Radio Prague International - Topic «History»

Every culture has its stories – and the Czech lands are no exception. Since the beginning of time, people have used stories to explain both natural and social phenomena. Whether based on truth or entirely fictional (though is there any story without at least a grain of truth?), they help us understand the world and its order.

Originally proposed by Alice Garrigue Masaryková in 1921, the Easter Truce encouraged public kindness, respectful dialogue, and civic reflection during the Easter period. Although the initiative is more than 100 years old, its legacy lives on.

Coal mining in the Ostrava-Karviná basin has come to an end after nearly two and a half centuries. The last OKD mine has shut down, bringing to a close an industry that transformed this corner of Czechia into one of Central Europe’s industrial heartlands. Radio Prague International looks back on a world of hard work, danger, pride and strong regional identity.

What did languages that disappeared centuries, or even thousands of years ago, actually sound like? That is the question linguists at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague are trying to answer. In the Voices of Dead Languages project, they have reconstructed how several ancient languages may have been spoken, including Old English, the language of the epic poem Beowulf. To bring thes...

A legendary code-breaking story, secret wartime inventions and the fascinating history of cryptology. The National Technical Museum in Prague is inviting visitors to a special exhibition open until May 10.

The video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance (KCD) has proved to be a boon for tourism in Central Bohemia. The game’s realistic depiction of 15th-century life in Bohemia has led to an influx of foreign and domestic tourists visiting real-life locations featured in the game. And the local authorities are doing their best to sustain the interest.

Averil Huck runs Prague Feminist Tours , a project that introduces visitors to the stories of women who helped shape Czech history but whose names are often missing from monuments and street signs. Originally from France and now based in the Czech capital, she leads walking tours that bring those overlooked stories back into the public space.

Prague’s Museum of Czech Literature has acquired a suitcase that once belonged to writer, journalist and translator Milena Jesenská, a close friend and translator of Franz Kafka. The item was preserved by the family of a fellow prisoner who shared a cell with her.

Czech archaeologists say they have identified a remarkable Bronze Age artefact discovered years ago in a village garden in South Moravia. What once seemed to be an ordinary stone has now been confirmed as a three-thousand-year-old mould used to cast bronze spearheads. Ruth Fraňková reports.

Even the most famous and largest landmark in the Czech capital Prague Castle — visited by a record 2.7 million people in 2025 — may conceal magical corners unknown to many. One such place is Masaryk’s Lookout, crowned by a majestic 200-year-old linden tree. It was here that the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, liked to sit and reflect. Today, dendrologists are striving to...

Zuzana Marešová, one of the 669 mostly Jewish children sent from Prague to London at the outbreak of the Second World War in the rescue operation organised by Nicholas Winton and his colleagues, has died at the age of 94. 

The Prague Castle Guard is looking to take on new recruits and has relaxed its long-standing selection criteria. For many years, only candidates between 178 and 188 centimeters tall were eligible to serve. The new height range is more tolerant.

Czech scientists have announced an extraordinary discovery in the Moravian Karst in South Moravia. Inside one of the region’s caves, they found a rare engraving of a horse — an image created around 15,000 years ago, at the very end of the last Ice Age, when people still lived in and around caves.

On January 16, Czechs mark 57 years since Jan Palach set himself alight in the centre of Prague. The twenty-year-old student’s shocking act was intended to rouse Czechoslovak society from growing apathy in the wake of the Soviet occupation of August 1968.

As of January 1, 2026, Czechia introduced a new amendment to its Criminal Code, placing communism on the same legal footing as Nazism. So, what does the law actually prohibit? Why was it adopted, and how does it reflect Czechia’s understanding of its past? I discussed these questions and more with historian and First Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes Kamil Nedv...

Jiří Viktor Daneš is a name many Czechs may not recognize today. He was a geographer, explorer, and diplomat who set out for Australia in 1920 as Czechoslovakia’s very first consul on the continent. During his travels across Australia, and later through the Pacific, Japan, and Canada, he took thousands of photographs—capturing landscapes, people, and everyday life along the way. Those photographs,...

Second World War veteran Miloslav Masopust has died at the age of 101. In 1944, he joined the First Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union and took part in the liberation of Slovakia. Thanks to recorded testimonies, we can hear his story in his own words.

The statue of 82 children in Lidice, which commemorates the destruction of the Central Bohemian village by the Nazis in 1942, is set to undergo a major restoration in the next five years. The Lidice Memorial has now presented what the renovation will involve and how the work will be carried out.

The Czech Republic has dozens of castles and chateaux whose history is well documented and whose interiors are open to visitors. However, some castle ruins have yet to reveal their secrets and modern technology is helping to uncover what lies buried deep underground.    

The Madonna from Havraň, a rare medieval sculpture of the Virgin Mary, has gone on display in the Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia in Prague. The National Gallery acquired the object three years ago, and it has since undergone careful examination and restoration.

The expulsion of more than three million Sudeten Germans from post-war Czechoslovakia in 1945 not only changed the face of the region but left many German graves abandoned. Some municipalities repair and maintain the graves on regional budgets or cross-border grant programs. Now regular subsidies from the Ministry for Regional Development will help boost this effort.

Archaeologists are concluding a major investigation into the 12th-century origins of Třebíč, a Moravian town about 60 kilometres west of Brno. Their work has already earned the prestigious Patrimonium pro futuro award, presented by the National Heritage Institute.

A new book has just been released that captures Prague’s famous St. Vitus Cathedral, in remarkable detail. Called St. Vitus Cathedral, The Stone Crown of the Kingdom, it was created by photographer Jan William Drnek and includes photos of places most visitors never get to see.

Eighty years ago, the world watched as the Nuremberg trials began. More than 20 Nazi war criminals stood trial before judges of the International Military Tribunal, composed of representatives of the victorious powers—the USA, the Soviet Union, France, and the United Kingdom. People in Czechoslovakia received news from the Palace of Justice firsthand, thanks to Czechoslovak Radio reporter Františe...

What was it like for women in Czechoslovakia to live and create under a totalitarian regime? How did they resist, and how did their art reflect their struggle for freedom? Some of the answers to these questions can be found in Women’s Artistic Dissent: Repelling Totalitarianism in Pre-1989 Czechoslovakia, written by Brenda Flanagan and Hana Waisserová. In this interview, they share insights about...