Czech History | All stories

Welcome to Wilsonstadt, an independent Central European city of 400,000 Germans and Hungarians, and a few Slovaks thrown in for good measure. Named after US President Woodrow Wilson in 1919, after successfully avoiding annexation by Czechoslovakia - and an impossible number of other would-be conquests - it's a prosperous, provincial town on the Danube, though plagued by poor relations with its neighbors.

The 1948 communist takeover of Czechoslovakia remains a trauma for many Czechs today. Could the country’s fall under Soviet domination have been prevented? Why did Czechoslovak politicians of the era so severely underestimate the threat of communism? These are some of the issues discussed in a new biography of the politician Prokop Drtina, one of the key figures of the brief period between the end of the war and the start of the communist regime.

This Saturday a special mass will be celebrated in honour of Saint Agnes of Bohemia, on the 22nd anniversary of her canonization by the Roman Catholic Church in 1989. In a couple of weeks’ time a large exhibition will open in the convent of St Agnes in Prague founded by Agnes herself. Those are just two events in a long series to mark the 800tha birth anniversary of one of the country’s most revered patron saints. In today’s Czech History we look at the life and legacy of this extraordinary noblewoman.

As one art critic once said, the paintings of Josef Lada accompany Czechs from cradle to grave. He is as well known for his illustrations of fairy tales and children’s readers as he is for his landscapes, which each Christmas are printed thousands of times over on the front of the nation’s Christmas cards. Lada was also the artist who gave the grinning, rotund Good Soldier Švejk his form.

The name of Václav Babinský is familiar to almost every Czech. The Babinsky legend lives thanks to a folk song, passed on from generation to generation and, curiously, most popular with very young children. It tells the story of a notorious criminal named Babinský who is awaiting execution in a flea infested prison. In today’s Czech History we find out whether the song remains true to history and we look at the life and legend of the 19th-century Bohemian highwayman Václav Babinský.

In Czechs in History this week, we speak to Jana Horáková-Kánský, daughter of one of Czechoslovakia's best known victims of Communist-era oppression, the democratic MP and wartime resistance hero Milada Horáková. Jana, Milada Horáková's only child, was just a teenager when her mother was executed on trumped up charges of treason and espionage in a 1950 show trial. Her father - who was also targeted by the Communist regime - made a daring escape from Czechoslovakia shortly afterwards, leaving Jana in the care of relatives. For years she was denied

In this edition of Czech history, we look at the development of Czech-American relations over the past two decades. Ever since the fall of the Iron Curtain, they have been the pivot of Czech foreign policy. But after the euphoria of the Velvet Revolution and the era of Washington’s fascination with Václav Havel, these relations today are like a 20-year old marriage with no sex – at least according to some current and former diplomats who appeared in Friday’s debate hosted by the Foreign Ministry.

In this edition of Czech History, we look at the life of Karel Kalivoda, one of the most successful and famous Czech police detectives of the 20th century. A self-made man in principle, Karel Kalivoda worked his way up from ordinary rank and file to the head of Prague’s criminal police. He made a number of compromises to get there – but he always retained a degree of integrity unusual for the time and place.

For Czechs, the 20th century was a turbulent time. Independent Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 only to later fall victim to the two great tyrannies of modern history – Nazism and communism. Many Czechs fled their country during the 20th century so that they could live as free people, and often simply to save their lives. Wednesday marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Egon Hostovský, one of the most distinctive and significant modern-day Czech writers, who fled his country twice, first to escape the Nazis, and later the Communists.

Today’s feature programme looks back to the year 1983 and to Africa, where 66 Czechoslovak men, women and children were held hostage in the Angolan Civil War, some for over a year, and forced on a trek of almost 3,000 km. Christian Falvey presents this week’s Czech History.