Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Capek and His Generation (1911-1938) by Thomas Ort

Author’s Talk

Wednesday, Feb 12, 2014 at 6:30 pm
Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 St, New York
RSVP newyork@svu2000.org

“Karel Capek still has not received the attention he deserves in the Anglo-American world, and Czechoslovakia still has not been fully assimilated into our picture of interwar Europe. Thomas Ort accomplishes both tasks beautifully”
David S. Luft, Professor of History, Oregon State University

“…a compelling portrait of Czech artistic life before and after World War I adds important new insight into the interconnections between aesthetics and politics during this turbulent period.” – Mary Gluck, Professor of History, Brown University

“Elegantly written and thoughtfully argued.” – Chad Bryant, Associate Professor of History, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Art and Life

DUÅ AN SWALENS: Fantasy World Close-Up

Fri, Nov 15 2013 at 6:30 pm
Bohemian National Hall 321 E 73 Str., kino
New York City

The Czech photographer DUSAN SWALENS, based in Belgium, will present his latest “BIO 2014” project, a series of macro-photographs from botanical gardens in twelve European countries.
“Playing with vision, perspective, and the power of visual representation, these works ask broad metaphysical questions concerning mankind’s relationship to nature’s ecosystems and our larger place within the universe.”

In conjunction with the exhibit at Agora Gallery in Manhattan.
Book and 2014 calendars signing.

In cooperation with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic.
Limited seating. RSVP newyork@svu2000.org

Dusan Swalens

Modern Architecture in Czechoslovakia in 1918-1938 (Functionalism)

Monday, October 28th at 6:00 pm
At New York University !!
3rd Floor Auditorium, 100 Washington Square East
(entrance on Waverly Place)

A Lecture by Vladimír ŠLAPETA, DrSc.
University of Technology VUT Brno, Czech Republic

Prof. Šlapeta’s lecture surveys the history of Functionalism in Czechoslovakia as it relates to the development of the Czechoslovak state in the interwar years. He discusses the work of numerous architects, tracing the wide range of approaches evident Czech design during this period.
Šlapeta identifies how works allied with the international movements of Cubism, Constructivism, Purism, and Poetism coalesced into a Functionalist idiom in Czechoslovakia in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Presented by New York University, Department of Art History, Urban Design and Architecture Studies and Czech House NYU, Department of Russian and Slavic Studies 
in cooperation with Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences NY

Film: We Survived the Gulag | Prezili sme Gulag

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 at 6:30 PM
Bohemian National Hall 321 E 73 Str., 3rd Floor
New York City
RSVP: newyork@svu2000.org
Director Ondrej Krajňák, 2009 Slovakia, 45 min.
Gabriel Levicky will introduce the film and lead the discussion following the screening.
In cooperation with Ústav pamäti národa (Institute of National Memory) in Bratislava, and the Consulate General of the Slovak Republic in New York.

This excellent documentary film confronts and exposes the experiences of the last surviving Slovak slave laborers who, despite all odds, miraculously survived the Stalinist labor camps. The film follows their cruel fate from their arrest until their release and return, when constantly surrounded by hostilities and death under dehumanizing conditions in the harsh, unforgiving natural environment.
In Slovak with English subtitles.

Peter Breiner: Circles and Encounters

Wednesday, September 11 at 6:30pm

Peter Breiners rumination about his numerous roles as a renowned conductor, composer, arranger and pianist, in combination with a soccer player and food connoisseur.
The audience will learn about his special project SLOVAK DANCES, a 90-minute long symphonic composition based on Slovak folk music accompanied by unique video and interactive features.

http://www.slovakdances.com

OPERA SLAVICA

A Special Pan-Slavic Recital
In cooperation with the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences NY

FRIDAY, JUNE 28 at 7:30pm
Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 Str, 3rd Floor
(between 1st and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan)

The program will present selections of love’s trials and tribulations in the works by well and lesser known Slavic composers. Sung by an international cast of Opera Slavica alumni, current students and guests in original languages including Czech, Bulgarian, Croatian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, Russian and Ukrainian!
Followed by a discussion with the performers about the challenges of singing in Slavic languages.

A wine reception with Q&A.

Opera Slavica is widely regarded as New York’s preeminent training program in Slavic languages and repertoire offering young singers legitimate performance opportunities, practical, hands-on training in theatrical diction, role development, stagecraft and audition, preparation and exposure to high-level agents. The seven-week summer program culminates in a opera festival being held in New York City during the last week of August.

“Landscape Revisited” photography by EVA HEYD

OPENING Tuesday, October 16 at 6:30pm

The artist has chosen and designed Landscape Revisited exhibit specifically for the space at the Bohemian National Hall. She was inspired by the correlation between the landscape in certain parts of the North American Eastern coast and the Czech landscape in Central and Southwestern Bohemia. Heyd began working on this project following her return to the Czech Republic from the USA where she had lived for twenty years. www.evaheyd.com

Download the flyer

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS

The Melting Pot of Eastern Slovakia: Slovaks and Rusyns

A presentation by John Righetti
In cooperation with Carpatho-Rusyn Society New York Chapter

Saturday, May 19th
at 5:00 PM
RSVP: newyork@svu2000.org

For centuries, Slovaks and Carpatho-Rusyns have lived alongside one another in the Central Carpathians, causing many to not be able to clearly define these groups
culturally. What do they have in common –and what makes them culturally distinct?
Enjoy a fascinating journey into the two ethnic group’s history, language, food, dance and their identities.

John Righetti is the national president of the Carpatho-Rusyn Society, North America’s largest Rusyn cultural organization.  He has studied Carpatho-Rusyn history and culture extensively in both the United States and Europe and has served in numerous leadership roles in the international Carpatho-Rusyn community, including recently as North American representative to the World Council of Rusyns.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS

LECTURE SERIES on Nationalism in the Lands of the Habsburg Monarchy: The Challenge to Jewish Identity 1

Presented by Society for History of Czechoslovak Jews

Thursday, FEBRUARY 10, 2011 at 7.00 pm – Lecture 1

Hillel Kieval“Imperial Embraces and Local Challenges:
The Politics of Jewish Identity in Bohemia, 1867-1914”

Hillel Kieval, Washington University in St. Louis
When Jan Neruda’s Pro strach židovský (For Fear of the Jews) appeared in book form in 1870, his publisher Eduard Grégr-in language that would be picked up over and again-referred ominously to the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia as “our fiercest enemies.” Were Jews the enemies of Czech nationalism? Did they champion German cultural and political hegemony in the Bohemian lands?  What role did Austrian imperial policies play in structuring Jewish identities? And how did Jews come to express their own sense of self over the course of the 19th and early 20th century?

Taking up themes first addressed in The Making of Czech Jewry, Hillel Kieval revisits the position of Jews in the Czech and German national conflict, their identification with Austria and the Habsburg dynasty, and their changing attitudes toward the question of national belonging.

Hillel Kieval is the Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought at Washington University in St. Louis and is the author of Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands (University of California Press, 2000) and of The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870-1918 (Oxford University Press,1988).

The event takes place at Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY.