british czech and slovak · bata said the report, provided ‘interesting ... like stability. they...

ReviewPublished by the BCSA Issue 152

September/October/november 2016

BRITISH CZECH AND SLOVAK

Inside What’s in a Name? Czechiaor Czech Republic Page 2

Still Dancing after 20years Page 5

A sinister story whichstill grips our imagination

Pages 12-13

cubists come to blowsPages 14-15

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Czech passports areeagerly sought

Your shoes comefrom many parts

BRITISH CZECH AND SLOVAK REVIEW

Magical church avision from Slovakia

2 September/October/November 2016

Shoppers in the UK are led to believe thattheir expensive luxury shoes are made inwestern Europe. But the ‘Made in Germany’and ‘Made in Italy’ labels are misleading,reported The Observer at the end of July.

Many such shoes are produced in easternEurope by poverty-stricken workers insweatshops, says a report investigating theEuropean shoe industry. Manufacturers usean ‘outward processing trade scheme’, whereparts of the goods are exported to a low-wage EU country to be cheaply assembledand returned to the original country tax free.

Researchers found factories in six countries – Slovakia, Romania, Poland,Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina andAlbania – belong to such schemes. Goodsfrom Bata, Zara, Geox and a number of otherbrands are assembled in eastern EU countries.

“In the summer the heat is unbearable sowe have had the ambulance here six timesthis year because co-workers had heatstroke,” said one Slovak worker.

Bata said the report, provided ‘interestinginsights in the generally under-reportedworking conditions in eastern Europe.’

Czech passports are in great demand sincethe pro-Brexit June vote.

The Czech Embassy in London reportsreceiving numerous enquiries from Britishnationals with Czech roots asking how theycan get a Czech – EU – passport.

A news site, actualne.cz reported that theembassy is receiving calls asking for information on travel to the Czech Republicafter Brexit is evoked. Dual citizenship –British and Czech – seems to be the answer.

According to the news sources more than100 requests for Czech citizenship have beenfiled in the past two months alone.

Embassies of other EU member states inBritain are receiving similar requests. TheLondon Embassy of the Irish Republic hasasked for applications to be delayed as staffhave been unable to deal with all the requests.

Lack of debate over Czechiaprovokes plenty of criticism

Second World War hero, 93-year-oldGeneral Emil Boček took to the skies ina Spitfire at the end of July. It wasmore than seven decades after his lastfling in the iconic flight, writes Jiří Hošek,Czech Radio correspondent in London.

The veteran flew from the Biggin HillAirport in Kent and spent 25 minutes inthe air, piloting the aircraft himself fora short while it was airborne.

“If I said I liked it, it wouldn’t be

accurate, I simply loved it,” GeneralBoček commented after landing.

As a teenager Emil Boček joined theRAF as a mechanic. In September 1940,he trained in Canada and fromOctober 1944 he served as a pilot withthe RAF’s 310 Squadron. He carried out26 operational flights before leavingthe air force in 1946.

He continues to fly to this day.

Still up in the air with a life-long love

The Church ofHoly Spirit inŽehra is a 13thcentury Gothicand Romanesquebuilding in theSlovak village ofŽehra, in easternSlovakia nearPrešov. The photographby award-winningphotographerLadislav Struhár,was part of anexhibitionMagical Slovakiaat London’sEurope House, inSmith Square. Itwas held to markthe opening of theSlovak Presidency of the Council of theEuropean Union.

Czechia to replace the name ofthe Czech Republic? The news that the CzechRepublic will be using official-ly name of Czechia wasreceived with great interestoutside the country – mostBritish dailies reported thechange in April – but with dis-belief in the Czech Republicitself, writes Angela Spindler-Brown.“Czechia is not to replace theCzech Republic completely,but it will be its shorter alterna-tive,” Prime Minister BohuslavSobotka said in reaction towide spread home criticism.He gave an assurance that thename change would not threat-en the allocation of the EUsubsidies. Who wanted to simplify thename of the country? While the country was basi-cally a federation, consisting ofthe Czech and Slovak regions,(leaving aside Moravia andSilesia), the name of the coun-try was Czechoslovakia andthere were no problems withthe country’s title. But the sep-aration into independent Czechand Slovak Republics in 1993didn’t bring clarity to the nam-ing of the Czech part.Made in Slovakia is clear.

But made in the Czech Republic, in Bohemia, in Cesko, inCzechia? Politicians, public relations people and advertis-ers in Prague seem to have hankered after a rebranding ofthe Czech Republic into a simple one word description.Czechia in English, translation of the Czech echy.But discussion about the shortened name seems to besymptomatic of other things. “You would think such animportant decision would be the result of a broad publicdebate,” wrote Jakub Patocka in The Guardian. “But it’s an attitude the people of the Czech Republicwill be all too familiar with. There has long been divisionabout the country’s identity. Even the break up ofCzechoslovakia, though said to be peaceful, left manypeople on both sides feeling bitter. It happened without a referendum, which was demand-ed at the time in a petition signed by more than a millionCzechs and Slovaks – a huge proportion of the countries’combined population of 15 million. The breakup hap-pened in an apparent breach of the Czechoslovak consti-tution and was imposed without any mandate from thepeople. “The Czech Republic’s Foreign Ministry has applied forthe correct shortened name of the country, Czechia, to beadded to the United Nations database.

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Brexit by decrees – you’re all to blame president tells EU

In England, plastic bag use has plummeted sincethe introduction of a 5p charge last autumn. Duringthe first six months, 640 million plastic bags wereused in seven major supermarkets compared to anestimated 7.64 billion bags in 2014. In Slovakia, the Environment Ministry has proposed that shops should charge and keeprecords of plastic bags sold, from March 2017.Each Slovak uses 466 plastic bags a year comparedwith the EU average of 200. An EU directive suggests that annual consumption of light plasticbags should not exceed 90 per person by the end of2019 and 40 by 2025, or they will not be providedfree to shoppers.In June, the Czech government approved legislation which will make it illegal for shops togive customers free plastic bags from 2018. Oneenvironmentalist said most supermarkets alreadymake a charge; the main effort needs to be inincreased recycling, now 30% compared with 7%in 2000. Each Czech uses 400 plastic bags annually– among the least sorted types of plastic waste.

Czech women are among the tallest inthe world, according to research published in the journal eLife, and arenow ranked fourth highest in the world(up from 69th in 1914) with an averageheight of 168cm. Slovak women areranked sixth (previously 26th). The average height of an adult 18-year-old woman in Britain has risen from153.4cm to 164.4cm today. They are nowranked 38th in international leaguetables (previously 57th). About a third of the explanation couldbe due to genes, according to aresearcher at Imperial College London,but that doesn’t explain the change overtime – good standards of healthcare, sanitation and nutrition are key drivers. In comparison, British men have risen,in terms of ranking, from 36 to 31;Czechs from 24 to 10 and Slovaks rose to17 from 20.

A survey by the Czech finance ministry has found that 42% ofrespondents were unable to calculate 2% of Kč 100, reportedfleet sheet’s final word.

If Czechs had been asked toexplain how it’s possible to makemoney if prices fall, their financialliteracy would have no doubt beeneven weaker. Short selling andderivatives remain the domain offinance specialists.

Analysts Pavel Kohout andOndřej Jonáš reinforced this realityby telling Czech media that mar ketslike stability. They know that mar-ket players love volatility whenthey’re prepared for it; that’s howreal money is made. Hedge fundsbetting on Brexit by short ing stockswere rewarded with bumper pay-outs, said the Financial Times.

Economic and business highlightsby Maria Hughes

September/October/November 2016 3

BRITISH CZECH AND SLOVAK REVIEWNews

H B Reavis, a Slovak property developer established in 1993, has sold 33 Central (KingWilliam Street) in the City of London toWells Fargo, the world’s largest bank by capitalisation. The investment of £300 million for its UK headquarters is seen as avote of confidence by Wells Fargo inLondon’s future as a financial centre, following the outcome of the EU referendum. H B Reavis has two further sitesfor office development at 20 FarringdonStreet and 61 Southwark Street. The company also operates in the CzechRepublic, Hungary and Poland.

At the end of July, Theresa May met Slovakprime minister, Robert Fico, in Bratislava. Hedrew the British prime minister's attention to the90,000 Slovaks working in Britain. She in turnrecognised that the economic relationshipbetween the UK and Slovakia was ‘flourishing’with a 37% rise in UK exports in 2015 andinvestment by British firms such as Tesco andJaguar Land Rover. The chief executive of theBritish carmaker has confirmed that the

construction of a new plant near Nitra will notbe affected by the outcome of the referendumwhich had been taken into consideration prior tothe investment decision.

An informal EU summit will be held inBratislava on September 16 to discuss thefuture following the UK referendum, withoutwith British prime minister; Slovakia currently holds the EU presidency. In theCzech Republic, a working group has beenestablished to develop a draft strategy by theend of September for talks on Britain’sdeparture from the EU.

Avast Software, a Czech security software company based in Prague, has made an offer tobuy out its rival AVG Technologies for an estimated Kč 32 billion (£1 billion). AVG wasalso founded in the Czech Republic but is now registered in the Netherlands. Together the twocompanies will have about 430 million customers worldwide – 260 million PC/Macusers and 170 million Android users.

Bags less plastic wasteas consumption drops

Jana and Mirka are tallerthan Jane and Jenny

Finance a deepmystery to most

Births anddeaths neckand neckSlovakia and the Czech Republic wereexceptional in 2015 – they saw nodecline in population unlike eightother former Communist countrieswho are also all members of the EU,writes Edward Peacock.Lithuania, by contrast, lost 32,700people (many of them young andhighly educated), a reduction of morethan 1% of its population. All centraland eastern European lands except theSlovaks, the Czechs and the Slovenesrecorded falls, caused both by migra-tion and a natural decline, with moredeaths recorded than live births. Allthree of those exceptions, however,had increases below the EU averageof 0.35%.These figures come from Eurostat,the EU’s statistical arm, reported bythe Transitions Online website andmailing list (www.tol.org). In 2015 the number of deaths andlive births in the Czech Republic werevirtually the same, and there was avery small surplus of live births inSlovakia. Germany had more deaths than livebirths last year, but also the thirdgreatest population increase in the EU(1.2%), due to immigration. Thelargest increase was recorded inLuxembourg (2.3%), followed byAustria (1.4%). The population of the EU as a wholeincreased by two million, to 510.1million. This was due to immigration,as the bloc showed a natural popula-tion decline overall (for the first timeever). There were 5.2 million deathsand 5.1 million births.

Not only European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, but all senior representatives ofthe EU are responsible for Brexit, CzechPresident Miloš Zeman told the Impuls radiostation at the beginning of July, reported CTK.President Zeman specifically named the chair-man of the European Council, Donald Tusk andEU Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini. The EU top leadership bears collective responsibility for the EU and “no one can besingled out from the responsibility,” he added.“The EU was very, very passive, only giving useless advice to Britain that it shouldnot leave, which angered many Britons,”President Zeman said.

He had said earlier that Britons had beendeterred from EU membership mainly by its EUpolicy “supplying EU members with quiteabsurd decrees,” such as those about the uniformproduction of wax or ink for laser printers anduniform dimensions of tractor seats.“No wonder that while the bureaucratic mad-men produce such decrees, being unable to protect the EU outer border against a migrantwave, you feel disgusted at such a leadership ofthe project that is otherwise splendid and thatyou leave it,” President Zeman said.“In my view, this is the real basic cause of theBrexit,” he added.

Voting to stay as companies look to future

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New head for Prague collegeby Ann Lewis

From left, Czech Ambassador LiborSečka and Baroness Patricia

Rawlings, chairman of governors atthe English College Prague. Theyare pictured with the new head-

master, Nigel Brown (right) at the ambassador’s garden party in

support of the college

The English College (ECP) in Praguewill have a new Headmaster thisterm, Dr Nigel Brown. Dr Brown waspreviously deputy head, but was cho-

sen by the governors against a slate of highly-qualified external candidates.

Nigel Brown has a fascinating intellectualand practical pedigree. With a first-classdegree in physics, he moved to ImperialCollege London to do an MsC inEnvironmental Technology, followed by aPhD at Leeds University on Transport andQuality of Life.

There followed a variety of short-term con-tracts on issues all loosely connected by thetwin issues of Transport and Environment.This included station management in SouthEast London, installing the safety systems ona water-powered funicular, environmentalresearch in the Amazon and Saudi Arabia,and skippering a community barge project onBritain's waterways.

Six years later, Nigel decided his vocationlay elsewhere, trained as a physics teacherand then taught at British and US schoolsbefore moving to South Korea as AssistantHead of the North London Collegiate Schoolin Jeju.

On his move to Prague, he said: “I came toPrague as Deputy Head Pastoral in Septemberof last year. I instantly recognised the uniquehistory of the school and the efforts some keyindividuals made to establish a school firmlylinking the UK and Czech Republic.

“I think ECP has a flavour distinct frommany purely international schools that cansometimes exist only tangentially connectedto the local culture and historical context.”

Many of the ECP’s supporters in the UKwere able to meet Nigel at the CzechAmbassador’s Garden Party in June. This isan event that has taken place annually sincebefore the school opened in 1994, thanks tothe initiative and foresight of

Czechoslovakia’s first post-Communistambassadors. The new Czech Ambassador,Libor Sečka, and his wife have kindly decidedto continue this tradition.

Simon Marshall left The English Collegeafter three very successful years to take up thepost of Headmaster of Bancroft’s School inEssex, an independent school supported bythe Drapers’ Company.

He left on a high note as the college cele-brated its best-ever results in InternationalGCSEs, and best results for 18 years and sec-ond best ever in the InternationalBaccalaureate.

Congratulations to Simon and all the staffand students on those excellent results, and allgood wishes to Nigel Brown as he takes upthe challenge.

� Ann Lewis is Deputy Chairman ofGovernors, for The English CollegePrague.

RememberingAlexander Dubček

by Maria HughesIn the summer of 1969, I attendedmy first international summerschool in Brno, thanks to the BritishCouncil.A year on from the crushing of

the Prague Spring, it was still possi-ble to buy a new biography of TGMasaryk in the local bookshop, anA4 portrait photograph of the firstpresident and also one of AlexanderDub ek (pictured left) all of which Ikept for the next 20 years. After summer school, I travelled

to Bratislava to visit a Slovak stu-dent who stayed with us in Londonduring the summer of 1968 beforereturning home. The family villawas in the Slavín district; he hadbeen a school friend of one ofDub ek‘s sons who lived nearby.When I returned there in 1986, thiswas not discussed.At the launch of the BCSA in

November 1990, the main hall ofwhat is now the Slovak Embassywas packed to capacity with over400 people eager to meet the guestof honour, Alexander Dub ek. As honorary secretary, I had the

privilege of standing behind himwhen he spoke. His humanity andmodesty were quite clear to see, aswas the sense of joy we all sharedin those early days of change. I had come prepared with my

official photograph just in casethere was a chance that I might askhim to sign it. When he saw it, he bowed his

head and said ‘to je historie’ beforeadding his signature. Sadly the highgloss finish did not take well to thepen I offered, but for many years itwas displayed in my study alongwith the photo of Masaryk and alsoone of Václav Havel.

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Pictu

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he hoped the building would become an important landmark. Funding eventually came from the Dutch

insurance company Nationale-Nederlanden,which brought famed architect Frank Gehry tothe project. The idea of a library and theatrewas dropped in favour of offices. Officially itwas the Nationale-Nederlanden Building.Since 2013, the building has been owned by

Pražská správa nemovitostí (PSN), which hassought to fulfill some of Havel’s original vision

by making the building more open to thepublic. “We are very pleased at this anniversary that

the Dancing House is accessible not only fortourists but also Czech residents who like tovisit our gallery, restaurant and especially theviewing area,” Dancing House owner VáclavSkala said.The art gallery has also undergone some

changes. “In January this year we changed theconcept and the name. We renamed Art Salon Sto the…robust Gallery Dancing House (GalerieTan ící d m). Also after the success of exhibitions of [Czech artists] Kája Saudek andBo ek Šípek we decided to dedicate space toimportant exhibitions of Czech artists andthemes,” gallery director Robert V jtek said.The seventh-floor restaurant is now called

Fred and Ginger, and has an international menubased on French cuisine. It had long been LaPerle de Prague, which was one of the first trulyupscale French restaurants in the city.The building has a new website in English

and Czech at www.tadu.cz

The Dancing House inRašínovo náb eží in Praguecelebrated its 20th anniversary this year. The

iconic building now houses an artgallery, offices, a restaurant and barwith a view, and from last month,August, has a two-storey four-starhotel with luxury apartments, writesRaymond Johnson of Prague TV.Architect, Frank Gehry originally

favoured the name Fred and Gingerfor the building, after the Hollywoodfilm couple Fred Astaire and GingerRogers. The name, however, didn’tcatch on and Tan ící d m, or DancingHouse, is now the common name. Thebuilding is supposed to resemble adancing couple.The idea was to match yin and yang

with a dynamic and a static part. Itwas also meant to in part symbolisethe transition from communism to afree society. The large metal sculptureon top of the building is calledMedusa.Architects Frank Gehry and Vlado

Miluni designed the building in 1992,and construction began in 1994. Itwas officially opened on June 20,1996.The site had been vacant since

World War II, when an Americanbomber mistakenly targeted Prague onFebruary 14, 1945. Once the VelvetRevolution came, the site on thewaterfront with a good view of thecity became prime real estate.The modern design was

controversial, as nothing like it hadever been built in the city, and therewas some popular sentiment thatwhatever was built on the site shouldfollow the style of the rest of thestreet, with its Art Nouveau, neo-classical and other early 20th centuryinfluences. Václav Havel was a part owner of

the vacant lot and became interestedin developing it in the mid-1980s. Heenvisioned a library, café and theatre,but could not find investors. He said

Dancing into the next 20 years

Velehrad London is ready for the action.Besides the comfortable and sizeableaccommodation for lectures, concerts andfilm shows, the new centre has cateringfacilities, both in the main building and theannexe. The reconstruction has also takenaccount of the need for disabled access,writes Ing. Antonín Stáně Chair of Trustees ofVelehrad London.The address is 39 Lonsdale Road, LondonSW13. More details in Review 151 page 12.

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I was born in Olomouc (Czech Republic)where I spent most of my life. In 1998, Igraduated at the Science Faculty of PalackyUniversity in Olomouc. I have mostly workedas a sales representative in the CzechRepublic. Between 1999 and 2000, I spentone year in the USA and later on (2003-2004)one year in Australia. Later on, I worked for a travel agency and

spent a few months in Egypt. I have been inthe UK since August 2012, working as a per-sonal care assistant for people with spinalcord injuries. I come from Moravia where we have

special traditions and where folklore waskept for generations. I wrote this essay in memory of my grandmother and motherwho have been inspirations for me since Iwas a child.

Left: The founders of the Bata shoe company, Tomáš, Antonín and Anna Ba’ta

Once Upon a Time in MoravianWallachiaby Eva Písková

Iarrived in the UK three years ago witha plan to stay one year as I have donebefore – in the USA – and Australiaand then to go back home. What I didnot expect was that I would

immediately feel so comfortable here. Ienjoy travelling, exploring and even stayingin different countries but I never had thisfeeling before. I felt like it was my secondhome and I did not know exactly why.I had known some facts about British

culture, I love the British sense of humour,politeness and courtesy, but is it enough tofeel like this? I started telling my friends: “Iam possibly British who was accidentallyborn in the Czech Republic.” To be honest, Ihad not analysed what was the reason behindmy feelings (unusual for a woman) until Inoticed your literary competition with one ofits topics – links between the UK and theCzech Republic.I started thinking what I could write about.

Now you might probably think she is crazy,she is going to write about her feelings in theUK and back in the Czech Republic as the

woman inside her finally woke up. Do notworry. I am not going to do this. I am goingto compare the values of British people withthe values that my grandparents used tohave. I believe that the similarities betweenthem are the reason why I feel so happyhere. Does this still sound crazy? I know Iam going to compare two very differentcountries and cultures, but there is one biglink for me. Let me explain to you the link tomy grandmother s story and a story of one ofthe biggest Czech and world shoemakersTomáš Ba a.When my grandmother was born in 1922,

Tomáš Ba a was already in his 40s. By thistime he had dominated the footwear marketin Czechoslovakia and started expanding intothe international markets. What did theyhave in common? The region where theywere born – Moravian Wallachia, and whereT. Ba a started realising his dream.What was typical for that mountainous and

poor area in the easternmost part of theCzech Republic, colonised by Romanianshepherds in the 16th and 17th century, was

hard working, intense people living in toughconditions. My grandma used to narrate tome one story from her childhood whichmight explain why T. Ba a decided to shoeevery single person in the world. Maybe hehad a similar experience.My grandma s generation were not used to

wearing shoes every day when they werechildren. It was first day of her first year inschool and she had got a new pair of shoesfor this occasion. She used to walk to theschool every day, around three kilometres.She managed to get to the school in the newshoes and stayed there in the new shoes, buton the way back home she hung them up onthe first tree as she was playing with her sisters. She got happily home and then sherealised that she was missing something, herpair of shoes, for her something unusual towear at this time of year and probably a bituncomfortable as well. Of course she gotspanked at home. She went back to the treewith her dad hoping that they would findthem. They did not.What would I say about my grandma first?

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She was full of life and energy until the endof her life. She was born in the smallWallachian village Rajnochovice as the lastone of four sisters. Later on, she moved tothe small town Napajedla where she lived allher life. She stayed faithful to Wallachiansalthough she already lived in another regionin that area. Napajedla was twenty kilometers away from Zlín, the town whichwas build by T. Ba a and which had influ-enced all the area since. Even after T. Ba adied in 1932 and the company was confiscated in 1945, you could feel Ba a sspirit in the way my grandma s generationthought and lived.My grandmother together with her

husband had a small business and owned anapartment building in Napajedla. Eventhough the properties were confiscated bycommunists in 1948, she never gave up. Shebelieved in honesty, hard work, and commonsense. She enjoyed socialising with otherpeople and followed the saying: “In healthybody, healthy spirit.” She attended the sportand educational organisation Sokol till shewas in her 80s. She had a great sense ofhumour and liked her afternoon coffee with abiscuit as well as looking after her house.She did not like false people, laziness, bad

manners, women competitors, and men whocould not keep up with her. She was alwaysready to help people in need. She did like,admire and respect our first presidentT.G.Masaryk, our first president after theVelvet revolution in 1989 Václav Havel, andthe founder of possibly the biggest shoecompany in the world Tomáš Ba a.Tomáš Ba a was born in Zlín in 1876 to

the family of a small shoemaker. At the timeZlín was a village with three thousand inhabitants in a poor region. What was missing there in the financial and materialway, was made up for by the people. TheWallachians gave to the Czech Republic andto the world the visionary and shoemakergenius Tomáš Ba a. He gained his firstknowledge and skills as a shoemaker fromhis father who he worked for. His motherdied when he was 10 years old and when hewas 15, he followed his sister Anna toAustria where he spent some time makingshoes, but he did not succeed and came backhome. His start was not easy. In 1894 he,together with his brother Antonín and sisterAnna, founded a shoe company in Zlín. Theyhad almost gone bankrupt during the first

years of their business, but he never gave upand by working hard he was building hiscompany. He believed that: “Bankruptcy is amatter of moral opinion,” and that “betweena rich bankrupt and a criminal there is nodifference.”Tomáš Ba a enjoyed life. When he was

young, he used to go to the “better society”probably to get a little bit of their spirit.Once he spent all his money and banks wereasking him to pay his loans back, he startedreading Tolstoy s books and under his influence he was convinced that once hewould pay off all his debts and earn enoughmoney to buy a homestead, he would livesimple life and do farming. No one knowswhen he transformed into the real business-man, but the reality is that he did not becomea farmer.By 1932, when Tomáš Ba a died in an air-

plane crash, he had already been the head ofa global company operating on four continents. The list of the countries where heopened his factories included England aswell. His company produced shoes in EastTilbury, Essex from 1931 to 2005. That wasactually the first link between the UK andthe Czech Republic I was thinking about. Ifound this information by chance chattingwith my friend who comes from Essex andhis mother had been working for Ba a forforty years.Ba a was known for implementing not just

management and business strategies to theareas where he built his factories. He builtall the quarters and towns around his factories, providing his employees comfortable living with all the servicesincluding heath care, schools, sport andentertainment facilities. He started in hisnative village Zlín which he transformed intoa modern town with a lot of parks, trees andgardens. Zlín has been called the gardentown since. He was a fan of modern architecture and among the buildings he builtare some jewels of functionalism for its time.It was not just “Ba a s empire” that was

impressive, but his unique system of management and his belief in people. Hesaid: “Never look at the programme as muchas to the people who defend it. Human beingis a programme.” Of course he demanded ahigh level of performance at work and valued perfection, but he believed that every-one should be his own boss and he supportedthis idea by paying employees profit sharing.

He also introduced a system of decentralisedmanagement (workshop autonomy) whichincreased power and responsibility ofemployees working on the shop floor.I remember my grandma used to say it

was a prestige to work for Ba a. Not only forthe great benefits he had for his employees and good salaries, but for theatmosphere of valuing and believing in people, for his spirit that uplifted Czechs toEuropeans. Even though he was a toughbusinessman and economist, he thought that:“A pile of gold coins is not a measure ofsuccess. Real wealth consists of education,moral principles, freedom, an open mind andreason. Self-discipline is the beginning ofreal life.”The generation of my grandma believed in

these values and I believe in my grandma.Although she did not have an easy life at all,she knew how to enjoy her time. Somehowafter I arrived to the UK, memories aboutmy grandma started coming back more andmore often and now I can see why. Valuesof British people remind me of my grand-ma s values which came from Wallachiansled by Tomáš Ba a. I know that the UK is amonarchy with its history and culture. Thevalues here are built on a different basis.Anyway, as I noticed the British believe ingood quality education, it is a free countrywith its Queen and royal family who indicates the moral principles and givesexamples in self-discipline. Bearing in mindthe number of foreigners in the country, people must be open minded and toleranthere. Moreover, I found few more parallelsbetween Wallachia and the UK. People inboth areas know the value of money, have agreat sense of humour and are proud ofthemselves.It might look like that I forgot about the

links and I am listing just similarities. Forme the biggest link is that we all areEuropeans denominating similar values. Itdoes not matter if it is a big country like theUK or small region like Moravian Wallachia.Some people in my country forgot about

these values during communism and it is notobviously easy to bring them back and keepthem alive. But I believe that with regionssuch as Moravian Wallachia and historicalpersonalities such as Tomáš Ba a we have agood chance to catch up. Am I a dreamer ora visionary? However, I wear Ba a’s shoesand try to follow my grandmother’s spirit.

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Now that a new wave of migration hasengulfed Europe, it may be appropriate toreflect on an earlier migration – that fromCentral Europe in general andCzechoslovakia in particular – whichoccurred in the years immediately precedingthe World War ll, writes Dr Jennifer Taylor.The Oxford University Department for

Continuing Education has organised a studyday on Anti-Nazi Refugees fromCzechoslovakia to be held in Oxford onSaturday December 3, 2016. This study daywill be of particular interest to readers whosefamilies may originally have come from thisregion and who wish to learn more about theexperiences of their forbears.There will be four talks given by

academics who specialise in the period. Themorning talks will cover the historical back-ground and then focus on the degree of support offered to refugees fromCzechoslovakia by British agencies. The introductory talk, by Dr Jana

Buresova, will provide an overview of thesocio-political factors underpinning the flightof refugees from Czechoslovakia to Britainand then consider the problems encounteredby the exiles on first arriving in Great Britain.This will be followed by Professor

Charmian Brinson who will give a detailedconsideration of British humanitarian initiatives to alleviate the plight of therefugees, including the British Committeefor Refugees from Czechoslovakia (later theCzech Refugee Trust Fund) and the CzechKindertransport Movement, set up by

Nicholas Winton and others.The afternoon will be devoted to literature.

Dr Jennifer Taylor will consider the work oftwo refugee authors who temporarily

abandoned their normal practice of writinghistorical novels to espouse contemporarythemes as a response to the catastrophicevents in a homeland suffering under a brutalNazi occupation. The day will end on a personal note when

Mrs Miranda Pinch, a descendant of the novelist Ernst Sommer, will discuss hergrandfather’s work (arguably the first literarydepiction of the Holocaust). Her perspectivehas been informed by her work on humanrights.

Open to all – A 20th CenturyMigration –

Anti-Nazi Refugees fromCzechoslovakia in Britain.

Oxford Study Day, December 3, 2016.

No knowledge of Czech necessary. Registration

required. Oxford University Departmentfor Continuing Education, Dayand Weekend ProgrammeOffice, Rewley House,

1 Wellington Square, Oxford,OX1 2JA.

Tel: 01865 270 368www.conted.ox.ac.

uk/Q100-66

Radcliffe Camera, Oxford University



Oxford study day looks at CzechWorld War II refugee crisis

For those who let their children go A fund has been opened to pay for a memorialto the Czechoslovakian parents who let theirchildren go to England as refugees in 1938 and1939, writes Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines.“Goodbye, be good, look after your brother or

sister. Be polite to your English guardians andwrite often.” These were often the last words the children

would hear from their parents – children who inthe Kindertransport of 1938 and on the Wintontrains in 1939 were being placed in train car-riages to carry them to safety to England – thussaving their lives.We have wasted much time, waited too long

to honour the memory, theselfless love and sacrificeof all who sent their chil-dren to a foreign land andinto the arms of strangers,fearing they may never seethem again and uncertain ofwhat their own fate may be.Most of those parents

perished in the Holocaust.We few who are still theliving witnesses, our num-bers dwindling, must at the11th hour put it right.As a permanent reminder

of this brave action forgedin despair – the courage ofall the parents who let theirchildren go – we plan toerect a memorial. It is to bea window with the hands of

parents on one side, children’s hands on theother, set in the door of a train.Called “The last farewell…” it is to be placed

in the concourse of the main railway station inPrague, Hlavní nadraží, from where most of theWinton trains departed.l Funds are being sought to pay for thememorial. For electronic banking outsidethe Czech Republic: Account name isFarewell Memorial – Pamatnik Rozlouceni.Bank: Ceska Sporitelna, Pobocka Rytirska536, 11000 Prague 129, Czech Republic.IBAN: CZ66 0800 0000 0042 4139 7369,BIC: GIBACZPX.

Above, the design for the MemorialWindow. Right, Eliška, Lady MilenaGrenfell-Baines’s great granddaughter having her printstaken for the memorial

BCSA Review 8-9 sep-oct-nov16.qxp_pp8/9 June/july09 15/09/2016 16:38 Page 2


ForthcomingEvents

See www.bcsa.co.uk for further information


Wednesday October 12, 7-10.30pm, November 9, and

December 14.BCSA Get to Know You evenings. Czech and Slovak National House, 74 West End Lane, London NW6. Tube: West Hampstead.

Saturday October 8, 6-8pm.Ordinary People’s Extraordinary

Stories.Tickets £18. Rudolf Steiner House andTheatre, 35 Park Road, London NW1 6XT,Tel: 020 7723 4400. Nearest tube: Baker Street or Marylebone Station.https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ordinary-peoples-extraordinary-lives-tickets-25153274120

Saturday November 5, 4pm.20th Made in Prague Festival,

Erotikon, Barbican Cinema.Saturday November 12, 4pm

I, Olga Hepnerová Regent StreetCinema.

Saturday November 26, 4pm, The Shop on the High Street,

Regent Street Cinema.Sunday November 27, 2pm.

Family Film,Regent Street Cinema

Organised by the Czech Centre in London. For details of three-week programme show-casing Czech cinema and theatre seewww.czechcentre.org.uk

November 9, 7.30pm.Czech National Symphony

Orchestra, Libor Pešekconducting Smetana/Dvořak

with Natalie Clein cello.Cadogan Hall, Sloane Square, LondonSW3, two minutes from Sloane SquareTube Station. Box office tel: 020 7730 4500.

November 10, 6.30-8.30pm.Revitalisation of British PortraitSculpture: The Role of FrantaBelský and Irena Sedlecká.

Peter Cannon-Brookes will talk about someof the best known public sculptures inBritain, all made by Czechs. Friends of Czech Heritage.Slovak Embassy, 25 Kensington PalaceGardens, London W8 4QY.

Friday November 25.BCSA Annual Dinner

See this page, left, for full detailsSaturday December 3, 9.45am-5pm.

Anti-Nazi Refugees fromCzechoslovakia in Britain.

See page 8, left, for full details.

The Slovak AmbassadorHE Ľubomír Rehák (pictured left) will be theguest speaker at theBCSA’s annual dinner,writes BCSA chairmanMichael Roberts.

The dinner, the mainevent in the BCSA calendar,is a chance to spend a funevening with old friends, tomake new friends and meetlike-minded people interested in the Czech andSlovak Republics.

It will take place onFriday November 25, at theRadisson Blu EdwardianBloomsbury Street Hotel inLondon.

Ambassador Rehák tookup his appointment inLondon in August 2015, andhis talk – coinciding withSlovakia’s Presidency of theCouncil of the EU duringthe latter half of 2016, andwith Britain having voted toleave the EU in its recent

referendum – will have a fascinatingbackdrop.

The dinner also offers a greatopportunity for members to bringalong guests who might be interested

in the BCSA. Tickets are available on

Eventbrite. Go towww.eventbrite.co.uk and searchunder BCSA/London.

The view from Slovakia –as Britain gets ready to

leave the EU

CDs include all Tučapský’s PreludesAntonín Tučapský (1928- 2014) com-posed Preludes in London where helived after leaving Brno in 1973.Canadian-born pianist Margaret Bruce,has now recorded all 24 Preludes andTučapský’s other major piano works, ontwo CDs, writes Marian Werner.

In his later compositions Tučapský“explored all facets of piano playing,technically and emotionally.” They arefull of dances and folk tunes, and a richsource of his Czech heritage.

Tučapský describes the perpetual

struggle between good and evil. HisFantasia quasi una sonata and his lastcomposition Concertino for piano andstrings are well known and appreciatedexamples of his work.

The CDs can be obtained through theDvořak Society’s Record Service for£14.50, which includes postage andpacking.

The recordings will be also availableto members and guests attending BCSAevents for £12, payable only by cheque.

Temporary homes wanted forvisiting students

A group of students from The EnglishCollege in Prague are planning to visitLondon for a week’s work experienceduring their autumn half-term. Their placements are chosen to suit

their interests and are provided by sup-porters of the college. This year there has been a particular-

ly high demand for the scheme and,while all the students have been foundwork placements, there are still somewho are looking foraccommodation. The students’ workexperience runs for five days, fromMonday October 24 to Friday October28. Students arrive the weekend before

at a time to suit their hosts and depart

at an agreed time the following week-end. They will need instructions onhow to find their hosts’ houses, andhelp with directions to their place ofwork on the first morning. Hosts areexpected to provide breakfast but othermeals are at their own discretion.To avoid any misunderstanding, the

accommodation is offered to the stu-dents free of charge. The ECP studentswho choose to take up this opportunityare 18-19 years old, bright and lively.Hosts always seem to enjoy havingthem to stay. If you think you may be able to help orhave any further queries, contact AnnLewis at [email protected]

BCSA Review 8-9 sep-oct-nov16.qxp_pp8/9 June/july09 15/09/2016 16:38 Page 3



November

bring Czech films

It is now 20 years since the CzechCentre launched the first ‘Made inPrague’ festival at the RiversideStudios in Hammersmith. It is fittingthat its latest version – the most

ambitious yet – extends through both theatreand film with special performances by theDejvické theatre (Petr Zelenka’s Theremin,the Irvine Welsh adaptation A Blockage inthe System, and The Winter’s Tale).There is also an extensive range of recent

film titles based at the Regent Street Cinemaand across a range of other venues through-out November. The film selection marks oneof the most ambitious yet, with a wide rangeof titles (mostly unseen in this country),including many recent award winners suchas Rodinný film (Family Film), Domácí pé e(Home Care), Eva Nová, and Kobry a užovky(The Snake Brothers).One of the most interesting titles now

acquired for British release is Já, OlgaHepnarová (I Olga Hepnarova), a debut filmdirected by Tomáš Weinreb and Petr Kazda.It is a reconstruction of the events that led ayoung girl to drive a lorry into a bus queuein Prague in the early 1970s. Variously diagnosed as psychopathic and psychotic(but never examined), she was the lastwoman to be executed in Czechoslovakia.It is based closely on her letters and

available evidence, it raises a number ofissues around the subject. However, it alsoidentifies closely with the central figure and,rather than give a primarily ‘realist’ portrait,

turns her into a virtual Jeanne d’Arc. This isemphasised in the impressive black andwhite wide screen photography by Polishdirector of photography Adam Sikora.

Family Film, a second film by Sloveniandirector Olmo Omerzu, who attracted attention with his P íliš mladá noc (A NightToo Young), won the Best Feature Filmaward at Plze , and provides an excellentportrait of teenage behaviour while the parents are away. An impressive mix ofblack comedy and domestic drama, it provides some perverse combinations – realist interaction is counter pointed by parents sailing the Pacific with their pet dog– but it’s a challenging work revealing a realfilm-making talent.

Eva Nová is an award winning feature(Critics Award at Toronto) by Slovak documentary director Marko Škop and features an impressive performance byEmilia Vášáryová in the main role. An ageing actress (62) finds that she is no longerwanted, loses touch with her profession, andis forced to find work as a cleaner and shelfstacker. The film’s main emphasis, however,is on her attempts to re-establish relationswith the son she abandoned as a child. Attimes it is a Loachian-style social dramafocussing on issues of employment and family breakdown but it is also an unusualtake on the theatrical profession. A cleverperformance by Vášáryová effectively confronts the issues of both conscience andageing.

After his success with Cesta ven (The WayOut), Petr Václav returns with a particularlybleak portrait of contemporary Czech realityin Nikdy nejsme sami (We Are Never Alone).It is an examination of the lives of twoneighbours, one unemployed, disturbed, andbelieving that he is suffering from a terminaldisease, the other a prison guard who fearsretribution from his ex-wards. Aggressiveand polemical, with an often black humour,it is ultimately about wider issues – globali-sation, privatisation, democratic failure – buttotally avoids traditional Czech ‘humanism’.

Home Care and The Snake Brothers (seeBCSA Review, issue 147 November/December 2015), like most of the othertitles, focus on social issues, this time withmuch of the alleviating humour that we havecome to expect. Slávek Horák’s Home Carewas based on his mother’s experience as ahome care nurse and filmed largely in hisparents’ house near Zlín. Vlasta works as ahome care nurse, discovers she has terminalcancer, and attempts a cure via alternativetherapy. Examining her reactions on a

number of levels, the film is in no waydownbeat, and has plenty of humour andsophisticated characterisation.Jan Prušinovský’s The Snake Brothers is

also set far from Prague, where life in a desolate small town offers little hope forCobra and Viper (the two ‘snake brothers’).Viper seizes an economic opportunity whileCobra (an unrepentant drug addict and thief)undermines it. Again, humour is a major constituent and the script cleverly developsthe relationships between the two brothers(played by Kryštof and Mat j Hádek respectively).Also receiving a welcome screening is

Št pán Altrichter’s Czech-German production Schmitke, in which an ageingengineer is sent to the former Sudetenland toservice ageing wind machines. What beginsas social drama turns into a sometimes comicsometimes sinister journey made with a genuine cinematic flair.The area of genre film is also well

represented with Andy Fehu’s commerciallysuccessful Nenasytná Tiffany (GreedyTiffany), with its story of a dangerous treasure yielding plant given added forcethrough Leoš Noha’s clever performance inthe central role. The slightly more conventional Polednice

(The Noonday Witch) (shown at this year’sLondon Film Festival) tells the story ofEliška (A a Geislerová) and her small daughter as they return to a small and idyllic

winds

to the UKPeter Hames takes a look at films featuring in this year’s Made in Prague festival

Pict

ure:

Cou

rtes

y En

dorf

ilm

BCSA Review 10-11THIS ONESEP_OCT_NOV 2016.qxp_PP6/7 June/July09 15/09/2016 16:32 Page 2



Left: Karel Roden in Rodinný film. Above: Michalina Olszanska as Olga in Já, Olga Hepnarovácountry village to ‘find peace and quiet’.Sharply directed by Ji í Sádek, it expertlymixes the horrors and tensions of everydayrelations with the legend of the noondaywitch familiar from Erben’s Kytice.The festival offers two documentaries –

Zkáza krásou (Doomed Beauty) by HelenaT eštiková and Jakub Hejna and EvaTomanová’s Stále spolu (Always Together).The first contrasts interview material withLidá Baarová that T estíková recorded in the1990s with documentary footage from bothCzech and German archives in an ambitiousattempt to recall the 1930s ambience of herlegendary and controversial career.

Much of the above suggests that Czechand Slovak cinema is beginning to reassertits aesthetic integrity. Given the return ofZelenka with last year’s Ztraceni v Mnichov(Lost in Munich) and Jan H ebejk’s experthandling of this year’s U itelka (TheTeacher), there is much promising activity –to say nothing of the already established‘wave’ of Slovak women directors – ZuzanaLiová, Mira Fornay, Iveta Grofová.All of the films in this year’s Made in

Prague season, organised by the CzechCentre, are worth the attention of a widerBritish audience but, of course, this is difficult to achieve. International competition

for a limited ‘foreign language’ market isincreasingly cut-throat and all the while filmfestivals continue to perceive East-CentralEurope as a cultural bloc, there is only roomfor one ‘New Wave’ – and, at the moment, itis Romanian.To open the festival, there’s a special

screening of Gustav Machatý’s silent classicErotikon at the Barbican – with theremin andpiano accompaniment by Lydia Kavina andThomas Angs – an experience not to bemissed. There is also a special screening ofthe Oscar-winning Obchod na korze (TheShop on the High Street) to mark its releaseon DVD and Blu-ray.

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A story ofA story ofambush andambush andrevenge toldrevenge told and retoldand retoldThe attack on ReinhardtHeydrich, the third man inthe Nazi Reich after

Himmler, one of the mostdramatic episodes of WorldWar ll, has been the

inspiration behind a numberof films and novels. Angela Spindler-Brownrecalls them here.

The dimensions of heroism, self-sacrifice andbetrayal of those who were sent fromLondon to assassinate the Butcher of Pragueand the bestial revenge unleashed by theNazis after Heydrich’s death was

unprecedented even in war time.Two villages – Lidice and Ležáky – were razed to

ground, the male inhabitants killed, the women sent toconcentration camps, most of the children gassed in anextermination camp in the East and thousands of suspectswere executed in Prague. The Nazi revenge, whichbecame known as Heydrichiáda in Czechoslovakia, hasnever been forgotten. It is as etched on the Czech people’smemory as is the attack on Pearl Harbour on theAmericans.Operation Anthropoid, just released in the UK, is the

Hrabal revisited by an English readerby Edward Peacock

Iwas wholly unprepared for the book of 19 short stories I’ve justread by Bohumil Hrabal (translated from the Czech). Indeed,my creative writing tutor impressed on us the need for short sto-

ries to be taut, carefully structured affairs.Now I expect short stories to be, say, 2,000 words long, quick

and to the point, unrepetitive, with only key details and with aclever twist at the end. However, I had not read Hrabal before.Those of you more in the know will be smiling at this point. Thetitle should have given me a clue: Rambling on: An Apprentice’sGuide to the Gift of the Gab.Sometimes little happens, the narrators ramble, on and on in sen-

tences that often run for whole pages with multiple bizarre imagesand adjectives tumbling over each other. They add up to a gloriousdepiction of life in the 1970s in the forest village of Kersko. Theyoften seem to be about men going to the pub. An array ofeccentrics are lovingly described, along with cherished country rit-uals such as those surrounding the killing of a pig.Hrabal wrote these stories around 1975 but they were not

published in this form until after 1989 because some of the stories were suppressed or altered on the instructions of theCommunist censors. Why they found some of these tales offensive is often hard to understand today: the portrait of a police-man might be off limits (he is inordinately proud of his medals,and so punctilious in his job that he loiters off-duty in the woodsat night to nab drivers leaving the pub, including his own son). But why forbid a story of a man’s pursuit (in two senses) of a

woman who is much taken with his coiffure, which he has carefully nurtured to resemble that of Ján Pivarník, the famousSlovak footballer of the day (who was not unlike Bobby Moore)?We read of a hoarder of useless ‘bargains’, who gets the

narrator’s help in cutting up a sheep. Another story is a hymn to thebeauty of apple blossom, and a surreal account of a farmer’s

unsuccessful attempts to stop his ram impregnating his ewes. Athird tells of a grossly fat man who lies down to weed his gardenand who talks endlessly about ‘fining’ salami, but he is so greedythat he always eats the salami before it has hung for the requisitetime.A fourth tale is about a self-appointed expert and organiser who

appears at every village festivity and he insists on helping villagersin whatever they do but, unfortunately, his advice is usually wrong.My favourite is a wonderful story of a feast shared by rival hunt-

ing clubs. They have quarrelled over who should have a celebratory feast, to eat a boar that fled from the territory of onegroup to be shot in the other’s (in a school, in front of the children). They agree to have a joint banquet. The details of thechase and of the feast are gleefully related, along with argumentsover the menu and practical jokes played during the meal, which atone point has a dangerous stand-off with both sides pointing gunsat each other.The last two stories become increasingly surreal – stream of

consciousness monologues in which I admired the writing eventhough there was little narrative to follow.This translation was published by Charles University in Prague.

It has several colour illustrations by Ji í Grus. There is anAfterword by the editor, Václav Kadlec, which gives some helpfulbackground. There’s also a Translator’s Note by David Short in which he

speaks of the peculiar difficulties that abound in translating therambling style of these stories, and how he set about overcomingthem. Successfully, in my opinion.This edition appeared in 2014, and was reviewed at the time in

issue 141 of the BCSA Review by Zuzana Slobodova in her articleRestoring Hrabal.

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latest attempt to tell the story ofHeydrich’s death and what followed. ACzech British co-production, the featurefilm is directed by Sean Ellis, based on ascreen play by Anthony Frewin. The parachutists Czech Jan Kubiš and

Slovak Jozef Gab ík are played byBritish Jamie Dornan and Irish CillianMurphy.Immediately after the news of

Lidice’s fate, the German Nobel Prizewriter, Heinrich Mann, exiled in theUSA, wrote a novel about the massacre.In Hollywood Bertold Brecht and FritzLang made a film Hangmen Also Die!about those events in 1943.The Silent Village was shot in Wales

by Humphrey Jennings the same year. Itwas a documentary style film where heingeniously retells the story as if it washappening in Cwmgiedd, whose inhabitants re-enact the tragic events.Today his film is considered a classicBritish cinema work. Operation Daybreak, a British feature

film directed by Lewis Gilbert, withMartin Shaw and Timothy Bottoms inthe leading roles of the parachutists, wasmade in 1975 and released worldwide.Atentat was made in 1965: it was the

first Czech attempt to tell the heroicstory in film. It was shot on authenticlocations, utilising historical war timedocuments. It was based on the recollections of witnesses who livedthrough those events and were affectedby them. The film was directed by Ji íSequens.Jan Kaplan a Czech film maker based

in London, made a television programme about the assassination in1992, marking the 50th anniversary ofthe events. The documentary combinedGerman archive newsreel footage withdramatic reconstructions.To be released later this year is

HHhH, the latest film about the assassination of the tyrant. Based on anovel by a Paris teacher Laurent Binet,life is breathed into the preparations bytwo Czechoslovakian parachutists whowere going to put an end to the activitiesof the man whom even Hitler called ‘theman with the iron heart’.

Top left, a poster advertising the first filmabout Heydrich’s nefarious activities and hisinevitable assassination,made in 1943.Top right, a still from thejust released film,Anthropoid. (Pictured areCillian Murphy and JamieDornan). Centre, takenfrom Hangmen Also Die!made in the USA. Left, Reinhardt Heydrich

Anthropoid will be showing at the Regent

Street Cinema,London, on October 23at 4.30pm and October

24 at 8.30pm.It will also be showing

at the Royal SpaCentre Cinema,Leamington, on

October 22, 24 and 25at 7.30pm and on

October 23 at 2.30pm.

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On Wednesday February 22,1911 around seven o’clock inthe evening the artist JosefUllmann and his wife werestanding in the stair corridor

outside the interior spaces of Café Unionand asked František Davídek, the caféowner, to bring out a fellow painter,Bohumil Kubišta. The incident thatensued was a farce birthed in the artistictension brought about by the challenge ofthe merging Cubist movement. And itinvolves a donkey.

The setting of the incident was thefamous Café Union, located on the firstfloor of an old Baroque building, origi-nally called ‘At the Ratzenbek’ on thecorner of Ferdinand Avenue (nowNárodní) and Na Perštýn in Prague. Itwas the meeting place for Prague artists,writers and sportsmen; the avant-gardegroup Dev tsil was founded there onOctober 5, 1920.In the 1850s the café premises

consisted of 11 salons, two meetingrooms, two kitchens, a cellar, wood store,

stable for four horses, shed and gardenaccessible directly from the café. On thevery corner of the building was a carvedstone with the head of a grimacing man.The building was demolished in 1949.The clientele were a bohemian, creative

mix. The celebrated head waiter FrantišekPatera was also a patron for some and wasmuch admired by the café goers for hisgenerosity in serving drinks and coffee fornothing or on extended credit to artistswho could not afford to pay. He wasemployed at the Café from 1907 until 1925.Café goers were known for the many

pranks carried out there. At one time agroup of friends stood outside wonderingwhere to go next. One of them, the sculp-tor Jan Štursa, bought a sausage from akiosk nearby, ate a bit and pushed the restinto the open mouth of the stone head:“You have the rest, you beast, stuff your-self!”But back on that evening in 1911

Kubišta came out to the corridor, over-looked by the café’s kitchen, withoutknowing Ullmann or what his summonswas about. Ullmann, asking him to comecloser, said: “A word in your ear! Was ityou who wrote the article about Boronaliin the P ehled?”So who was Boronali and what about

that donkey? Well, the drama has its ori-gins in France. A year before, in March1910, a young French art critic, RolandDorgelès, decided to ridicule the emergingmodern art scene by employing the serviceof a donkey, Lolo, borrowed from the ‘AuLapin Agile’ cabaret based at 22 de la ruedes Saules in Montmartre.Lolo obligingly completed a pre-

prepared sky and sea scene with severalbrushes of his tail. Dorgelès called the finished painting Et le soleil s’endormit surl'Adriatique (‘Sunset over the Adriatic’) andsigned it as Joachim-Raphaël Boronali(Boronali was an anagram of Aliboron, thedonkey in La Fontaine’s fable Les voleurset l’âne).Several days later the painting was

displayed at the 26th Salon desIndépendants, There Dorgelès also distributed The Manifesto of Excessivismwritten under Boronali’s Italian soundingname. The painter and sculptor AndréMaillos offered to buy the picture for thehuge sum of 400 francs. In comparisonRaoul Dufy’s paintings could be boughtfor two francs then. Art critics discussedthe painting seriously, until Dorgelèsrevealed the joke to Le Matin newspaper.Back in Prague the publisher and

gallery owner František Topi , also basedon Ferdinand Avenue, had borrowed theinfamous painting from Maillos and displayed it in the gallery’s street window.Crowds of spectators gathered around thewindow, the majority of which gleefullycelebrated how the modern movement –

The art incident of 1911Ivan Margolius relates a complex tale of the confrontation that ensuedbetween Prague’s early Cubist movement and the more traditional artistic

establishment

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called New Primitivism in Bohemia(before it was named as Cubism) – hadbeen ridiculed.At the same time in January and

February 1911 Mánes Artists Association,which had its own magazine Volné sm ry,held its 35th members’ exhibition of theCzech moderne. However, the magazineDílo of the rival Union of Creative Artistsunder the editorship of Alois Kalvoda wasthe main proponent voicing the views ofthe conservative members of the Czech artestablishment and described the works ofthe young modernist artists as ‘childishbabbles and doodles’. The magazinesneered about how the modern art hadtransferred from the Mánes pavilion inthe Kinský Garden to the Topi shop window on Ferdinand Avenue. Dílo gladlyprinted letters received from the bewildered public: “Several young menhave learned, not even properly, the donkey’s art in Paris and now similarlyattack their canvases as if possessed by theHoly Spirit…”Kubišta in response to these attacks on

his young colleagues and the new artwrote an article called Boronali and Topiin P ehled magazine which was publishedon February 17, 1911. He said that whenlooking at the Boronali’s painting it wasobvious that it had been originally paintedby a human who had possibly chosencolours which harmonised by chance andon top were several uncoordinated blotsand smudges. He carried on: “We knowKalvoda’s and Ullmann’s sketches andseveral reproductions from Dílo whichdisplay also the same smudges brushed onan overpainted canvas. They are the so-called ‘Moods’ that differ from Boronalionly by having some sort of vague form oflandscape composition.”Kubišta was astonished by Ullmann’s

remark but confirmed his authorship ofthe article. Ullmann satisfied with hisanswer pronounced: “I’m Ullmann andtake this for your article!” and pulled outof his pocket a prepared stock-whip, possibly made out of a dog leash, andlashed three times at Kubišta who did notreact. A policeman was summoned andUllmann confessed to his action that waswitnessed by Ullmann’s wife, Davídek,kitchen staff and the painter Emil Filla.The young artists in the Café Union

rallied round Kubišta in support; this wasan attack not against an individual butagainst their new convictions and theirart. Initially Kubišta invited Ullmann to aduel, although by then duelling was forbidden in Austro-Hungary, and his twoseconds, Filla and theatre director JanBor were sent to arrange it. Ullmannrefused to even come to the door of hisapartment to respond to the duel invitation. Kubišta decided to take the dispute to the regional court.The proceedings took place on March

21, 1911 with a large number in attendance from both camps. Ullmann didnot appear and was represented by anarticled clerk, JU Dr Zhorský. Kubištawas present and his lawyer was JU DrFrantišek e ovský. Zhorský argued thatthe 41-year old Ullmann was disturbed bythe unjust criticism presented by hisyounger colleague, 27-year old Kubištawhom he did not know and in his agitatedstate had used the stock-whip which hehad had on him ‘by chance’. However, thedefence lawyer was unable to explain whythe publicly acclaimed and admiredpainter had to resort to the stock-whip todefend his position and artistic honour.

In the end Ullmann was found guiltyand sentenced to 24-hours imprisonmentlater amended to a fine of 30 crowns.Subsequently a number of young artists

and architects left Mánes includingKubišta, Filla, Josef Šíma, Josef Go ár,Pavel Janák and many others and established a new progressive Group ofCreative Artists although Kubišta decidednot to join them. Their magazine wasUm lecký m sí ník which became the voiceof Czech Cubism. Dílo celebrated theirdeparture from Mánes and proclaimedthat the association became thus ‘healthier’ and mockingly commented that‘the way toward the wide world is nowopen to them’.Kubišta in his The Necessity of Criticism

article published in Volné sm ry XVII/1,1913 said: “In art it is necessary in all circumstances to defend freedom ofexpression in painting as well in criticism;thus any such terror would be preventableand everybody would be given freedom tobring and present his or her work to beassessed by the most just and unbiasedruling, the ruling of progress and development.” Years later Emil Fillaremembered the Mánes split was not justcaused by Cubism. The older members

openly expressed their opposition to theyounger men’s creativity. It was a fightfor life and death.Kubišta, unable to support himself as

an artist, recruited into the AustrianArmy in 1913 in order to receive a regularincome. He returned from the First WorldWar – where he had fought as an artilleryofficer near Pula in Croatia – to Pragueonly to become ill with the Spanish flu inPrague’s Hotel Arcivévoda Št pán (whichwas the previous name of the currentGrand Hotel Evropa) where he was staying. He was transferred to the militaryhospital on Charles Square where he diedat the age of 34 on November 27, 1918.In 1920 Jan Zrzavý wrote about

Kubišta’s work (incidentally Zrzavý marvelled at Kubišta’s appropriate name– Kubista): “Some of Kubišta’s work isdistantly similar to Picasso’s paintings.But that is only an illusion. They havenothing in common except the surface, themanner of problem solution, but their aimand spirit are totally different.“Where Picasso cares only for the

surface and its pictorial quality, Kubištagoes into the depth and infuses spiriteverywhere. His reality is spiritual almostmystical.”



Images: Opposite page, ‘Own Portrait’, Bohumil Kubišta, 1918, linocut. Above, Boronali’s painting,which can now can be seen at Espace culturel Paul Bédu, 8 Bis rue Farnault, 91490 Milly-la-Foret,France. Below, Interior of the Café Union.

BCSA Review 14-15COL THIS ONE sep_oct_nov 2016.qxp_PP6/7 June/July09 15/09/2016 16:33 Page 3

Editor: Angela Spindler-Brown Production: Christine Mayhew-Smith, Alex Mayhew-SmithPublished four times a year. The British Czech and Slovak Review ISSN 1471-9525 is published by The British Czech and Slovak

Association, 643 Harrow Road, Wembley, Middlesex HA0 2EX. Charity number 1049411. Internet: www.bcsa.co.uk, e-mail:[email protected]. The views and opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the BCSA. Reproduction of any part

of the Review without the publisher’s permission is not permitted. Printed by ITIQ.

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