News

Senate Speaker Miloš Vystrčil, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský and members of the Sokol organisation were among those who gathered on Monday to commemorate the end of the Second World War and the liberation of Czechoslovakia at the Red Army memorial at Prague’s Olšany Cemetery on Monday.

Ukraine was also represented. Namely by its chargé d'affaires to Czechia, Vitaliy Usaty, who noted that there are also many Ukrainian soldiers among the Red Army combatants who lay buried at the cemetery. He also likened the politics of contemporary Russia to fascism.

Both Mr Usaty and Mr Vystrčil also drew parallels with the contemporary situation to that faced by Europe during the Munich Agreement in 1938, which saw the continent’s great powers pressure Czechoslovakia to cede territory to Nazi Germany, stating that concessions must not be made to an aggressor again.

Foreign Minister Lipavský said that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is claiming the victory over Nazi Germany as its own and thus justifying its own aggressive imperial policies.

Acclaimed Czech mezzosopranist Soňa Červená has died at the age of 97, Czech Television reported on Monday citing representatives of the National Theatre in Prague.

Born in 1925, Červená dated the start of her career back to the times of the so-called interwar avant-garde Prague Free Theatre (Osvobozené divadlo) period, during which she performed alongside the famous dramatists Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich. She would go on to perform with famous actors such as the comic Vlasta Burian before becoming an opera singer in Brno and then performing at the National Theatre in Prague during the 1950s. Červená’s family was persecuted by both the Nazis and the Communists. She emigrated to Berlin in 1958 and would go on to work as a performer at the Berlin State Opera and the opera house in Frankfurt until the 1990s. She would also perform regularly in the United States.

Červená received Czechia’s prestigious Thalia Award in 2004 and performed at the National Theatre in Prague as late as 2010, when she was in her mid-80s.

The head of Czechia’s civilian counter-intelligence service BIS, Michal Koudelka, was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General on Monday by the country’s president Petr Pavel.

The promotion comes after multiple years of stalling by the previous president, Miloš Zeman, who refused to follow government recommendations to raise his rank no fewer than seven times. This despite General Koudelka being recognised for several successful operations and receiving the George Tenet award from the CIA.

Vesna, the Czech girl group representing Czechia at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, is one of the favourites to win according to both BBC News and the Spotify streaming platform.

My Sister’s Crown, the song with which Vesna will be competing at the semi-finals on Tuesday, is currently the 11th most popular song on Spotify when compared to others that will be featured at this year’s Eurovision, the Czech News Agency reported on Monday. Meanwhile, the BBC writes that Vesna has a chance to break into the top 10.

Thus far, the most successful Czech contestant at Eurovision was the singer Mikolas Josef, who ended sixth in 2018.