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Twenty years ago, in January 1991, Czechoslovakia began a crash course in capitalism as the old system of central economic planning that had been in place for the previous four decades was dismantled. In spite of resistance from some quarters, Czechoslovakia, opted for a fast, shock therapy reform, differing from the more cautious path taken in Poland and Hungary.

Czech Senator Jiří Dienstbier, a leading figure of the Czech dissident movement and the country’s first post-communist foreign minister died over the weekend at the age of 73. A former dissident and journalist, Mr. Dienstbier served on many committees and worked as a UN rapporteur on human rights in the former Yugoslavia, but in people’s minds he will always be remembered as the man who stood next to the former West German foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher and cut through the barbed wire of the Iron Curtain.

This week in Mailbox: The 21st anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, a “Czech” week in Denmark, the Czech hard candy Hašlerky. Listeners quoted: Ruth O'Connor, Hans Verner Lollike, Chun-Quan Meng.

A spokesman for the Prague Archbishopric has explained what led to its failure to invite the former president and leading Czech dissident Václav Havel to this year’s celebrations of the 21st anniversary of the fall of communism in St Vitus Cathedral. The spokesman said the omission was regrettable and had been caused by the hectic preparations surrounding the event. The event was attended by the country’s leading dignitaries including President Klaus, Prime Minister Nečas and Prague Archbishop Dominik Duka. Václav Havel, who is considered a symbol of the Velvet Revolution, reportedly heard about the event on the radio.

Czechs are marking the anniversary of the fall of communism in their country 21 years ago. On November 17, 1989, then-Czechoslovakia’s communist police cracked down on a student demonstration on Prague’s Národní třída (National street) setting in motion a series of massive protests that eventually brought down the country’s totalitarian regime. On Wednesday, the president, the prime minister and other politicians, and members of the public marked the anniversary by lighting candles or laying flowers at the memorial at Národní třída as well as other key sites.

On the day, Czechs also marked the anniversary of the student march in 1939 against the Nazi occupation, which was brutally suppressed. The Nazis raided university campuses, executing nine students without trial while deporting 1,200 to concentration camps. All Czech universities were then closed. On Wednesday evening commemorative events in the country will conclude with a prayer at Prague’s St Vitus Cathedral, followed by speeches by the president as well as Church and university representatives.

Václav Havel – the former dissident turned president following the Velvet Revolution - discussed steps the Czechs had taken since 1989, saying that the basic direction was right. He made the statement while recalling the days after November 1989 at a commemorative act honouring students who stood up to the former Communist regime. At the same time, the former president indicated he was sorry that the Czech Republic had echoed some mistakes made by democracies established earlier. He said on the whole he was not disappointed - pointing out that the country was experiencing the longest period of security in its history.

Twenty-one years ago on Wednesday, on November 17, 1989, a student march was brutally attacked by the police in Prague’s Národní Street; that event sparked a public revolt against the regime and eventually led to the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia. In today’s special programme, we walk along Národní Street, or Národní třída, a remarkable boulevard which is home to the National Theatre, Prague’s most famous delicatessen, a jazz club where Bill Clinton played, and some of the city’s greatest cafés: a street where history was made two decades

A few days ago Radio Prague and the Czech Literature Portal, this country’s foremost website promoting Czech literature abroad, got together to hold the first of a series of public literary discussions. David Vaughan’s guests were two of the Czech Republic’s best known literary figures, the novelist Petra Hůlová and the critic and translator Martin Machovec. They were joined by an international audience at one of Prague’s most atmospheric literary dens, the Shakespeare and Sons bookshop, tucked away in one of the ancient houses in Prague’s Lesser

The English journalist and writer Misha Glenny is perhaps best known for his work covering the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the hit 2008 book McMafia. His first book The Rebirth of History, published in 1990, focused on the post-communist political landscape of Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia, a country with which he had a close association. Indeed, Glenny had studied Czech in Prague, and remembers with fondness his time here in the early ‘80s. When we spoke recently at the close of the Forum 2000 conference in the city, he recalled

Historians at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes have announced they recently uncovered previously unknown video footage in the archives on the events of 1989. Footage shot – and heavily manipulated - by the former regime’s secret police, the StB. Carefully presented images and a propagandistic voice-over in the “documentary” were meant to give a diametrically different picture of public demonstrations which shook the country 21 years ago, suggesting they were a provocation and a sham. Swiftly overcome by events, though, the Communists