Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences

A talk by Filip Šír, National Museum in Prague

Friday, SEPTEMBER 30 at 7 pm
Bohemian National Hall, Cinema
321 E 73 Str, Manhattan

Free and open to the public
Suggested donation of $5.00

Wearing a face mask is recommended.

RSVP HERE

Filip Šír will present the story of Edward (Ed) Jedlicka, a Czech jeweler and watchmaker who emigrated to the United States in 1895 and settled in the Czech neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Jedlicka was a man of many interests and talents. He created a silver branch of a linden tree, which in 1901 was presented by an association of sixty Czech societies to the famous Czech violinist and composer Jan Kubelik, when he performed for the first time at Bohemian National Hall in New York City.

Jedlicka was passionate about emerging photography and sound recording technologies and was the first to use them to document the Czech community’s rich cultural life in New York City. He took photographs of Alphonse Mucha’s studio and the Bohemian National Hall, among others. In 1903, he registered his label Ed.Jedlicka and produced over five hundred two-minute brown wax cylinder recordings of Czech songs and stories.

In 2019, the University of Iowa received a donation of Jedlicka’s brown wax cylinders. Several cylinders pre-date the label registration or are the only copy of a particular title, making them exceedingly rare.

Now, come hear recordings made 120 years ago just two blocks from the Bohemian National Hall!

Filip Šír is an expert sound archivist at the National Museum in Prague and the principal researcher for the New Phonograph: Listening to the History of Sound project, which studies early Czech sound recordings in the Czech Republic and the USA. He received his degree in Library Sciences from Charles University and is a member of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA). In 2016, he received the INFORUM 2016 Prize for the Virtual National Phonotheque project. In 2017, with Gabriel Gössel, he was awarded the ARSC Certificate of Merit for his contribution to the Recorded Sound in Czech Lands research project. He conducted research at libraries worldwide and lectured at Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University, New York University, and elsewhere. He also conducted a two-day workshop at Fonoteca Nacional de México. He will be joining us on his way from the international IASA conference in Mexico, where he presented a paper on Voskovec&Werich, Transatlantic Battlefront: Czech Comedians Fight Hitler in the Shortwave Trenches.

A screening of the animated autobiography Drawn from Memory (56min) by the Czech American award-winning animator Paul Fierlinger. With voices of Jan Triska, Václav Havel and Miloš Forman. The program also included a short video with an introduction by Paul Fierlinger and an overview of his work, More Vivid than this Morning’s News.

Thursday, JUNE 16 at 7 PM
Bohemian National Hall, 3rd floor
321 E 73 St, Manhattan

EVENT’s VIDEO RECORDING

This event was part of the “Ticket to the New World” multimedia project of the Czech National Trust curated by Czech photographer Eva Heyd in 2018 in Prague. Eva Heyd presented her book Ticket to the New World / Lístek do Nového sveta presenting sixteen accomplished Czech émigrés, 1938-1939, who found refuge in the USA. The book is available online: www.tickettothenewworld.com

——————
PAUL FIERLINGER, born in 1936 in Japan, is an award-winning Czech American animator. His father, Jan Fierlinger, was a Czechoslovak diplomat, and his uncle,,Zdenek Fierlinger, an infamous prominent communist apparatchik (1948 -1968). Paul spent the WWII years in Vermont, where his busy parents left him in foster care. Later, back in postwar Czechoslovakia, they “parked” him in a boarding school in Podebrady. Here, his schoolmates were Miloš Forman, Ivan Passer and Václav Havel. Paul later captured his dramatic young life with its twists and turns in his feature biopic animated film Drawn from Memory.

Fierlinger established himself in 1958 as Czechoslovakia’s first independent producer of animated films. In 1967, he escaped from Czechoslovakia and eventually arrived back in the USA. He introduced himself to the American public with a black and white emotional film Prague 68′ Summer of Tanks, with authentic footage from the August 1968 occupation of Prague shot by his Czechoslovak colleagues. His personal experiences as an immigrant, traveling through various countries, were reflected in a 1978, fifteen-minute-long praise to America titled Rainbowland. Fierlinger triumphed in 1980 with It’s So Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House, for which he received many awards, including an Academy Award nomination for the best animated short film.

Fierlinger became a steady provider of many TV commercials and sales films for US Healthcare (now Aetna), winning various international awards. Together with his wife Sandra, they developed a small series of interstitials for Nickelodeon called Amby & Dexter: The Way of Silent, a Sesame Street series called Alice Kadeezenberry, and a twenty-minute film of children’s songs for the Children’s Book of the Month Club called Playtime.

In 2001, Fierlinger created a half-hour PBS special called Still Life with Animated Dogs, a film about dogs and other things of a divine nature. He also made an animation series for Oxygen Network, Drawn from Life, two-minute films that feature real-life women’s voices and simple stories. The Fierlinger’s own production of My Dog Tulip, based on the book of the same title by British author J. R. Ackerley, featured the voice talents of Christopher Plummer, the late Lynn Redgrave, and Isabella Rossellini.

Since founding his animation studio in 1971 in Philadelphia, PA, Paul has authored over 700 projects. Many of his films received considerable recognition, such as Fellowship in the Arts (1997), two Grands Prix at the Ottawa International Animation Festival (2000 and 2004), Peabody Award (2001), First Prize at the 2002 Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films (2002), a nomination at Annecy International Animated Film Festival (2009) and other prestigious awards.

Paul Fierlinger about his life

Animated films by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger
For a private demo of Drawn from Memory, please contact: fala2@verizon.net

This event was produced by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, to accompany the “Ticket to the New World” exhibition at the Bohemian National Hall, NYC, curated by Czech photographer Eva Heyd for the Czech National Trust. In association with the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation/ Rehearsal for Truth Festival, and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).

A tribute to a visionary innovator in international women’s gymnastics.

Sunday, APRIL 10, 2022, at 2 PM (EST) on ZOOM

VIDEO
PART 1:LIFE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA (1890-1948)(63 min.)
PART 2: LIFE IN EXILE (1948-1991) will be available later. We are seeking funding for its processing and editing.

Join artist Anna VA Polesny (granddaughter) and playwright Petr Dudek, in conversation with historians, colleagues, family members, and friends, remembering and celebrating the life and work of MARIE PROVAZNÍKOVÁ.

A visionary innovator in international women’s gymnastics, progressive Czechoslovak Sokol* leader and powerful proponent of women’s rights, Provazníková received the French Legion of Honor for her work. When President of the Women’s Technical Committee of the International Gymnastics Federation, she led the Czechoslovak gymnastic team to a gold medal at the 1948 London Olympics and became one of the first political defectors at the games. A victim of the Cold War, Provazníková continued dedicating her life to democracy and the survival of Sokol ideals, tirelessly working in the United States until her death at the age of 100.

*Sokol celebrates its 160th anniversary this year!

Sokol (falcon): a gymnastic society founded in Prague in 1862 with the goal of utilizing a system of gymnastics training that would 1) develop sound minds in sound bodies, 2) motivate the Czech people to revive a personal and national consciousness and 3) enhance the concepts of democracy, brotherhood, equality, liberty and civic responsibility.

Sokol was founded on the philosophy that physically fit, mentally alert and culturally developed people can make a nation strong. The word “sokol” translates to “falcon” and is symbolic of the Sokol ideals: Courage, Strength, Endurance, Fraternalism, Love of democratic principles, and Pride in the country

MODERATORS/ DIRECTORS
Anna Polesny Bartoli and Petr Dudek

SPEAKERS include historians Harry Blutstein, PhD, Cold War Olympics, Jean Dusek,Václav Sotola, The Struggles, and Development of the Women’s Sokol Movement as Illustrated by the Life of Marie Provaznikova (1996), Robert Tomanek, PhD, Czech Immigrants and the Sokol Movement (2021); Milan Kocourek, BBC reporter at the 1982 slet in Vienna, Jean Hruby, American Sokol president, Norma Zabka, Sokol NY president emeritus and U.S. Gymnastics Hall of Fame member, Katerina Pohlova and Martin Klement, Sokol archivists in Prague, Jitka Zobal Ratner, MD, Sokol summer camp participant and family members Zuzka Polesny Eggena, MD, granddaughter, and Alex Schay, great-grandson.

ABOUT SPEAKERS
PROGRAM ORDER

Organized by Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, in collaboration with Czech Sokol (Ceska obec sokolská) with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA) in New York.

A talk by Igor Lukes, Boston University
On Saturday, APRIL 2 at 4 PM EST, On ZOOM

The presentation stresses the geopolitical centrality of Ukraine for the overall balance of power. It places the present war in a historical context that includes Swedish Vikings, Mongols, the Polish Commonwealth, Tsarist Russia, the Bolsheviks, the Third Reich, and the Soviet Union. The concluding argument is that, in the past, the West sought to contain and isolate crises. This is what led to the Munich Conference of 1938 and characterized western behavior throughout the Cold War. Putin expected the West to respond to his aggression with containment. Instead, he found himself baffled with the consequence of a new doctrine: defend forward.

CHECK OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL FOR A VIDEO RECORDING SOON.

This event was organized by the Czechoslovak Society od Arts and Sciences, New York Chapter

A talk by PAUL SAMAN, PhD
Moderated by Christopher Harwood, PhD

Special guests: Richard HASEK, grandson of Jaroslav Hasek, and Jomar HONSI president of the International Hašek Society in the Czech Republic, www.honsi.org/svejk

Sunday, FEBRUARY 6 at 2 pm EST ONLINE

VIDEO RECORDING

This talk aims to expose and debunk a persistent myth surrounding the sudden death of the irreverent Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, whose influential satirical novel The Good Soldier Svejk has been translated into more than fifty languages. An analysis of the available documentation from the last weeks and days of his life demonstrates that, contrary to the prevailing belief, Hašek had been in stable health until the last few days of his life, and cannot plausibly have “drunk himself to death,” as the myth has it. Prof. Saman will present questions, arguments, and testimonies of Hašek’s contemporaries, which he has analyzed together with medical expert Dr. Frank Loskot.

PAUL SAMAN was born in Istanbul in 1928 and grew up in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He holds a PhD in Turkish, Persian, and classical Arabic from Charles University. His academic work before emigrating in 1960 included teaching at the Oriental Institute in Prague, and publications on Central Asian folklore for academic journals, radio, and television. He worked for American intelligence for two years in Germany. After moving to the United States, he became professor in the Foreign Languages department of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he taught until the 1990s. Now retired, he lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA)

Please note: Last April 2021, we have organized ŠVEJKathon, an online nine-hour nonstop reading with 59 readers. Here is a link to the first hour recording. SVEJKathon Video #1 on our YouTube Channel. We recommend watching at least the introductory remarks by Václav Paris, PhD, an expert on Jaroslav Hašek.

A book talk by author Harry Blutstein
Sunday, February 27 at 4 pm EST ONLINE

VIDEO RECORDING

Harry Blutstein will introduce the US edition (McFarland 2022) of his book and discuss the cold war climate of the post-war Olympics focusing on two Czechoslovak cases that made the international news. The 1948 London Olympics saw the first defection, as Czechoslovak gold medal-winning women’s gymnastics team leader, Marie Provazníková, refused to return home. In 1956, in defiance of her government, Czechoslovak discus thrower, Olga Fikotová, refused to renounce her love for US athlete Hal Connolly, creating an international incident. The book also exposes the activities of the KGB and secret police from Eastern European countries to spy on their own athletes and countermeasures taken by the West.
Link to the book Cold War Olympics: https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/cold-war-olympics/.

Harry Blutstein, PhD, former Adjunct Professor in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning at RMIT University, is a fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Since 1972, he has been a freelance journalist and published feature articles in op-eds in major Australian newspapers on a wide variety of topics. He is also the author of Games of Discontent on the 1968 Olympic Games. harryblutstein.com.

A talk by MICHAEL BECKERMAN, New York University, Music Department

In person!

Monday, NOVEMBER 29 at 7 PM
At Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 St, 3rd floor, New York City

VIDEO RECORDING

Musicologist and author MICHAEL BECKERMAN presented the remarkable Czech composer, phenomenal pianist and elemental musician Jaroslav Ježek (1906-1942) and his last years in New York where he lived in exile after fleeing the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Professor Beckerman discussed Ježek’s final composition, the Piano Sonata, which he completed shortly before his death in 1942 in New York.

In the USA, Jaroslav Ježek performed for Czech Americans and expatriates with Jiri Voskovec and Jan Werich, his fellow exiles and protagonists of the popular Prague’s political antifascist revue troupe, the Liberated Theater. (Photo from the left: Ježek-Werich-Voskovec)

MUSICAL GUESTS
The brilliant pianist Siyumeng Wang, a native of Beijing and current student at The Juilliard School performed selections from Ježek’s Piano Sonata. Prague-born and Berlin-based jazz singer Martina Barta performed five of Ježek’s songs in Czech accompanied by Francesco Pollon from Treviso, Italy. Both accomplished artists are currently students at the Manhattan School of Music. (See below the English translation of the songs.)

MICHAEL BECKERMAN is Carroll and Milton Petrie Chair and Collegiate Professor of Music at New York University and a Vice-President of the Dvorak American Heritage Association (DAHA). He has written many studies and several books on Czech music topics, including New Worlds of Dvorak (W.W. Norton, 2003), Dvorak and His World (Princeton University Press, 1993), Janacek and His World (Princeton, 2004), Janacek as Theorist (Pendragon Press, 1994), and Martinu’s Mysterious Accident (Pendragon, 2007), as well as articles on subjects such as Mozart, Brahms, film scoring, music of the Roma (Gypsies), exiled composers, and music in the camps. Dr. Beckerman has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times and was a regular guest on Live from Lincoln Center and other radio and television programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan. He is a recipient of the Dvorak Medal and the Janacek Medal by the Czech Ministry of Culture, and is also a Laureate of the Czech Music Council; he has twice received the Deems Taylor Award. He served as a Distinguished Professor at Lancaster University (2011–2015) and was The Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic (2016-17). In 2014, Dr. Beckerman received an honorary doctorate from Palacký University in the Czech Republic. This year, he was awarded the Gratias Agit Award from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Harrison Medal from the Society for Musicology in Ireland.

SIYUMENG WANG, piano
Born in Beijing, China, pianist Siyumeng Wang is a rising star in the international music scene. A winner of the Gina Bachauer Competition, Leonore Kraeuter Scholarship award, and Kovner Fellowship, Siyumeng studies with Veda Kaplinsky and Julian Martin at Juilliard. Currently working towards the Master in Music degree, Siyumeng earned the B.M. degree in 2021, won prizes at Oberlin International Piano Competition, Beijing All-Star Cup Piano Competition, Hope Cup Piano Competition, studied at Music Academy of the West, Manchester Music , Piano Texas, and Belvoir Terrace. Siyumeng performed at Alice Tully Hall, David H. Koch Theater Lincoln Center, and throughout China. She performs for audiences in health care facilities and community-based organizations as a member of the Gluck Community Service Fellowship Program. www.siyumeng.com

MARTINA BARTA, voice
Martina Barta is a multitalented singer and musician born in Prague, based in Berlin, performing in diverse music projects at national and international music festivals and venues worldwide. In 2016, she received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Jazz Institute at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, where she took vocal lessons from Prof. Judy Niemack and Prof. David Friedman. In 2017, Martina represented the Czech Republic at the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree at Manhattan School of Music, where she takes classes in the Jazz Arts Masters Program with Prof. Theo Bleckmann. Full bio. Facebook

FRANCESCO POLLON, piano
Francesco Pollon is a pianist, composer, and educator born in Treviso, Italy. Since the age of fifteen, he has been on stage as a musician, performing throughout Italy and in Croatia, Israel and Palestine, Qatar, Poland and Romania. He played with the jazz legend Chick Corea in Vicenza and with the resident band at the prestigious jazz club The Club at St. Regis in Doha, Qatar. Francesco is also an accomplished classical guitar player. Francesco received his M.A. in Jazz Piano Performance from the Conservatory of Venice in 2018 and the Best Instrumentalist Award at the 2019 Sibiu Jazz Competition. In 2020, he published his debut solo piano album Catch Me. Since September 2021, Francesco has pursued his studies at Manhattan School of Music in New York. www.francescopollon.com

This event is organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, in association with the Dvorak American Heritage Association (DAHA) and with the support the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).

FIVE JEZEK’s SONGS in ENGLISH
(c)2022 Translation by Suzanna HALSEY [Improvements are welcome-)]

1. DAVID AND GOLIATH [David a Golias]
People are nasty to each other,
It’s a dog-eat-dog world.
Just look at them! One must lament!
A giant is beating up a little guy,
thinking he’ll win.
Just let’s sit nicely in a chair and read the Bible.
The whole story is in there:
The Book of Samuel tells us
how a great misfortune befell the Jews,
how the lousy Philistines were not lazy to go to a war,
until they met David, that is.
Willy-nilly did David go off to war,
carrying little cakes for his brothers from afar.
As he marched, he practiced his throw.
And just in case, he put three rocks in his bag.
“Hey, hey, where, you think, you’re going? You midget!”
Goliath provoked him this way,
but David just politely saluted him.
But when the giant spat in his eye,
David turned and swung his slingshot around.
Well, you’ve started it, so now you’ll get it!
You were big, but I’ve got courage!
And so now, what’s left of Goliath?!

2. HAT IN THE BUSH [Klobouk ve krovi]
The wind is blowing across the desert
driving a hat across the sand.
It drove him into the thicket,
the old black hat.
Where’s the head,
which wore that hat?
Was it black or blond?
To whom did it belong?
Who disappeared in the desert?
Where did he go and to where?
What problem did he have?
so that he was alone in the desert?
Only sand-covered footprints.
The old hat in the bush.
No one will understand.
No one will find out.
Who disappeared in the desert?
Where did he go and to where?
What problem did he have?
so that he was alone in the desert?
Only sand-covered footprints
and the old hat in the bush.
No one will understand.
No one will find out.

3. HEAVEN ON EARTH
I don’t believe in Nirvana,
Olympus, or Heaven.
When someone complains about the world,
I always curse.
I don’t care for Infinity
with all the stars.
A few beautiful years somewhere on Earth,
that’s enough for me.
When I tell you
that Heaven is on Earth
I’m right, believe me.
I will give life for life,
although I don’t like dying, and
I’m not alone, believe me.
For the one who wants to live,
there are so many marvels in the world!
And to make Heaven from them, it’s up to you.
Only you, believe me.
It depends when the time comes
when Heaven starts for us on Earth.
For the one who wants to live,
there are so many marvels in the world!
And to make Heaven from them, it’s up to you.
Only you, believe me.

It depends when the time comes
when Heaven starts for us on Earth.
It depends when the time comes
when Heaven starts for us on Earth,
when Heaven starts for us on Earth.

4. DARK BLUE WORLD [Tmavomodry svet]
It’s not enough that it is dark,
But I also do not see.
I know that the darkness is everywhere around,
but I do not see it.

I only see that I do not see anything.
If I admit that I see
I should be seeing more.

My head, torso, two arms, legs
I do not see them.
So, where did my so far perfect vision disappear?
Everything is covered with an impenetrable blue cloud,
Dark blue cloud.

I do not know where I shall go and how.
And the fact that a dark blue hat sits on my head,
that is an illusion.

I am not hungry, so what good is it that I have an appetite.
What good it is that even when I am not hungry,
my soul is sad.

Five weeks, seven hours, three months and six years
I have observed the melancholy world,
The dark blue world.

5. LIFE IS JUST A COINCIDENCE [Zivot je jen nahoda]
Life is just a coincidence.
Once you’re down, then you’re up.
Life flows like water
and death is like the sea.
Everyone makes it to the sea,
someone sooner and someone later.

Who loves in his life,
shall not lose hope.
Only when you see miracles in life,
which only love can do,
goldfish will fly up above the clouds.
Then you’ll understand
that life is like water,
which love turns into wine.
That love is a coincidence
and without it, there is no happiness,
and without it, there is no happiness.

Thursday, DECEMBER 16, 2021, at 7 PM EST
Bohemian National Hall, 321 E 73 St, New York City

A popular series since 2011.

Meet Czech and Slovak artists, professionals, students, and scholars who will be challenged to introduce the subject of their project, research, or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes and in the language appropriate for a non-expert audience. In English.

Moderated by Christopher Harwood, Ph.D., Columbia University

Presenting Martina Barta (jazz singer), Michal Beneš (Covid video game), Martina Forman (author), Petra Gelbart (music therapy), Vlado Kolenic/strong> (musician/restaurateur) Leoš Malec ( financial analyst), Em Šolarová (nonbinary linguistics), Barbora Zeigler (photography), and Kamila Zmrzla (visual artist)