newyork

Thursday, APRIL 29, 2021
2:00 PM until 11 PM EDT

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first part of Jaroslav Hašek’s classic The Good Soldier Švejk(Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za svetové války) in 1921, the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) in New York invites you to its nonstop online reading in English.

Did you know that The Good Soldier Švejk is the most translated Czech novel? Joseph Heller said that if he had not read it, he would never have written Catch-22.

Fifty nine readers across the globe took turn reading. They included actors, translators, scholars, students, and other friends of Czech culture. Václav PARIS, Professor of Comparative Literature at City College, provided a brief introduction. Christopher HARWOOD, Lecturer in Czech at Columbia University, moderated the event.

Reading locations included New York, Prague, London, Genoa, Istanbul, Uppsala, Oman’s Salalah, Los Angeles, Chicago, and others.

The event was organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU NY) with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA) in New York.
Media partner is Czech Center NY. Producer Suzanna HALSEY. Technical support Vera DVORAK and Kim HALSEY.

PROGRAM and READERS
Please note that the times are only estimates and varies due to various reading speeds, and other unforeseen circumstances. The times are in EDT!

VIDEO RECORDING #1
INTRODUCTION by Václav Paris, PhD, The City College of New York
MODERATED by Christopher Harwood, PhD, Columbia University
READING:
Preface: Chris Harwood
Chapter 1: Gerald Turner, Charles Sabatos, Ihsan Haluk Talay, Ali Karakaya
Chapter 2: July Hansen, David Manasian

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Coming up videos

INTRO 2

CHAPTER III
“ŠVEJK BEFORE THE MEDICAL EXPERTS”
3:08 PM Bristol, UK Julia Sutton-Mattocks Lecturer in Czech and Russian literature and culture at the University of Bristol
3:14 PM Salalah Oman Karen Adams South African English Lecturer

CHAPTER IV
“ŠVEJK THROWN OUT OF THE LUNATIC ASYLUM”
3:22 PM Kuwait City Martin Dvorak Czech Ambassador to Kuwait and Qatar, former Czech Consul General in New York

CHAPTER V
“ŠVEJK AT POLICE STATION AT SALMOVA STREET”
3:45 PM Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Jane Arnfield Associate Professor of Theatre & Performance at Northumbria University
3:50 PM New York City Elizabeth Andrews Actographer

CHAPTER VI
“ŠVEJK HOME AGAIN AFTER HAVING BROKEN THROUGH THE VICIOUS CIRCLE”
4:02 PM London Julia Sherwood Translator and Miriam Sherwood Theatre-maker and fundraiser
4:18 PM New York City Maxwell Zener Actor and audiobook narrator

INTRO 3

CHAPTER VII
“ŠVEJK GOES TO THE WAR”
4:27 PM Prague Zdenek Maryska Actor
4:39 PM New York City Debra Lass Actress

CHAPTER VIII
“ŠVEJK THE MALINGERER”
4:46 PM Prague Karel Hermanek, Jr. Actor
4:55 PM Cold Spring, NY Vit Horejs “Actor and puppeteer Czechoslovak American Marionette Theater”
5:10 PM Prague Ronald Prokes Actor and musician
5:20 PM Sydney Richard Fidler Author and broadcaster

INTRO 4

CHAPTER IX
“ŠVEJK IN THE GARRISON GAOL”
5:33 PM Boston Veronika Tuckerova Preceptor in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University
5:42 PM Bloomington, IN Craig Cravens Senior Lecturer at Indiana University and Rebecca Cravens Russian language instructor at Indiana University
6:01 PM Rochester, NY Dustin Stalnaker Historian
6:07 PM Chicago Krista Pospisil Friend of the T. G. Masaryk School in Cicero, IL
6:13 PM Philadelphia Abigail Weil Lecturer in Czech at the University of Pennsylvania

INTRO 5

CHAPTER X
“ŠVEJK BATMAN TO THE CHAPLAIN”
6:24 PM Saugerties, NY Stefan Yarabek Landscape Architect and President of Friends of Czech Greenways
6:35 PM New York City Eric Oleson Actor
6:44 PM New York City Megan Metrikin Actor and writer
6:52 PM Denver, CO Jay DeYonker Actor
7:00 PM New York City Michelle Beshaw Theatre artist and performer
7:11 PM New York City J.B. Alexander Actor and playwright

INTRO 6

CHAPTER XI
“ŠVEJK GOES WITH THE CHAPLAIN TO CELEBRATE A DRUMHEAD MASS”
7:18 PM New York City Roshi Gregory Abels Retired actor and director and Zen Master
7:25 PM Chicago William Nickell Associate Professor and Chair of the Slavic Department at the University of Chicago
7:32 PM New York City Richard Toth Actor and Writer

CHAPTER XII
“A RELIGIOUS DEBATE”
7:42 PM Heathcote ON, Canada Paul Wilson Translator and Patricia Grant

CHAPTER XIII
“ŠVEJK ADMINISTERS EXTREME UNCTION”
7:57 PM Northhampton, MA Anna VA Polesny Artist
8:06 PM New York City James Monroe Števko Dancer and actor
8:13 PM Saint Louis, MO Lynn Be Actor
8:21 PM New York City Mick O’Brien Actor

INTRO 7

CHAPTER XIV
“ŠVEJK BATMAN TO LIEUTENANT LUKÁŠ”
8:34 PM New York City Jaci de Villiers Director, Playwright and Actor and Gys de Villiers Actor, Playwright and Director
8:46 PM New York City Tom Dula Accountant
8:55 PM Austin, TX Christian Hilchey Lecturer in Czech at the University of Texas at Austin
9:03 PM New York City Lisa Arrindell Actor and acting instructor
9:12 PM New York City T. D. White Actor and Filmmaker
9:19 PM New York City Edward Einhorn Artistic Director, Untitled Theater Company No. 61
9:29 PM New York City Katarina Vizina Actor and singer
9:37 PM Chicago Irena Cajková “Instructional Professor in Czech at the University of Chicago, Pierce Pramuka and Meg Doucette Students of Czech at the University of Chicago

INTRO 8

9:53 PM San Diego Markéta Hancová Music professor, translator and blogger
10:02 PM Los Angeles Eric Volkman Writer
10:09 PM New York City Véronique Firkušný Translator and Czech diction coach

CHAPTER XV
“CATASTROPHE”
10:15 PM Los Angeles Jaroslav Olša, Jr. Czech Consul General
10:24 PM New York City Ben Watts Actor
10:35 PM New York City Alex Zucker Translator

“EPILOG”
10:47 PM New York City Chris Harwood Lecturer in Czech at Columbia University

THE END

Wednesday, April 7 at 7 pm (EST)

Antonin Raymond, a Czech-American architect who helped rebuild Japan after WWII
A Book Talk by Helena Capkova, PhD

ZOOM RECORDING ON YOUTUBE

Dr. Capkova presented her new book about Antonin Raymond (1888 – 1976), a Czech-American architect who helped rebuild Japan after WWII, as seen through the lens of his friends and collaborators, his way of working, and reasons for his success in post-war Japan.

ANTONIN RAYMOND (Reimann) was born in Kladno, Czechoslovakia, as one of the Jewish merchant’s six children. He came to the USA in 1910. He lived and worked in New York City, Tokyo, Japan, and New Hope, PA, from the 1910s through the mid-1970s. During the First World War, Raymond worked as an intelligence officer with the Masaryk Group. In the 1920s, he served as the Honorary Consul of Czechoslovakia in Japan. In 1928, he was awarded the White Lion IV Order for his excellent help to compatriots. As a young architect, he worked on some of the most extraordinary buildings of the first quarter of that century, including Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building in New York City and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Antonin and his wife and creative partner Noémi Pernessin introduced modern architecture and design to Japan and India, creating over 300 built works over their 50-year practice. By 1938, with war looming both in Europe and in Asia, the Raymonds returned to the United States, first in New York, and then to a farm in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The farm and studio became a working/teaching atelier, where apprentices would work in the studio and on the farm. You can visit the Raymond Farm Center in New Hope, PA

In 1945, Raymond opened a studio in New York City with his compatriot architect Ladislav Leland Rado (1909–1993). The Raymonds returned to Japan in 1948 where Antonin was a member of General MacArthur’s staff during the post-war reconstruction of Japan. In 1956 he was awarded an honorary medal by the American Institute of Architects, and in 1964 he received the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government. An architectural firm bearing his name still operates in Japan.

HELENA CAPKOVÁ, PhD, is a Czech Tokyo/Kyoto-based curator, researcher, and art history professor at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. She studied transnational visual culture and Japanese studies in Prague and London. As a PhD candidate, she collaborated on international and interdisciplinary research projects such as Forgotten Japonisme (2007-2010) and later Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, Modernism, and the Arts, c.1875-1960 (2013-2015). Since 2010, she has published and lectured extensively about the specific nature of Japanese modernism and avant-garde that she considers as an inherent part of art history, traditionally perceived as Western. Her publications on this topic include “Believe in socialism … “: Architect Bedrich Feuerstein and His Perspective on Modern Japan and Architecture (2016) and “Careless Shell”– Transnational exploration of Czechoslovak and Japanese Surrealisme (2015). In 2017, she designed a series about architect Antonin Raymond at the Tokyo Czech Center. The successful series lead to the book Antonín Raymond in Japan (1948–1976), which she edited with architect K. Kitazawa, and published in October 2019 in Japanese/ Czech edition. The English version will be published in fall 2021.
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This event is organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).

A popular online mini-series presenting three-minute videos of Czech and Slovak artists and professionals based in New York and their reflections on how the challenging Covid reality affected their work and projects. This third edition will feature three accomplished creative New Yorkers: Tom Kotik, Maria Haršániová and Anna Rathkopf.

Live Q&A will follow the screening of three 3-minute videos.

Moderated by Christopher Harwood and Suzanna Halsey

REGISTER HERE to receive the Zoom link.

Free and open to the public.
Suggested donation $5 or more. Tax-deductible.

This event is organized by Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, in collaboration with the Consulate General of the Slovak Republic, and with the support of Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).

TOM KOTIK, born in Prague to an artistic family, is a Brooklyn-based artist, curator and musician. He has exhibited at Lesley Heller Workspace (NYC), Fundacio Juan Miro (Barcelona), Kostka Gallery (Prague) and The House of Arts (Brno). Since 2013, Tom has been a Curator at Large for Arts Brookfield in New York organizing exhibitions of emerging artists in New York and Los Angeles. He received his MFA from Hunter College in 2004 and has been a resident artist at Meet Factory (Prague), Art OMI, Yaddo, LMCC Workspace Program and the AIM Program at the Bronx Museum of Art. He uses silence as the starting position of his artworks. Many of his works deal with both the physical aspects of silence and materials from which non-functional replicas of audio equipment generate, as well as socio-political implications of silence itself. Both a practicing sculptor and (rock!) musician, he prefers making silent works that allow the viewers to compose as they observe. Thus sound, silence and form can find true harmony.

MÁRIA HARŠÁNIOVÁ, a writer under the pseudonym Maya Reyes, comes from the small town of Modrá in Slovakia. She earned her Masters of Social Work at St. Elizabeth College in Bratislava. Maria is currently finishing a master’s degree at Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College to obtain her SW license in the USA. She enjoys psychology and is interning as a group facilitator and therapist. Before settling in New York in 2016, she lived in England, Spain, The Netherlands and Cuba. Maria’s novel Exit Havana was published in 2016 by the Motý? publishing house in Slovakia. The story is based on her experience as a breast cancer patient. Maria also enjoys photography and blogging.

ANNA RATHKOPF lived in Prague until 2005 when she met her American husband and moved to New York City. She received her MA in Jewish Studies from Charles University in Prague. Her love for reading and photography led her naturally to blogging. In her Czech blog Mama za vodou, she wittingly describes her expat life in her Brooklyn bilingual household. With her photographer husband, she formed a photography company. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 37, they decided to create a photo project called HER2 to raise awareness about the possibility of cancer in people under 40 and the importance of relationships and love during adversity. The photos documenting Anna’s journey to her recovery were published in several publications and are part of the Susan G. Komen rebranding campaign. In 2020, the Covid 19 pandemic became a new subject for the team and a new photography project. Community Heroes captures quiet heroes, mostly women, who volunteer to run food distribution centers in their neighborhood for people in need. Photos appeared in several articles and will be part of an exhibition. One of her photos was included in the ICPs exhibition ICP Concerned: Global Images for Global Crisis. Anna is also proud of her new role as a home teacher to her 1st grader, mastering songs about months or days and improving her math skills, as well.

ONLINE EVENT on Zoom on Wednesday, NOVEMBER 18 at 7 pm (EDT)

Please REGISTER HERE to receive the link to the Zoom event. We will email you the link 2 days before th eevent.

An online mini-series presenting three-minute videos of Czech and Slovak artists and professionals in New York and their reflections on how the Covid reality affected their work and projects. In English

EPISODE 2 will feature three accomplished creative New Yorkers, each in a different field: Daniela Vancurová (pre-school teacher and consultant), René G. Vašícek (writer and educator), and Pavel Kraus (visual artist).
Moderated by Christopher Harwood, Q&A will follow the presentations.
Have a beverage of your choice by your side to toast to New York’s better future.

Daniela VANCUROVÁ, born in Prague, received her MA from Teachers College at Charles University in Prague in 1987 and additional BA credits from Manhattan Community College. Since 1988 she has worked at Brooklyn Free Space, a cooperative preschool implementing a learning-through-play philosophy, recognizing each child’s individuality, learning style and interest. Due to the Covid 19 epidemic, the school had to reorganize and reinvent its unique style. For medical concerns Daniela was furloughed until the virus is under control. She misses her little “jitterbugs” and hopes to return soon to the school. But meanwhile, she appreciates having the time to pursue her interest in Japanese cuisine, creating finger puppets or taking walks.

René Georg VASICEK was born in Austria in 1969 to Czech parents defecting from Czechoslovakia. He grew up in the pine barrens of Eastern Long Island and has lived in New York City since the Nineties. His writing has appeared in Wigleaf, Hinterland, Bellevue Literary Review, Western Humanities Review, Gargoyle, Mid-American Review, Barrelhouse, Post Road, and elsewhere. René earned an MFA at Sarah Lawrence College and was awarded an NEA fellowship. He is an adjunct lecturer at Lehman College in the Bronx and at BMCC in Manhattan. He lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife and two sons. His debut novel The Defectors is loosely based on experiences of Czechs and Slovaks in a totalitarian regime. He also enjoys boogie-boarding and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the Cosmos.

Pavel KRAUS, a native of Pilsen, emigrated after the Soviet invasion in 1968 and eventually arrived in the USA. He received his MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. Since 1984 he has been residing and working in New York City and since 2000, at his studio in DUMBO Brooklyn. Over the past 40 years, he has been focusing on an extensive body of work entitled “Sex, Death, Offerings”. These works incorporated variations of media/techniques including the ancient pierre dure technique and the marriage of organic/inorganic elements. Pavel’s works can be found in private collections and have been exhibited extensively nationally and in Europe and reviewed and published in various publications, including Art in America. In 2014, Pavel had a solo exhibition “Enigma” at the Stephen Romano Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn, curated by David Ebony. His 40-Year-Retrospective was reviewed in David Ebony’s Top Ten New York Gallery Shows of 2016. From 2016 to 2018 Kraus completed five solo shows culminating in Roma in January 2018 at the Long Island University Brooklyn campus. During the epidemic, he continues going to his studio and working on new projects inspired by the distant past.

VIEW EPISODE 1

Our YouTube videos were made available to you thanks to previous grants from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and BBLA, and donations from some of you.

Please consider making your tax-deductible donation HERE.
Thank you!

Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU)
New York Chapter

ONLINE EVENT OCTOBER 15, 2020 at 7pm (EDT)

ZOOM RECORDING OF THE EVENT

A lecture by MARY STEGMAIER, PhD
Associate Professor, Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri

How do we know if elections meet international democratic standards? In this presentation, Dr. Mary Stegmaier will discuss the process of international election observation done by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), her experience observing parliamentary elections in Belarus, and the Belarusian democratic uprising that began in August after the rigged Presidential Election. The presentation will conclude with a discussion about OSCE election observation in the US.

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

Mary Stegmaier, Ph.D., a long-time member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), is the Vice Provost for International Programs and an Associate Professor in the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. As a scholar of comparative politics, she has spent extensive time researching in the Czech Republic. Her work on international elections and voting behavior has been published in academic journals. Dr. Stegmaier has also contributed to the Washington Post and the Brookings Institution blog and served as an international election observer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Albania, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Macedonia.

In cooperation with the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, NY and with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA) in New York.

ONLINE EVENT – WATCH HERE

A talk and presentation by NICHOLAS LOWRY
President and Principal Auctioneer of Swann Auction Galleries, New York City

An avid collector of vintage posters, Nicholas discussed the treasures from the Lowry Collection – a selection of Czech vintage posters advertising travel throughout the Czech lands, spanning from the 1890s through the 1960s. Born to a Czech father who fled Czechoslovakia with his family in 1938, NICHOLAS D. LOWRY lived for four years in Prague in the years immediately following the Velvet Revolution (1990-1994). From a family of antiquarian book dealers, father and son together have amassed the largest collection of Czech posters in the world outside of the Czech museums. They collect out of passion, driven by their curiosity and love of history, culture and tradition. Within the collection are several hundred posters advertising travel throughout the Czech lands, spanning from the 1890s through the 1960s. These wonderful images not only serve to satisfy any feelings of personal nostalgia but also cannot fail to stir the soul of any Czech who sees them, much the same way one’s mood might be lifted by listening to Bedrich Smetana’s Ma Vlast (My Country). Nicholas’ interest in vintage posters is more than just a family past time.

As President and Principal Auctioneer of Swann Auction Galleries in New York City, Nicholas is also director of the auction house’s Vintage Poster Department and has appeared for over 20 years as an appraiser on the PBS Television series Antiques Roadshow as the poster specialist. Posters from the Lowry Collection have been exhibited at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library and the Dutch Poster Museum.

GOING VIRTUAL!

Zoom Event on Tuesday, August 11, 2020

VIDEO on YOUTUBE

The 3-Minute Challenge series is a spin-off of our “6-Minute Challenge” program held at the Bohemian National Hall. A kind of an oral history project, it presents Czech and Slovak artists, scholars and professionals in New York, and their reflections on how their work has been affected by the current (Covid 19) reality. They are challenged to shoot a 3-minute video.

EPISODE 1 features actress and singer Katarina Vizina, and visual artists Jan Pecarka, and Hana Shannon.

Dear all,

We hope that you are healthy and safe in these trying times. We miss you!

Until we can meet again at the Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan, we invite you to visit our new YOUTUBE channel and view six events that you might have missed. The videos are divided into shorter segments for easier viewing.

They include Escaping from Czechoslovakia (2016), stories of New Yorkers who escaped from communist Czechoslovakia, and Posezeni: Remembering New York’s “Little Bohemia (2018), an entertaining evening of memories of four old-timers who live(d) in the neighborhood of the Bohemian National Hall. Brilliant young Czech and Slovaks are featured in one edition of our popular 6-Minute Challenge series (Nov 2018). Enjoy the performances by Czech and Slovak Newyorkers -musicians and singers- in The Tribute to the Art of the Folksong (2018), and the concert 5+1:Jana Jarkovska (2019) by the gifted Czech flutist Jana Jarkovska presenting work of five young Czech women composers. Learn about the experiences of three Americans living in 1990s Prague (2019).

SVU-NY YOUTUBE VIDEOS HERE

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Your donations will help us make other videos available to the public.
Any donation made to the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences in New York is tax-deductible.
Please make your check payable to: Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences NY, and
mail it to: SVU-NY, c/o Suzanna Halsey, 515 Avenue I, #1b, Brooklyn, NY 11230, or

you may use your credit card via our PayPal account.

March 24, 2020 at 7pm
Bohemian National Hall, 3rd floor

We regret to announce that due to Covid -19, all March events at the Bohemian National Hall have been cancelled.

We hope to reschedule the 6-Minute Challenge in May 2020. Hopefully by then, the virus will weaken and cease to exist.

In the meantime, you can visit our Youtube channel to catch up on the events that you couldn’t attend. Please subscribe!
SVU NY YOUTUBE Channel

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Come 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, PhD, Columbia University

Presenters: Roman Balaz, PhD (Fulbright researcher at Boston University – social work), Jaroslav Bendl, PhD (Icahn School of Medicine – data scientist), Jan Bierhanzl, PhD (Fulbright Scholar at Penn State University – philosophy), Kristyna Kustkova (student at Mannes School of Music – soprano), Vlado Lackovic (Natives Group – digital marketing), Simona Lysakova (BA student at Hunter College – psychology), Marek Soltis (A/V engineer and musician) and Rene Georg Vasicek (English literature lecturer and author of “The Defectors”)

Free. Open to the Public.
Suggested donation $5

Light refreshment and networking will follow the presentations.
RSVP

Organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU/NY), New York chapter, with support of the Consulates General of both the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic in New York.

February 20, 2020 at 7pm
Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 St, 3rd floor
New York City

A lecture by Jindrich Toman, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The talk will guide the audience through select points that mark legal and cultural emancipation of Bohemian Jewry in the decades between the so-called Josephinian Decrees of the 1780s and the Monarchy’s liberal constitution of 1867. We will trace the culture of the disappearing ghettoes, attempts at a Czech-Jewish dialogue in the 1840s, the revolutionary year 1848, and conclude with the liberal 1860s.

Jindrich Tomanis a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has been following an academic path defined by languages and cultures of Central Europe, initially focusing on linguistics and gradually shifting his research interests towards cultural history and visual culture. A concurrent line of interest focuses on Jewish culture in Bohemia. He teaches courses in the area of literary and cultural studies, including “Jewish Prague.”

Free to the public. Suggested donation: $5.00
Limited seating.

RSVP

Organized by the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews in New York,
and the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, New York Chapter.
In cooperation with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York
and with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association
and the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs.