Foreign Ministry’s annual Gratias Agit awards to be handed out in overseas embassies due to COVID-19

This year’s Gratias Agit awards for furthering the good name of the Czech Republic will not be awarded in Prague’s Czernin Palace headquarters of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague as is customary. One exception was made for Margita Štěrbová, a mountaineer and humanitarian worker who lives in the Czech Republic.

This year’s winners are also US musician Joan Baez, Danish historian, Bohemist and translator Peter Bugge, Polsih publisher and the head of the Czechoslovak-Polish Solidarity organisation Julian Kazimierz Golak, the Czech language lecturer at Stanford University Jara Dusatko, Azerbaijani Biology Professor Guliyev Akif Alekper, ICCCI Chairman and Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic in Israel David Hercky, the founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre Tali Nates, France-based translator and interpreter Alena Slunéčková, French theatre director and producer Emmanuel de Véricourt, Norwegian writer and historianThorvald Steen and the Hungarian founder and Chairman of the Bohemian Friends Club Ottó Zachár.

In a video address, Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček thanked the recipients for their long-term efforts in furthering the good name of the Czech Republic. He said the Gratias Agit award is just a small token of appreciation for their great work.