Rosie Johnston

Forget the Blue Danube, it’s the greeny-brown Vltava which is the watery muse of artists and musicians in this part of the world. The Vltava is the Czech Republic’s…

‘English is attacking Czech from all sides’ one newspaper columnist recently despaired, while others talk of Czech’s ‘battle for survival’ in a world in which ever more…

It has taken more than 200 years for Jakub Jan Ryba’s Czech Christmas Mass to come to Chicago, but it seems that good things come to those who wait. The Ryba Mass was…

A Czech architectural landmark has provided the backdrop, and indeed central theme, for a book which has been creating a stir in the literary world. The Glass Room by…

Stanley ‘Robotman’ Povoda is the father of Czech robotics. After over half a century of bringing people’s old colanders, chandeliers and vacuum cleaners to life, Stanley…

Hrabal’s book "I served the King of England" makes working in a restaurant sound very dramatic, and very glamorous. But the novel also suggests that such drama and glamour…

It is a very crisp autumn day here in South Bohemia. And I’m slowly trundling towards Slavonice, which is in the very far south of this country, right on the Austrian…

As one art critic once said, the paintings of Josef Lada accompany Czechs from cradle to grave. He is as well known for his illustrations of fairy tales and children’s…

Jiří Jírů developed a love for photography from his uncle, the avant-garde Czech photographer Václav Jírů, before studying the discipline in Brussels and working for US…

Lída Baarová was one of the most famous and successful Czech actresses to have ever lived. Her career spanned over 70 years, in the course of which she starred in a whole…