From Čapek to the Present: 100 Years of the Czechoslovak PEN Club

Karel Čapek founded the PEN Club with the intention of protecting freedom of speech and the press, becoming its chairman. He was succeeded by figures such as Ivan Klíma, Jiří Stránský, and the current chairman, Ondřej Vaculík.

On 15 February 1925, 38 Czech writers met at the Louvre café in Prague, and Karel Čapek shared information about the PEN Club in England with them.

Karel Čapek|Photo: archive of Czech Radio

It was the English PEN, founded four years earlier as a reaction to the carnage of the First World War, that became a model for other branches around the world. The first members of PEN were mainly friends of Čapek, such as František Langer, Karel Scheinpflug, and his brother Josef. However, the group also included writers of Catholic orientation, such as Jaroslav Durych, and later, especially in the 1930s, members of the left-wing avant-garde, such as Adolf Hoffmeister, Vítězslav Nezval, and Jaroslav Seifert.

PEN Club Presidents Marie Majerová, Arnošt Vaněček, Vítězslav Nezval, Adolf Hoffmeister|Photo: Václav Richter, Radio Prague International

The pen against the war

During its century-long existence, the PEN Club has witnessed and participated in many important historical events. During the Second World War, it provided support to persecuted writers and intellectuals facing the Nazi regime. During the Cold War, it became a voice for authors' rights in countries under Communist rule and made important contributions to the struggle against oppression.

From the exhibition on the history of the Czech PEN Club|Photo: České centrum Mezinárodního PEN klubu

Present and future

Today, the PEN Club has more than 140 centres in 100 countries around the world and continues to actively promote literature and freedom of expression. It holds annual congresses in different cities around the world to review the previous year's achievements and elects a president and committee every three years.

Jiří Gruša|Photo: Harold, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

In September 2003, the Czech writer Jiří Gruša was elected President of the World PEN Club at the Congress in Norway and was re-elected for another term at the World Congress in Berlin in 2006.

The organisation organizes literary festivals, conferences, and workshops where writers from all over the world can meet and share their experiences and ideas. In addition, the PEN Club actively monitors human rights violations and provides legal and financial assistance to threatened authors.

Ondřej Vaculík|Photo: Tomáš Vodňanský, Czech Radio

The Czech PEN Club brings together leading writers, poets, literary researchers, translators, and publishers. With 180 members, seventeen of whom live permanently abroad, the Czech PEN Club is currently facing difficult times due to a lack of funding. “We do everything ourselves on a voluntary basis,” says the new chairman, Ondřej Vaculík.