Exhibition introduces Czech-Americans to Czechs in Prague
From September 25 to October 5, Prague hosted the Week of Czechs Living Abroad - a large event held every two years, bringing together Czechs living abroad to talk about their relations with the Czech Republic today. This year saw representatives of organisations and societies from over thirty-five countries flock to the Czech capital. According to foreign ministry estimates, there are currently some 2.5 million people living abroad around the world, who claim their Czech origin. Out of these about 1.7 million live in the United States. The ministry's International Coordination Committee of Czechs Living Abroad, which organised the event, therefore decided to hold an accompanying exhibition at the Prague city Museum called Czechs in America, focusing on the history of Czech-US relations. Dita Asiedu spoke to Ivan Dubovicky, the Secretary General of the International Coordination Committee of Czechs Living Abroad, to find out more:
And all of that is in the form of an exhibition. How does one do that instead of holding a seminar or discussion forum?
"Well, the main aim of the exhibition is to enlarge this knowledge among the wider Czech public and the younger generation, especially. Of course, through seminars you cannot approach such a wide audience as you can with this kind of an exhibition. We hope to organise a special seminar in the near future for school teachers, so that we can bring a large number of school and university students to the exhibition. The exhibition is also expected to travel abroad and this excuses the style, or rather the technical format, of the exhibition. We would like to have it first in the United States and then possibly in some other areas. So, the exhibition is basically aimed at attracting a larger and wider Czech audience and that is why we decided to pick up from that long history of mutual relations between the Czech lands and the United States to include at least some interesting and attractive points. The exhibition traces the history of our mutual relations, going back to the 16th century. It features the first Czech who visited America, the 1585 metallurgy expert, goes through history to the first permanently settled Czech on American soil, Augustin Herman, the activities of the Moravian Brethren, and so on. Main focus is on the nineteenth century social and economic migration or emigration from Bohemia and the Czech lands, and then, of course we show at least a few break-points of our mutual relations from the mid-war period, post WWII period, anti-Communist resistance, the assistance of the United States to the liberation of Czechoslovakia, and so on."
... a lot of history and a lot of relations. How long did it take to plan and organise the exhibition?
"The idea came to us just a couple of months before the exhibition was opened. We worked on the collection of materials for some seven or eight months and then a small team of us - the International Coordination Committee and the CH Expo company, which was very helpful and crucial in the technical organisation - put the exhibition together in about one or two months. But we received strong support from several institutions, not only in the Czech Republic. I would especially like to name the Naprstek Museum, the Osterreichische National Bibliothek [Austrian National Library], and the Ellis Island Museum in New York. We were also partly supported by the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and several other institutions."
How has the public reacted to the exhibition so far?
"Well, as far as I could hear the reaction has been very positive. There was some criticism on the technical attractiveness of the exhibition but as I already explained, the reason is that this is not a permanent exhibition which is aimed to stay at the museum for ever, but a travelling exhibition. So, we had to adapt the format of the exhibition to the fact that it will visit at least several places in the United States and probably even some other countries. But generally, we've had some very positive reaction because many people didn't know some of the issues or facts they can see here. We also did our best to make it attractive, not only to name some famous Czechs who lived in the United States but to show the main break-points in the history of Czech emigration and Czech-American relations."
So what, according to the public, is the most interesting part of the exhibition?
"It is difficult to say because you have different people attending the exhibition. The older generation mainly focuses on the exile period, meaning after the February 1948 anti-Communist resistance, while the younger generation is very much interested in the older history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But we managed to show some of the interesting issues or items that have never been exhibited here before. These include a copy of the very first view of New Amsterdam, which was done by the very first permanently settled Czech in the United States, Augustin Herman in 1650, or for example some of the names like Gerty Theresa Cory - no one knew in the Czech Republic that this first American who received the Nobel Price is in fact Prague born, from a Jewish intellectual family. She studied here. Probably even in the United States, people do not know that she is a Prague-born scholar who was the third woman ever to receive the Nobel Prize."
What about current relations, today's Czechs abroad? Are they featured in the exhibition?
"Yes, but there is not much space available. However, we wanted to cover at least a variety of topics including genealogy, cultural activities, and political and economic support of mutual relations. So, there is a mixture of materials that document not only the variety of organisations and clubs of Czechs in the United States but also the variety of their activities."
