Radio Prague International - Topic «History»

Ninety years ago, a broadcast first went on air from Prague’s Strašnice district with a single mission: to make heard the voice of Czechoslovakia, a small country in the heart of Europe.  Radio Prague International was not created as a pastime, but as a strategic weapon against Nazi propaganda. Through the crackle of the airwaves, presidents, ordinary people and visionaries spoke to listeners abro...

The Prague Archbishopric has abandoned plans to sell the historic Jindřišská Tower in the heart of Prague after spending several years searching for a buyer. It will now negotiate exclusively with the city of Prague, although it has not said whether the discussions will concern a sale, a lease, or some other form of cooperation.

The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) is at home not only in Studio 1, but also on the most prestigious Czech concert stages: in the Rudolfinum, the Municipal House, and the Bethlehem Chapel. At the same time, it performs just as naturally on international stages, where over decades it has built a reputation for exceptional vitality, tonal culture, and an ability to present Czech music in its...

More than six centuries after Jan Hus was burned at the stake in Constance, historians are taking a fresh look at one of Czech history's defining figures. Medievalist Eva Doležalová of the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences explains why modern research is moving beyond centuries of myth to rediscover the real Jan Hus.

Czech archaeologists have announced a remarkable discovery in south-eastern Moravia: an almost perfectly preserved Roman jug found in a 1,500-year-old grave. The vessel is thought to be several centuries older than the burial itself and survived even though the grave was robbed long ago.

From its earliest days, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) has been more than just a performer – it has been a source of inspiration. Dozens of works were written specifically for its musicians and for the possibilities offered by radio broadcasting.

With summer approaching and the climate crisis progressing, it is likely that new temperature records will once again be recorded at Prague’s Clementinum meteorological station with more than 250 years old tradition. Nevertheless, scientists point out that data collected there should be interpreted with caution.

Few Holocaust testimonies are as vivid and comprehensive as the illustrated diary created by Alfred Kantor. Born in Prague in 1923, the young Jewish artist was deported to Terezín in December 1941 as part of the first transport of men sent to establish the ghetto. Two years later, he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was imprisoned in the so-called Terezín Family Camp before being trans...

For nearly 25 years, Libuše Salomonovičová has been piecing together the stories of Jewish families connected to Ostrava in the northeastern Czech region of Moravia-Silesia. Now the 89-year-old researcher has donated her life's work, a unique archive containing records on some 33,000 people, to Ostrava's City Archive.

Zdena Mašínová, whose family played a major role in modern Czech history, has died at the age of 92. Her father was a WWII resistance hero, while her brothers dramatically escaped from communist Czechoslovakia – leading to Mašínová and other family members suffering serious repercussions.

Eighty-four years ago, on June 10, 1942, the Nazis annihilated the Central Bohemian village of Lidice in retaliation for the assassination of Acting Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak parachutists. In one of the most brutal reprisals of WWII, they shot 173 men, deported the women to concentration camps, and murdered most of the children or took them away for Germanization. The villa...

In the Madrid Río park, just a few steps from the Puente de Praga, the statue of František Suchý has been standing for a few days now. Suchý was the director of the Strašnice Crematorium, who secretly preserved the identities of more than two thousand people executed during the Nazi occupation. Among them were several Spaniards. Created by Czech sculptor Jakub Vlček, the monument weaves together C...

New plaques at Prague’s Old Jewish Cemetery pay tribute to staff at the city’s Jewish Museum who saved countless valuable artefacts during the Holocaust. The memorial helps mark the 120th anniversary of the foundation of the museum, one of the oldest institutions of its kind in the world.

On Thursday MPs will again discuss a government motion declaring that the Czech Parliament is opposed to a Sudeten German gathering set for Brno at the end of next week. But why has the first ever congress held by the “Landsmannschaft” in Czechia become such a heated issue? I discussed the matter with political scientist Jiří Pehe.  

Filip Šír from the National Museum in Prague has spent years researching into a series of remarkable wartime broadcasts made by the much-loved Czech duo Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich.  Their satirical sketches and songs, some of them in English, were broadcast on shortwave from the United States and formed an important part of the campaign to fight Nazi propaganda and indoctrination with humour. Un...

František Moravec, Jan Kubiš, Adolf Opálka and Jaroslav Krátky are well-known names to Czechs. They are paratroopers, who escaped to Great Britain where they were trained by the RAF and parachuted into occupied Czechoslovakia to fight the Nazis in WWII.  Now they are linked by a very special memorial – an alley of linden trees in the Vysočina region, south-east of Prague.  

A new exhibition is currently underway at the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures in Prague, marking 200 years since the birth of Vojtěch Náprstek, a remarkable 19th-century figure who was not only the founder of a museum, but also an innovator, politician and early advocate for women’s rights. 

A fossil of a previously unknown arthropod species, Soomaspis labutai, has been uncovered in rubble during construction work on Prague Metro’s D line. Hidden beneath the city for nearly half a billion years, the find offers new clues about how some life forms survived Earth’s first mass extinction.  

Rare archaeological finds from the era of Great Moravia, including an ivory vessel believed to have been brought to the region by Saints Cyril and Methodius, are now on display at the Archaeological Museum in Modrá in the Zlín region. The new exhibition in the site’s treasury presents some objects that have never before been exhibited.

Jewelry, weapons, manuscripts and the story of a dynasty that shaped not only Czech history – the National Museum in Prague opens what organisers describe as its biggest exhibition of the year titled The Přemyslids – A Ruling Dynasty and Its Age.

This week saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of Elizabeth II – and the launch of the Czech version of A Voyage Around the Queen, in which author Craig Brown looks at the late monarch from a multitude of perspectives. The book was translated by Michael Žantovský, a one-time Czech ambassador to London who spent time with the long-serving royal on several occasions. I spoke to him at the book’s l...

The West Bohemian city of Plzeň is preparing for its annual Freedom Celebrations, marking 81 years since its liberation by US troops at the end of World War Two. The six-day event begins next Friday, with a programme combining military history, American music, and family-friendly events.

Alongside the general explosion of freedom in 1990s Prague, there was also a boom in English-language newspapers and magazines in the city. The short-lived age of titles such as Prognosis, The Prague Post, Think and many others is the subject of a recent series of blog posts by travel writer Mark Baker. I spoke to Baker, who at one point was business editor at The Prague Post, at our studios.

WWII Czechoslovak fighter pilot František Peřina, one of the country’s most prominent war heroes, gained recognition mainly during the Battle of France in 1940. His courageous deeds, which won him the nickname “General of the Skies” are being commemorated on the 115th anniversary of his birth both in Prague, and his hometown of Morkůvky in the Břeclav region.

As castles in Czechia open their doors to visitors, one site enters the new tourist season with the prospect of becoming a Guinness World Records holder in the category of leaning structures.