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ZOOM TALK 19.05.25: The Runciman Mission & the Race to Save Europe in 1938
The British Czech & Slovak Association Jointly with The Friends of Czech Heritage ON ZOOM from 18.30 - 19.30 on Monday 19th May 2025
As Europe faces yet another major crisis only 80 years after World War Two and confronts the threat of war while latter-day dictators set the terms of peace in Ukraine, it is timely to revisit the role and aim of the Runciman Mission in August 1938.
The context then was Hitler’s geo-political ambition, and Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy to gain ‘peace in our time’. The 1938 Munich Agreement ceded Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region to Hitler - ‘O nás bez nás’ [‘About us, without us’], nevertheless, within months Germany invaded rump Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939. Must history repeat itself?
Dr Ann Shukman, granddaughter of Walter Runciman, will answer questions received in advance regarding the Mission and her book, 44 Days in Prague: The Runciman Mission and the Race to Save Europe, published by Hurst & Co. UK, in 2024. She will be accompanied by her daughter, Clare Ramos, and her son David Shukman.
Dr Shukman graduated in Modern Languages from Cambridge and gained a doctorate in Russian literary theory from Oxford. Her lifelong interests have been Russia and the Christian church. She was one of the first women ordained in the Church of England, in 1994
This event is free to members and supporters of The Friends of Czech Heritage. Please register by sending a message to and we will send you the Zoom link in due course. BCSA members may participate free, please register here.
Non-members please register and pay £10/ student £5 plus Eventbrite fee to the BCSA here.
Image courtesy of www.hurstpublishers.com
