History

Alfonso Modonesi and the tale of a trip to Czechoslovakia with Carlo Leidi at the beginning of Normalization “As soon as we passed the Czechoslovakian border, we thought we would find Russians everywhere, in the streets, in the offices, in the Prague buildings, but...

Built at the end of the 19th century, as one of the most advanced detention centres in Europe, it is still an important institution in the Czech Republic’s criminal justice system Named after the district that hosts it, Prague 4, Pankrác prison was built...

600 years ago The hill of Vítkov today provides a suggestive panorama of Prague and is particularly known for hosting one of the largest equestrian statues in the world, that of the Hussite leader Jan Žižka. It was here that on 14 July 1420...

The tragic and controversial parable of the President who decided to say yes to Hitler Emil Hácha is one of the most controversial and most tragic characters in the history of this country. Traitor or patriot? Looking back on the tragic parable that brought...

The castle of north-western Bohemia was included by the association Europa Nostra in the list of the seven most threatened monuments of the Old Continent Like a distant echo, you hear the creaking of bulldozers. And the horizon is a valley ravaged by machines,...

600 year ago Born on April 23 of the year 1420, George of Podĕbrady was king of Bohemia, and was responsible for the restructuring of Utraquism, which up until then had been shaken by internal struggles, and giving it its due political weight. He...

The criminal saga of Victor Lustig, the man who sold the Eiffel Tower Careful there, reader: the truth in this story is a shifting, chiaroscuro ground, with many-sided escapes in the thousands of identities of that who has spent his life deceiving others. Is...

A visit to the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, symbol of the Czechoslovak resistance against nazi invaders Unlike in several historical churches in Prague, the entry to the Orthodox cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius is free of charge: an invitation – or...

In 1967, Cardinal Beran flew to the Sardinian island to pray at the memorial, where lie the remains of his brother and thousands of Austro-Hungarian prisoners killed by cholera in 1915-1916 Asinara, the far north-western strip of Sardinia, unfolds from Cape Falcone, on the...

The Argentine revolutionary spent six months in Prague in 1966 without anyone noticing anything. Until one day Fidel Castro decided to make fun of the Czechoslovak services Prague, April 1966. At Café Slavia, or Kavárna Slavia, the historical coffeehouse in front of the National...