Related articles

November 17th is the anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution and is a public holiday here in the Czech Republic. Hundreds are expected to take to the streets of Prague on Saturday, to mark the 18th anniversary of the beginning of one of the most important chapters in the country’s history. But others will be turning out in numbers for rather different reasons. Here is a round up of the activities we can expect around the capital on Saturday:

Our guest for One on One this week is Will Tizard an American journalist who has been based in Prague since 1994. Besides writing regularly for the Czech Republic's English-language newspaper The Prague Post, Will Tizard is also an editor for the prestigious Time Out city guide as well as the Czech and Slovak correspondent for the leading movie-industry publication Variety Magazine.

Many areas of life have changed hugely since the Velvet Revolution - including the world of Czech art. Art as a political phenomenon before and after 1989 was the subject of a debate at the Slovak Institute in Prague on Wednesday.

Former communist prime minister of Czechoslovakia, Ladislav Adamec, died at the weekend at the age of 80. A noted pragmatist, Mr Adamec headed the Czechoslovak government from 1988 up until December 1989 when he negotiated the eventual handing over of power with members of the opposition Civic Forum, which included future president Vaclav Havel. Although he tried to retain a place in politics even after the Velvet Revolution, Mr Adamec's later role was ultimately short-lived.

Over 20,000 East Germans escaped to freedom via the West German Embassy in Prague in mid-to-late 1989, as the communist edifice started to crumble after four long decades. Their exodus is now recalled in a new exhibition entitled "Cesta za svobodou" or "Journey to Freedom" at Prague's Police Museum.

Today in Mailbox: Bouncing e-mails once again, reception quality in India, anniversary of Velvet Revolution, a listener's experience from Prague trip. Listeners quoted: Gautam Kumar Sharma, K. Thiagarajan, Mary Lou Krenek, Tony Armiger.

My guest in One on One is Simon Panek. Today he is well known as the director and one of the co-founders of People in Need, one of the Czech Republic's biggest non-governmental organizations. People in Need works around the world to ease the suffering of people in times of crisis - be it war, famine or flood, and has become hugely respected far beyond this country's borders. But Simon Panek first came to the public's attention for a very different reason. It was seventeen years ago this month that he was at the heart of the events that came to

The dramatic events of the Velvet Revolution began on the 17th November 1989. A student demonstration was put down brutally by the police, resulting in a huge public outcry. Protests and further demonstrations gained such rapid momentum that within days the regime was doomed, and by the end of the year Vaclav Havel was president. Any Czech over the age of thirty-five will have vivid memories of the time, but in the meantime a generation has grown up for whom these events are no more than history. So how, seventeen years after the fall of communism,

November 17th is a state holiday in the Czech Republic - marking the brutal police crack-down on students which led to the fall of the communist regime in 1989. On the eve of the state holiday the CVVM agency conducted a poll to find out what people know about the anniversary, how they feel about it and whether they will mark it in any special way. The results were somewhat surprising.

If we delve into the Czech Radio archives, we find recordings in English going right back to Radio Prague's beginnings 70 years ago. Some of the extracts we are going to feature in this programme have not been aired for well over half a century. They capture some of the most interesting and dramatic moments in our history.