Against Everything: The Brothers Topol and the Second Generation of Dissent đź—“

A TALK BY DANIEL W. PRATT, PhD, McGill University

November 16, 2023
Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan

Photo

This talk discusses two prominent figures of the Czech 1980s generation, brothers Jáchym and Filip Topol. Filip was the lead singer of Psí vojáci (Dog Soldiers), a legendary band that played its first concert for Havel himself. Jáchym became a popular author of stories and unconventional novels. He was also an editor of Revolver Revue, an underground periodical. His apartment was the site for numerous dissident happenings. Although both brothers became dissidents, and both signed Charter 77, they rejected the notion of a pre-political self and projected an almost nihilistic stance against everything.

VIDEO RECORDING on YOUTUBE.

When scholars discuss the story of dissent in Czechoslovakia, the conversation usually hovers around the usual suspects: Václav Havel, Ivan Klíma, Jaroslav Seifert, The Plastics, Ivan Martin Jirous, and Egon Bondy. This group, along with the great filmmakers of the Czech New Wave, all born between roughly 1930 and 1950, still constitute the basis of most discussions of Czech culture under Socialism. To a certain degree, their innovations, cultural value, and international appeal justify their position. What has received a great deal less scholarly attention, however, is the generation that came next, that had never known the relative freedom of the “Prague Spring” and grew up in the fallout of Charter 77. That generation, as exemplified by the Brothers Topol, and also including Vít Kremli?ka, Petr Placák, Anna Wágnerová, Jirí Hášek (JH Krchovský), and others, worked with different values, trying to position themselves not only against the Communist government but also against the previous generation of dissent.

Daniel W. Pratt is Assistant Professor of Slavic Culture at McGill University. He works on Czech, Polish, Russian, Austrian, and Hungarian literature and culture, and his interests include narratology, dissent, nationality studies, aesthetics, and the intersection of literature and philosophy. His current book projects are Against Narrative: Non-narrative Constructions of Temporality in Central Europe and Bruno Jasie?ski, Internationalist, and he has written on Czechoslovak dissident punk rock, Gombrowicz’s interactions with Gilles Delleuze, and the meaning of history in Central Europe, amongst other topics. For the Fall semester of 2023, he is the István Deák Visiting Assistant Professor of East Central European Studies at Columbia University

Citizen Sis: From Maršov to Leopoldov via Bulgaria 🗓

Tuesday, November 5, 2019 at 7 pm
Bohemian National Hall, cinema
321 E 73 St, New York City

FILM + DISCUSSION
Screening of a 2019 documentary film about a Czech journalist and a hero of Bulgaria, VladimĂ­r SĂ­s (1889-1958)

Flyer

Vladimír Sís was a Czech patriot, journalist, and writer. At age 23, he sent his reports from the frontline of the Balkan War (1912-1913) as a correspondent for the Národní Listy newspaper in Prague. He became an important voice for the Czech national independence movement and the Bulgarian cause.Persecuted by the Austro-Hungarian regime, arrested by the Nazis, he was killed in the Leopoldov prison during the 1950’s communist purges in Czechoslovakia. In 1998, he was posthumously awarded the Order of T. G. Masaryk by president Václav Havel.

The film explores the European and the Czech history of the first half of the 20th century: The Balkan Wars from 1912-13, the T.G.Masaryk’s “MAFFIE” organization (1914), the World Wars, First and Second Czech Resistance – as Vladimír Sís participated directly and actively in all those events. The film was shot in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Balkans and features Bulgarian and Czech researchers and close relatives of Vladimír Sís.

Gospodin Nedelchev, PhD, is an award-winning Bulgarian film director, artist, animator, and screenwriter of more than forty animated and documentary films. As an Associate Professor, he teaches Animation Directing at the National Academy for Theater and Film Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria, and is a member of the Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers and the Union of Bulgarian Journalists.

A light reception and continued discussion followed the screening and Q&A with Mr. Gospodin Nedelchev. Stand by for video on our SVU NY You Tube Channel.

PHOTOS

Organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, and the Bulgarian History Club in New York.

The Role of Arts and Culture in the Masaryk Family

promoAn illustrated talk by Charlotta Kotik

Wednesday, March 22, 2017 at 7pm
Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 St, New York City
RSVP

Ms. Kotik is the great -granddaughter of T. G. Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia (1918-1937) and his Brooklyn-born wife Charlotta Garrigue. Her presentation demonstrated the role of humanities in her family sharing roots in both European and American cultural traditions.

Charlotta Kotik is an independent curator living in Brooklyn. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts, NYC, and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. As a former Head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, she initiated new programs, such as the Grand Lobby Projects and Working in Brooklyn series to document the energy of the nascent Brooklyn art scene. She is a board member of the Jindrich Chalupecky Award, an important recognition of young visual artists in the Czech Republic.

She is also a member of the national Executive Board of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). Her latest curatorial project Politicizing Space is on display until March 31, 2017 at Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY in Manhattan. http://shivagallery.org/

For photos from the event please visit our Face Book Album