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The Friends of Czech Heritage: keeping you informed about our activities

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For events and news from other organisations please click here, where we feature a broad range of Czech-related items on Facebook, regularly updated.

ZOOM LECTURE 04/03/2021 at 6pm: Great Houses of Bohemia and Moravia by Barbara Peacock

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An online lecture by Barbara Peacock, one of the founders of The Friends of Czech Heritage, was held on Thursday 4th March 2021. The Czech lands have a magnificent architectural legacy with one of the densest concentrations of great houses in Europe. This talk explored the development of the great house (zámek) from late mediaeval times through the...

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LECTURE 17/02/2021 : East goes East - John East on 20th-century buildings in the Czech lands

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John East of the 20th Century Society gave a fascinating talk about buildings constructed in the Czech and Slovak lands during the 20th century. The wealth of modern buildings dating from the 1920s and 30s in particular, was a revelation and demonstrated the confidence of the young Czechoslovak state as it developed its new identity. Though this pe...

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Lecture: 'From the village to the city: urbanisation in Slovakia, 1896-1972' by Dr. Lorman on 4th February 2020 in the Embassy of the Czech Republic

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FROM THE VILLAGE TO THE CITY : URBANISATION IN SLOVAKIA   On 4th February 2020 Dr. Thomas Lorman of the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies gave a very interesting talk to The Friends on the historical process of urbanisation in Slovakia. Photograph from left to right: Peter Jamieson, Chairman FOCH; Dr. Thomas Lorman, Central Euro...

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WORKING PARTIES OF 2019

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The Friends held two very productive working parties at Červený Dvůr in South Bohemia at the end of May and beginning of June. The numbers were small but sometimes this can be an advantage, especially when doing semi-skilled tasks, as we were. The project was centred around the reconstruction of the two gatehouses, which formerly guarded the main c...

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19.06.19 THE FRIENDS' VISIT TO WINCHESTER

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The first stop was the Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty, where we first viewed the Chapel with its remarkably intact Norman architecture. After coffee sitting outside the Hundred Men’s Hall the group enjoyed a tour of the Great Hall of the Hospital led by Barbara Peacock, one of the founders of The Friends. Lunch was at The Bell ...

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Lecture 04.02.20 'From the village to the city: urbanisation in Slovakia 1896-1972'

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In his talk, Dr Lorman explored how Slovak culture was initially characterised by its rural quality and alienation from the beginnings of mass industrialisation and urbanisation in Hungary (exemplified by the 1896 millennial celebrations in Budapest). He examined how Slovak national identity was then substantially (but not entirely) transformed by ...

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Lecture 05.11.19 'Emperor Rudolf II Collector & Patron of the Arts & Sciences'

Heintz Rudolph II

Under Rudolf II Prague again became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Following the example of his Habsburg ancestors, he assembled an exceptional collection of works of art for which the imperial palace on the Hradčany was adapted. He patronised painters, sculptors, goldsmiths who flocked to Prague, and also men of learning including Tycho Bra...

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Lecture 14.05.19 'The Royal Collection in Three Dimensions: Adventures of a Sculpture Cataloguer'

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Sir Jonathan Marsden gave a talk at the Embassy of the Czech Republic on Tuesday 14th May 2019, entertaining the guests with stories from behind  the scenes of the Royal Sculpture Collection.  He presented some of the lessons learned from working on a catalogue raisonné of European sculpture in the Royal Collection to be published by...

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Britain and Bohemia in the Fifteenth Century: The English Struggle Against the Hussite Movement

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FRIENDS' LECTURE: BRITAIN AND BOHEMIA IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY On 5th March 2019 Dr. Mark Whelan, an historian of late medieval and early modern Germany and Central Europe who is currently working at King’s College, London, gave a lecture explaining how and why the English kings and senior clerics became involved in the early-fifteenth-century stru...

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The Friends' working party at Vizovice in Moravia, September 2018

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The project that we undertook at the Château of Vizovice in the week 8 - 15 September consisted of taking down an unstable brick boundary wall in the park, which had been rebuilt before the Velvet Revolution. It was set on a stone base, which had also collapsed in places. We cleaned all the bricks ready for reuse and rebuilt sections of the stone b...

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