Mailbox
Today in Mailbox: the number of letters and e-mails received by Radio Prague last year, the largest football stadium in the Czech Republic, the country’s “national” river, piano music played at the close of last Wednesday’s broadcast. Listeners quoted: Taslim Uddin, Rassem ben Brahim, Muhammad Shamim, David.
This is Mailbox, Radio Prague’s weekly programme for your views, comments and questions. And here’s a first question, from Taslim Uddin from Bangladesh who would like to know:
“How many letters and e-mails did your radio station receive last year?”
In 2008, the English section received 7,206 letters and e-mails, that’s including the reception reports sent straight from our website. Overall, all six Radio Prague’s foreign language sections received close to 21,000 letters and e-mails in 2008. With an audience so varied and scattered around the globe, we rely on your direct feedback to be able to improve our broadcasts both in terms of content and technical quality. So thank you for all your e-mails, letters and reception reports; they are all very welcomed and appreciated.
Rassem ben Brahim from Tunisia has a question concerning sporting life in the Czech Republic:
“Which football stadium in your country has the largest capacity?”
The Czech Republic still sorely misses a national football stadium and debates have been going on for many years as to whether and where to build one. At the moment, the largest football stadium is Za Lužánkami in the country’s second city Brno. It was built in the early 1950s and its capacity was increased to 50,000 in the 1970s. However, the last match played there took place in 2001 and the stadium is now closed and awaiting renovation. The country’s second largest stadium is the Všesportovní or “all-sports” Stadium in Hradec Králové with 25,000 seats, and the third one is the new Slavia Prague stadium with 21,000 seats.
“Which is the national river of the Czech Republic?”
I suppose we can say the Vltava, running through the capital Prague, can be described as the Czech national river. Its character is beautifully captured in Bedřich Smetana’s symphonic poem of the same name. The Elbe, which runs through some of the most fertile areas of Bohemia, is also very important. In Moravia, it is the river Morava, bearing the same name as the land and running all the way from the north to the south that plays the role of both a life-giving source and a patriotic symbol.
And having mentioned the 19th-century Czech composer Bedřich Smetana – his music caught the ear of our listener David from Canada who tunes in to Radio Prague in the wee hours of the morning:
“This morning at the close of your program (re-broadcast here in Canada at 3:00 am – 3:30 am) was some beautiful solo piano music. I was unable to make note of who was playing, the title of the piece, its composer and CD title. I would very much like to find this out, if you could forward the information to me. I also enjoyed the story about the school in the Himalayas – remarkable!”
The piece you heard was Louisa’s Polka by Bedřich Smetana. Smetana wrote it around 1840 at the age of just seventeen for his distant cousin Luisa from the east Bohemian town of Nové Město nad Metují whom he fancied at the time.
That’s all we have time for today, but let me first repeat our listeners’ competition question:
In March we are looking for the name of the Austrian philosopher who was born in 1859 in the Moravian town of Prostějov and died in 1938 in the German city of Freiburg. He is known as the founder of phenomenology.
Please, send us your answers by the end of March to [email protected] or Radio Prague, 12099, Prague. There will be small gifts for four of you who answer correctly. Until next week, take care.
