravec - the face, voice and main force behind Czech collaboration with the occupying Nazis during WWII - unmistakeably belongs to the latter category. For his actions he became dubbed ‛the Czech Quisling’ – a reference the more famous Norwegian collaborator. In this week’s Czechs in History, Chris Johnstone explores Moravec’s complex character and path to collaboration.

In this edition of Czech History, we look at the life and times of the electrical engineer František Křižík, whose Plzeň lamp took the gold medal at the World Fair in Paris in 1881. Today, he is considered one of the best-known Czech inventors.

In 1947, at the age of 42, Eduard Ingriš had already lived what most would call a full life. He was one of Czechoslovakia’s foremost composers, with several hundred pieces to his name. He had been composing since he was 15 years old, and he was a rich man. His musical “The Capricious Mirror” enjoyed 1,600 performances in Prague, a record untouched even on Broadway. As it turns out though, his life was just getting started.

The Czech Republic’s oldest continually existing association, the Vltavan Club, has marked its 140th anniversary. Founded by timber rafters fishermen and other people who worked on the river in the Prague district of Podskalí, its original purpose was to assist its members in times of need. Since then, much water has gone under the bridge but on Saturday, the club once again took over the Vltava in the capital to mark its anniversary with a day-long celebration.

Lída Baarová was one of the most famous and successful Czech actresses to have ever lived. Her career spanned over 70 years, in the course of which she starred in a whole number of both Czech and German film classics. She even made it into Federico Fellini’s ‘I Vitelloni’ in 1953. But she is perhaps best known for her life off-screen, as one of Czech film’s most unhappy characters. Lída Baarová’s beauty attracted the attention of Joseph Goebbels, and her career - tragically for her - reached its peak in Nazi Germany shortly before World War

The first two names always given at the top of the pantheon of Czech classical music are Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana; the third is invariably Leoš Janáček. Probably the most innovative of the three, Janáček likely lags behind the famous duo only because even today, 80 years after his death, musicians, musicologists and music lovers are still reassessing those innovations, which took classical music into uncharted territory.

For today’s episode of Czech History I’ve come here to Nuselský most or Nusle Bridge which joins two parts of the city. Completed in 1973, the bridge serves as a major artery for six lanes of North-South traffic and even the city’s metro. Every single day countless thousands of commuters rely on it.