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In this week's edition: the winner of Radio Prague's October competition; compulsory primary education in the Czech Republic; the first electric railway in the country; the female child sex ratio in the Czech Republic. Listeners quoted: David Eldridge, England; Rabi Sankar Bosu, India; Masashi Sugiya, Japan.
But first of all, let's hear some of the questions and comments that our listeners from all over the world have sent in to Radio Prague.
Our regular listener, Mr David Eldridge from England sent us this email concerning Radio Prague's special programme, broadcast on the 28th of October, to commemorate the 86th anniversary of the announcement of independent Czechoslovakia.
"I appreciated your Czechoslovak Independence Day discussion programme. I found it informative, interesting and well produced. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and it whetted my appetite for investigating further many of the topics it covered. Thank you."
Thank you, Mr Eldridge, for those words of praise. Just a reminder: those of you who might have missed the half-hour special, produced and presented by Radio Prague's Martin Mikule, can find it both in sound and text on our website, www.radio.cz/english.
From the other side of the globe, Mr Rabi Sankar Bosu from West Bengal, India, has sent us three questions all at once, concerning various aspects of life in the Czech Republic.
"Till which level is primary education obligatory in the Czech Republic? When was the electric rail system introduced in the Czech Republic? And what is the female child sex ratio in the Czech Republic?"
In the Czech Republic children start school at six years of age. In 1995 the length of compulsory primary education was increased by one year, to nine years. But children can leave primary schools earlier and start secondary education at 12 or at 14.
The answer to the second question is: The first electric railway in what is now the Czech Republic was opened in 1903.
But now it's time to reveal the correct answer to our competition question for October and also announce the winner. The question was:
"The name of one traditional Czech dance is in fact a contradiction. The name suggests that the dance comes from another Central European country. Which dance is it?"
Well, it is not the beseda, nor the mazurka as some of you guessed. The beseda is a Czech dance, but mazurka comes from Poland and both were very popular in this country, particularly in the 19th century. Another guess was the polonaise. That is closer to the correct answer in terms of the meaning of the word but the polonaise, meaning "Polish", is not a Czech dance.
But most of the answers you sent us were correct and from your letters and emails we drew the one from Masashi Sugiya from Japan who answered correctly that the dance in question is the polka.
"I looked up the answer in an encyclopaedia. The polka is a type of dance and genre of dance music; it originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia, and is still a common genre of Czech folk music; it is also common both in Europe and in the Americas. In classical music, many polkas were composed by both Johann Strauss I and his son Johann Strauss II; a couple of well-known ones were composed by Bedrich Smetana."
So congratulations, Mr Sugiya and we're sending a CD of Czech polkas your way. Let me just add that "Polka" in Czech means a Polish woman. The dance which originated in the 1830s was called so as a tribute to the fellow Slavs, the Poles who rose against Russian rule in 1830 but the uprising was defeated. The polka was first danced in Prague in 1931 and soon spread to the rest of the world.
And that brings us to the question for the month of November, the 11th in a series of questions about Czech music. And why not stay with the polka.
"One of the most famous polkas, a big hit during the Second World War, which is to this day played and sung in many countries of the world under different names, was composed by a Czech. We'd like to know the name of the composer and the name of the famous polka in whichever language you prefer."
You have the whole of November to send your answers to Radio Prague, English Section, 12099 Prague, Czech Republic, or much quicker by e-mail at [email protected]
