Related articles

Coffins containing the remains of around 3,500 people who died during WWI are to be returned to an ossuary at Prague’s Olšany Cemetery in the spring after an absence of almost two years, the director of Prague’s cemetery service, Martin Červený, told the Czech News Agency. The ossuary, which suffered from damp, has been closed for renovation work for several months. The remains are being kept at a former Czech Army munitions store.

Between 2014 and 2018, the world is marking a centenary since the Great War swept across Europe and beyond. There is hardly a family in this country that didn’t have at least one of their male ancestors fighting on one or more of the fronts of the conflict. In this special programme, we look at the ways Czech soldiers in WW1 spent their Christmas in various places around Europe and the Far East. Using authentic documents: letters, journals and memoirs provided by the soldiers’ descendants to Czech Radio, the programme brings a testimony of the very

This year the whole of Europe is commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. The Jewish Museum in Prague is marking the anniversary with an exhibition focused on the fate of the Jewish refugees, a chapter in history that has been largely forgotten. The exhibition entitled “The Orient in Bohemia” displays photographs that document the life of refugees but it also explores the response of the local population to the wave of migrants. I visited the Jewish Museum’s Robert Guttman Gallery to see the exhibition and talk to its

Chris Kelly is the granddaughter of Edina Winkelbauer, nee Clam-Gallas (1889-1970), a member of the old nobility who was a nurse with the Knights of Malta on the Italian front in WW I. On her mother's death Chris Kelly inherited a collection of more than 500 letters – correspondence between members of her family during World War I and World War II. The letters her grandmother sent from the front and others exchanged by family members during World War II are a moving document of the times and reveal how the wars changed her family’s fortunes and

July 28th marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War which later came to be known as World War I. On this date in 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia – exactly a month the Austrian heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his Czech wife Sofie Chotek were assassinated in Sarajevo. The conflict would eventually draw in Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain and other nations.

Several towns and villages in South Moravia on Sunday commemorated their men who were killed on the battlefields of the First World War, the news agency ČTK reported. A plaque dedicated to their memory was unveiled in Hustopeče while in Valtice, a memorial cross was erected. In Olešnice and several other places, gatherings were held to remember the fallen soldiers on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the war’s outbreak.

The head of the Czech Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Dominik Duka, is set to serve a requiem mass on Saturday evening for Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination exactly 100 years ago sparked World War I. The mass will take place in the courtyard of Konopiště Castle – where Franz Ferdinand lived – and will be attended by the Czech culture minister, Daniel Herman, and the Austrian ambassador to the Czech Republic, Ferdinand Trauttmansdorff. Exhibitions and other events are also being held in various parts of the country to mark the centenary.

In the second of our series looking at the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One, we follow the continuing Bohemian connections on the eve of the fateful Sarajevo assassination and afterwards. These include the fateful wrong turn in the city by the archduke’s driver, the sentence served by the assassin, and the bullet that soon caused so many deaths and injuries.

Czech President Miloš Zeman said on Tuesday that membership in the EU and NATO were guarantees of security for the Czech Republic even as conflict elsewhere in Europe continued; speaking at the Vítkov Memorial in Prague, he warned that hotbeds of war could spread and said that peace was not something guaranteed forever, but needed to be fought for. Mr Zeman made the statements on the occasion the upcoming 100th anniversary of World War I. In his speech, he noted the present-day participation of Czech troops in foreign missions and mentioned conflicts in Mali, Afghanistan and Ukraine. The ceremony, paying respect to those who laid down their lives in the First World War, was attended by former president Václav Klaus, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka as well as members of the current government and diplomats.

A hundred years ago, the world was about to be plunged into a conflict whose impact can still be felt today in many parts of the globe. Indeed, the creation of independent Czechoslovakia was only made possible by the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, around one million Czechs fought in World War I in Austro-Hungarian uniforms, and tens of thousands died on a broad stretch of territory from northern Italy to Ukraine and Poland. One of the country’s leading experts in this field is Radim Kapavík of Signum Belli 1914, a Brno-based military