Foreign Ministry honours ten personalities and two associations with prestigious Gratias Agit Awards
The Foreign Ministry has handed out its annual Gratias Agit Awards to Czech expats and foreigners for promoting the good name of the Czech Republic abroad. Among this year’s recipients were ten personalities and two organizations, including a folklore association founded more than a century ago.
The Gratias Agit Awards for 2024 were handed out by Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský on Thursday at a ceremony traditionally held in the Great Hall of Czernin Palace, the seat of the Foreign Ministry. They went to personalities and organisations who have made their mark in the fields of science, literature, art and culture.
Among this year’s Czech-born recipients was Jana Fischerová, University lecturer, promoter of Czech language, culture and history in Ireland. Mrs. Fischerová moved to Ireland in 2002 to pursue doctoral studies at University College Dublin and has since organised a set of evening courses on Czech language and literature for university students and the general public as well as public workshops with Czech and Irish authors and translators. She has also been working for Czech School Dublin, currently the only existing compatriot association in Ireland.
Another recipient of this year’s Gratias Agit award was George Edward Scott, historian and writer, promoter of Czechoslovak veterans’ legacy. Born into the family of a Czechoslovak war veteran who was forced to emigrate to the United Kingdom after the communist coup in 1948, Mr. Scott became a key figure in the compatriot organisations preserving the legacy of Czechoslovak war veterans. His interest in history has made him one of the leading historians on the activities of Czechoslovak troops in England during World War II.
Another English-speaking recipient of the Gratias Agit Award is Michael Paul Seng, Professor of Constitutional Law and Comparative Law at John Marshall Law School, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Mr. Seng, whose mother was of Czech ancestry, established and directs the Czech/Slovak Legal Institute at UIC. He has long been arranging and promoting exchange programmes for Czech and U.S. students and scholars, and has been instrumental in developing relations with the legal community in Czechia.
Among other closely watched Gratias Agit recipients were the French political scientist and historian Jacques Rupnik specialising in Central and Eastern Europe, Czech opera singer Eva Urbanová and the first German co-chairman of the Czech-German Fund for the Future, Herbert Werner.
The Gratias Award also went to two institutions. One of them is Slovácký krúžek a Skaličané, a folklore association founded in Bratislava in 1922 by young graduates of Prague and Brno universities.
The other one is Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), one of the top universities for foreign and language studies in Japan, which is the only university in the country offering a degree in Czech language, culture, and history.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been handing out the Gratias Agit awards since 1997. Past laureates include such big names as the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, film director Miloš Forman and playwright Sir Tom Stoppard.
