Foreign minister presents 2023 Gratias Agit awards to leading personalities

Eight personalities and one organization received the 2023 Gratias Agit award for promoting the good name of the Czech Republic abroad at Černín Palace in Prague on Thursday. The awards, presented by Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský went to personalities who have made their mark in the fields of science, literature, art and culture and non-governmental aid organizations.

Among this year’s laureates are writer and Holocaust survivor Eva Erbenová, London-based pediatric cardiologist Jan Marek from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, Sabine Gruša, founder of the association “German Friends and Supporters of the Olga Havel Foundation” and Jana Sommerlad, a translator and editor active in The Friends of Czech Heritage, a British volunteer organisation that provides funds and volunteers to repair historic sites in the Czech Republic.

The Gratias Agit awards have been running since 1997. Past laureates include such big names as playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, film director Miloš Forman and architect Eva Jiřičná.

The 2023 Gratias Agit awards have a new design in the form of a glass prism symbolizing a seal. The authors of the artwork are designers Klára Janypková and Tomáš Kučera.