Czechs Today | All stories

This is the second part of a special Czechs Today dedicated to the writer, journalist and filmmaker Zdeněk Mahler. Over the years, Mahler, who is 80, has worked at the Communist Ministry of Culture, Prague’s Laterna Magika Theatre, and with his life-long friend Miloš Forman on the film Amadeus. But what about more recently? Well, Mahler has spent the last decade researching the life and work of Czechoslovakia’s founder, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. He has made several TV documentaries about the first Czech president, and has even been elected head of

For this edition of Czechs Today I met octogenarian Zdeněk Mahler, born and raised in Prague’s Industrial Vysočany district. Over the last three quarters of a century, Mahler has repeatedly found himself involved in some of the country’s best-known cultural exports. He helped prepare the famous winning Czechoslovak exhibit at the Brussels Expo in 1958, and lived and worked with a certain Miloš Forman throughout the period of the Czech New Wave.

When most people think of games the first thing they probably think of are video games, with young kids or young adults lining up for the latest title for their Xbox or Playstation or PC. But increasingly in the Czech Republic and other parts of Europe the pastime of board gaming, yes board gaming (!), has found increased audiences. You may be wondering “What?” if you’re new to board games, but there is a world of designs and titles out there beyond old "classics" like Risk and Monopoly.

Antonín Holý is one of the Czech Republic’s most renowned scientists. Most recently, his name was put forward by the Czech Academy of Sciences to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work finding compounds to fight both the AIDS virus and cancer. Learn more in Czechs Today.

In the past when Czechs thought about comics, classic children’s publications like Čtyřlístek (Fourleaf Clover), about four animal characters, or Fast Arrows – adventure stories for kids - came to mind. But after 1989, conceptions of comics gradually changed as comics not seen here before gradually entered the market. Soon, many grew instantly recognizable to most teenagers: classic superheroes like Spider-Man, Batman and others; on the other, newer genres also began to come in, edgier so-called new wave productions, of which Art Speiglman’s classic

Czech singer Veronika Diamant decided at a very early age that she wanted to be a jazz musician. She studied music at the Prague Conservatory and is currently working on her new album. If everything goes according to plan, it could be released in spring of next year. When I met with Veronika, I first asked her when she discovered the world of music.

South Moravia is a region in the Czech Republic known for many things – a sunny climate, interesting folklore and reasonably good wine. Being the most visited region of the country outside Prague, many people come for historic sights, chateaus and mediaeval castles. But few visitors realize the region along the borders with Austria and Slovakia boats a number of Jewish monuments from times long gone. Most of them now belong to the Jewish Community in Brno which has one man to take care of them – architect Jaroslav Klenovský.

Katka Garcia, as her name suggests, is half Czech and half Spanish, with a bit of Russian thrown in. In addition to that she sings traditional music from Ireland and Scotland. She currently lives in Dublin and teaches Spanish at Trinity College and occasionally comes to Prague to perform with her fellow musicians. I caught up with her during her last visit.

Martin Rajniš is a renowned Czech architect, who along with Johnny Eisler and Miroslav Masák, authored the famous Máj building (now Tesco) in the centre of Prague. Designed in the high tech style Máj was one of Czechoslovakia’s first department stores and is now a cultural heritage site. But that is only one of the architect’s achievements: in the 1990s after the fall of Communism, he was involved in the extensive redesigning of the area around Anděl in Prague’s Smíchov district. Since, the architect has also concentrated more and more on designs

As a champion of animal rights and an advocate of green politics, Plzeň-born Helena Houdová was an atypical beauty queen when she became Miss Czech Republic in 1999. She went on to become one of the few winners of the competition to enjoy a successful international career as a model, though today her time is split between modelling and running the Sunflower Children humanitarian organisation. It’s based in New York, which is where I met Helena Houdová.