Technical agreement regarding the Prague Cathedral finally signed

Members of the Catholic Church and the State representatives of the Prague Castle finally came to a technical agreement about the common use of the Cathedral of St. Vitus. Catholic church will have to pay a symbolic fee for its usage (20 EUR a month), the other costs connected with its operation will be on the State’s expense.

This agreement is trying to resolve a current difficult situation, because the Cathedral as a buiding belongs to the State but the internal equipment to the Metropolitan Canonry. Based on this solution it will be possible the Canonry to supervise the visitors attendance in order to keep the solemnity of the place. Management of the Prague Castle will ensure a security of the church and of the all exposed liturgical objects. The State will also pay the expenses that will be connected with the maintenance of the shrine.

However, the contract is not resolving the dispute regarding the ownership, the decision is still in the hands of the courts. The argument will be for the third time handled by the Prague City Court as the Church disclaimed the last decision that the Cathedral, which was in the fifties taken by the communists from the Catholic church, belongs to the State.

Codex Gigas exhibition extended

The unique Codex Gigas known also as the Devil’s Bible, which has returned to the Czech Republic after many hundreds of years just for an exhibition can stay a bit longer. The famous book is exposed in the National Library, Klementinum, and because of an enormous interest from the side of the public, the exposition was prolonged until the March 9th 2008. The number of visitors is limited due to a high protection and only sixty persons in an hour can see this biggest hand written book in the world.

The Bible has its origins probably in the year 1229. It was made in a small Benedictine monastery in Bohemia but at the end of the thirty-year old war (1618-1648) the manuscript as many other art pieces was taken by the Swedes as a war plunder for their queen. Since that time it has left Sweden only twice: in 1970 was introduced in the U.S. and eight years ago in Berlin. It got the unusual knick-name: the Devil’s Bible because according to a legend a monk in order to make such a piece of art made a pact with devil who helped him to create it but the he had to put a devil’s picture inside

The manuscript is unusually large even for today’s parameters. No doubts that in the middle age it belonged to the seven wonders of the world. Codex Gigas weights 75 kilos and measures 900 x 505 x 220 mm. It contains 312 of vellum sheets which is 624 pages. The historians estimate that a scribe monk had to dedicate at least 20 years to create such a piece of art. The Codex includes the entire Latin Bible in a pre-Vulgate version, encyclopedia Etymologiae, Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Cosmas of Prague's Chronicle of Bohemia, and many others. The entire document is written in Latin.

69th anniversary of Palach’s death

‘It is a self-sacrifice in front of which one has to with humility and honor evacuate all the acts in life.’ said Jaroslava Čajová, member of organization Janua, responsible for the tenth gathering in memory of the death of Jan Palach who, as a protest against the political development after the invasion of the Soviet Army in Czechoslovakia, burnt himself on the January 16th 1969. His death became a symbol of a resistance against a totalitarian regime.

A 21 year-old student of the School of Philosophy of the Prague Charles University made his act of protest on one of the biggest public places in Prague, the Wenceslas square. He tried to awaken the society from the lethargy after the August occupation by the Soviet Army. As a result of burns he died in a hospital three days after. His funeral on the 25th of January became a big manifestation for freedom and democracy. In 1991 Jan Palach received in memoriam by the president Havel the highest state award – Commendation Ribbon of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.

People reminded his death also in Všetaty, the village where he was born and lived. The ex-minister of culture, Štěpánek during his speech mentioned that the biggest reference of Palach’s death is a hope that it is possible to move a man’s conscience and that the Czech nation owns people that are willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom, human dignity and the truth.

Unique or another of many?

A Czech film Vaclav, that had its premiere in cinemas in the beginning of December last year, got immediately after its release on the top of the Czech movie chart. But is the film really as unique and different as some of the critiques announced? Does it really deserve such a big audience?

Vaclav is based on a true story of a man who got a presidential amnesty and of whom we would simply say that is not normal. His intellectual growth stopped when he was a teenager. He lives in a village house just with his mother, goes to work when he feels like it, basicaly he does all the time only whatever he wants. A little mentally ill Vaclav is not able to think in wider associations neither is he able to see the consequences of his acts. He cares only for a present moment, he ignores the future. Nevertheless, the past caused him a big problem. He misses a lot his father who tried to emigrate during the ex-regime but did not succeed and died. Vaclav suffers by his absence to such a level that he starts to imagine him; he speaks to him, and even asks for an advice. It is clear that the village people are not really in favor of Vaclav’s crazy acts and it is only his mother who is able limit him, but only a bit.

The comic scenes of Vaclav’s ‘interesting ideas’ are altered with more serious topics such as responsibility, freedom, ability to forgive, importance of family love and trust. The problem is that those themes are only proposed but not developed further on. Vaclav offers a very strong story but the potential of the film was not really used as it could have been. The tragical things are not showed in their deepness, they became quite superficial. It is a pitty, the film could be really unique, but the difference from many other ‘nice’ tragic-comedies that have been already made in a past is not so big.

Better times for the Church...maybe

It seems that after 18 years the State might finally recognize a place of the Christians in the Czech Republic! The government committee prepared an agreement regarding a restitution of the property that was in 1949 confiscated from the Churches which has a high chance to be approved soon by the parliament. The amount of 83 billions CZK (3,20 billions EUR) should be a compensation for 226 hectares of fields, forests, and lakes that were taken away from dioceses and parishes after the communist take over. Areas that belonged to the religious orders and congregations should be returned as well. ‘These, which today take part of the army complexes or have been rebuilt, will not be given back, but also reimbursed’, informed the Vice-Minister of Culture, Jaromír Talíř.

Amount of 83 billions should be divided between the seventeen churches, from which the biggest part will be given to the Roman-Catholics. This would help in a future to separate financially the churches from the State. The agreement also describes a mechanism how should such the discontinuation work: two thirds of 83 billions will be paid during the next sixty years, one billion each year. The land fund would recompense the last third in a form of 19 hectares of fields and 61 hectares of forests. The State contribution to the churches should from 2009 gradually decrease by a desetina each year and stop completely in 2019.

However, it is not all the property that the State would be so eager to give back. As most of the Church buildings were restituted already in1991, the Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague remains nationalized. It will probably stay like this for a while as in this case it has somehow been forgotten who was the original owner and the State is ready to use all the possible means to keep the shrine under the 1954 court’s decision ‘all people’s possession’. The last, already the third trial between the Roman-Catholic Church and the Czech state, lost in September 2007 the Church. Surprisingly, the verdict was given by the same judge who two times before decided that the cathedral belonged to the Catholics.

Citizen Havel

The film, Citizen Havel, shows with humor and empathy a timeless story of the politician whose fame has crossed the Czech borders a long time ago. The audience can note the ups and downs of the ex-president, sad moments of his life such as a death of his first wife Olga, critical health situation but also times of a big popularity, happiness and joy. Some might be interested to see his speeches or ‘jackets rehearsals’ the others will appreciate more his sense of humor or follow his intellectual processes. The documentary is not trying to be a sort of glorification of Havel, on the other hand, this is a president from flesh and blood who is in the extraordinary epoch of his life demonstrated in very unusual situations.

Director Petr Koutecký started to register the film in 1992, shortly before Havel became the first president of the independent Czech Republic and the film finishes on the last day of his office - 2.2.2003. Koutecký and his camera were close to Havel for the whole two presidential periods, during trips, visits, meetings etc. Thanks to their friendship, the director managed to register also the private moments of the famous politician, something that nobody else would have a chance to do: ‘We totally forgot to realize that somebody is registering us.’ remembers Vladimír Hanzel, longtime Havel’s secretary. ‘Probably no other politician ever let the film-makers so close,’ adds Hanzel.

After the tragical death of Koutovský the film was finished by his colleague Míra Janek and his wife in 2006 which had to undergo a difficult task to cut from seventy hours of the film material the most interesting moments and put them in one full-length picture that will have a premiere in January 2008 in the Czech cinemas. The international one is planned within the film festival Berlinale. Citizen Havel is not only a portrait of the world-known politician but also sometimes a tragicomic testimony of the first ten years of the Czech freedom.

Josef Lada - Painter of the Czech Christmas

In the Prague Municipal House will take place until the February 3rd 2008 the exhibition dedicated to the Czech painter and writer - Josef Lada, as this December we remember two important anniversaries of this artist: 120 years from his birth and 50 from his death.
The exhibition offers a representative sample of all areas of Lada’s work – from caricature, humoristic drawing, children’s books illustration, scenography, posters to free painter’s composition. We can find there some of his works which has not been published yet and that were considered lost even by the author himself.

The first of his drawings were published in 1904 in a magazine Máj (May) and two years after his first children book was produced as Lada was not only a painter but also an author of many stories for children that happened to be very popular for its originality and simplicity. He ‘gave a face’ to the main character of his writer-friend Hašek: a good soldier Švejk but what made him perhaps the most notable in the eyes of public were his charming winter illustrations of native village Hrusice that became with his unique visualization of the Holy Family, mangers with animals and carolers a symbol of traditional Czech Christmas.

Between the representatives of the Czech modernism we will hardly find a painter whose work has met with such a spontaneous admirations by different kinds of audience. His originality was appreciated even by Pablo Picasso but the biggest evidence of the vitality, authenticity and importance of Josef Lada’s work is the fact that there are constantly new re-editions his children’s books and his images are even today a requested motive of the Christmas cards and calendars. The world that Lada painted does not exist any more, and the major part never existed, as Lada created his own. He looked at things for the whole life with the children’s eyes and he had a gift to see in ordinary always something unique and miraculous.