Josef Kroutvor: The Prague Café Keeper

Dalimil Klapka reads from a book by essayist and art historian Josef Kroutvor. Kroutvor's wanderings through history do not focus only on the space of cafés themselves, but it is through them and the society that sits in them that cultural, social and political changes are accentuated. This offers a unique insight into the birth of revolutions, new artistic movements and philosophical ideas. We will return to Prague in the second half of the 19th century from the perspective of Karel Hynek Mácha or Josef Bojislav Pichel. Our route will lead to the city centre and for example the Union Café. Prague's cafés also provided a space for the emergence of poetism and the artistic group Děvětsil, and became a refuge for Franz Kafka, for example. In the 1920s, women were also offered the opportunity to emancipate themselves and to start visiting places full of discussions, disputes and cultural events on their own. Listeners will also be treated to the surrealistic and café-like 1930s, bridging the Protectorate, the Second World War and the beginnings of the communist regime. And we will also capture November 1989, which opened the door to long-suppressed Western influences, and see how quickly and fundamentally they manifested themselves in the coffee-serving areas.