Promotion of Czech culture overseas rewarded at Gratias Agit ceremony

A brass band opens the Gratias Agit award ceremony in Prague's Černínský palác on Friday. The ceremony itself, and the party that follows, are in the words of Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg the single biggest event staged by the Czech Foreign Ministry each year. On Friday, the awards were given to a handful of exceptional individuals from around the world, a few of whom we'll be talking to later. But first, here's organiser Zuzana Opletalová explaining what the awards are about:

“The Gratias Agit is awarded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic to people or non-governmental organisations that promote the Czech Republic abroad. Since 1997, it has been awarded to 162 people and non-governmental organisations. The sort of individuals who have been awarded are often artists, translators and scientists.”

Fourteen individuals picked up an award at Friday's ceremony, and several organisations were also represented at the event. A town hall from the Flemish part of Belgium was awarded for the way it honours Czech soldiers killed in WWII, while the Washington chapter of the Society of Arts and Sciences was decorated for its enduring promotion of Czech culture in the States. A Czech-Canadian theater troupe was also handed a prize. Jiří Adler was there to pick it up on behalf of his organisation:

“It’s The Theatre Around the Corner, in Czech it sounds a bit more interesting, it’s Divadlo Za rohem, but the literal translation would be ‘The Theatre Around the Corner’. How it came about, I really don’t know, but it happened and we kind of like it. You know, it is almost a Czech tradition to have a pub around the corner – so we have a theatre around the corner.”

What has your role been in the development of this theatre?

“Well, I’ve been with the theatre for around 20 years almost. My colleague who actually accepted the prize with me is one of the founders of the theatre. But my role – well it is as with any amateur or non-professional organization - I think I have done everything, including writing, producing, stage-management and, unfortunately for people, acting as well. So, we’ve done it all, and that is kind of part of it.”

One of the oldest people to receive an award at Friday's ceremony was Paul Rausnitz. Now in his eighties, Mr Rausnitz still runs a business manufacturing high-quality glass for machines. He has been living back in the Czech Republic for the last ten years, but in the course of his life, has been forced to emigrate on several occasions. The first time his family left Czech territory was following the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938:

Paul Rausnitz, photo: CTK

“We were caught by the Germans on the border. I was 11 years old, we were all put in prison, in Ostrava, for a short period of time. We were thrown out by the Germans into Poland, which was very lucky. We were waiting there for our visas to go to America when the war broke out – when Hitler invaded Poland. There were 1,000 Czech refugees in Poland, and we ran by foot for three weeks away from the Germans, to the Eastern part of Poland, hoping to reach Romania. But when we got close to the border, Poland was divided between Russia and Germany. And we were luckily in the part that the Russians occupied. My father was a physician, they gave him a job, and we stayed for two years in the occupied part of Poland. In 1941, the war broke out again, and we said ‘under no circumstances will we fall into the hands of the Germans’. So we ran away again, and ended up in Turkmenistan.”

And it is here that you became part of the Czech legion of the Red Army?

“Not of the Red Army, of the Czechoslovakian Army in Russia.”

But you were still very young, so were you actually fighting on the front line?

“Yes, at 14 years old, I was the youngest. I had a 17-year-old brother, and another who was 20, and together with my parents, we all joined the army. My brother was wounded on the Russian front. He fought with the Czech army against the Germans, we came back to Czechoslovakia in 1945, on May 7 I think the war was over, we were back on May 10 in Prague. We went back to our town in Jablonec. And since we had been in Russia, we knew that Czechoslovakia would not be a free country. We left before the trouble started. This time, we said, we would leave on time. We came to the United States, the whole family, and I came back here in 1998-1999, and now I have a business here.”

Sir Frank Lampl, like Paul Rausnitz, is an award-winner with an Anglo-Saxon connection. He left what was then Czechoslovakia for Britain in 1968. Mr Lampl started out as a general foreman in London before working his way up to the top of one of the biggest building firms in the world - Bovis Construction Group. As the name would suggest, the Gratias Agit is not the first award that Sir Frank has received. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his contribution to construction in the UK. He compares the two awards:

“Oh, the Buckingham Palace knighthood was probably the greatest event in my whole life – I wouldn’t compare anything to it. But I am still honoured and delighted. In Czech, there is a saying ‘nobody is a prophet at home’, that you have to go abroad in order to be recognized. And now I am a prophet at home.”

When I was younger, I always dreamed about meeting the queen, can you tell me what that was like and what she said to you? And what was it like to meet Mr Schwarzenberg and what did he say to you?

“At the knighting ceremony, I remember she was just back from Australia, and we have a company in Australia, and that is what either she asked me about or what I talked about. But either way she has to speak first, the habit is you don’t speak unless you are spoken to, but when you are knighted you are spoken to.”

“Mr Schwarzenberg said that if I want to use the big glass ball he gave me in a useful manner I can throw it at someone’s head. And I said that I wouldn’t do that because I would run the risk of that person throwing it back at me. Mr Schwarzenberg has a terrific sense of humour. And I was pleased actually to get it from him while he was Foreign Minister.”

What does it mean to you to receive this award here, back in the Czech Republic? Because it sounds like when you lived here you had a pretty horrible time.

Photo: CTK

“Well, I have a lot of bad memories from my stay on the continent, shall we say. And I deliberately put them aside. And I hope that they don’t affect me, I would hate to think that they affect me. It would be a victory for those who were very unjust, and quite despicable, actually.

“But obviously I grew up here in the country. I have lots of friends here, and I have a great respect for this nation. It is a nation which suffered historically an awful, awful lot. It is a very industrious and intelligent nation, with very deep and high-quality values. There are really values here, maybe in a small group of people, which I admire very much. And I feel at home here. I feel at home here, and I feel at home in England.”

Sir Frank Lampl was one of the few entrepreneurs to be recognized at Friday’s Gratias Agit ceremony, honoring those flying a banner for the Czech Republic abroad. Other recipients included translators, Czech scholars, politicians and diplomats.