Successful final seminar in Prague

Published on 6 April 2016

The final seminars are one of the main outputs of our project. Here, we can actively present the results of our efforts and our work on the set goals and, at the same time, discuss these findings with the professional public. From this perspective, we can say that the final seminar held on 31 March 2016 in Prague was successful in both respects.

We were honoured to have our seminar opened with the introduction by the representative of the Norwegian Embassy in Prague, Mr. Frank Arne Johanese, who among other things in his introductory speech appreciated our website in terms of its content and its inclusion of interesting information. Afterwards came the speech by Mgr. Tomáš Foltýn, the expert guarantor of the project and host of the whole event, who presented a brief introduction to the project and its content, its goals and the commentary on its current activities in the media. He did not forget to thank all the staff of the Czech Ministries of Finance and Culture, who were very helpful to us for the duration of the project. Last, but not least, our colleagues from the Norwegian organization Stiftelsen Arkivet were welcomed, and we expressed our great thanks to them for their cooperation in the project.

After this initial introduction came a series of lectures divided into thematic blocks. After every two contributions there was a discussion in which participants of the seminars took part. The morning programme featured Petra Večeřová, Ph.D., and her presentation on Czechoslovakian librarianship between 1939 and 1959. After that followed a block dedicated to censorship in literature, in which Petr Samal, Ph.D., presented his contribution about censorship in Czech libraries after 1945. The Norwegian researcher Kristian Aurebekk Andersen, cand.philol., concluded this block with his presentation about the censorship of literature in national socialist Norway.

After the lunch break came a presentation by Dr. Anette Storeide, Associate Professor, about the Nazification of Norwegian cultural policy and the work of the Norwegian writer Frithjof Saelena. Kristina Uhlíková, Ph.D., introduced to seminar participants the activities of the National Cultural Commission for the Administration of National Cultural Property (1947 – 1951). In the last block of the final seminar, Prof. Jan Kuklík, the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague, talked about the legal aspects of the management of books as cultural heritage. The series of lectures was concluded with the contribution of Mgr. Marcela Strouhalová, the project's historian, about her historical and archival research, in which she concentrated on the bodies responsible for the confiscation of books, the role of the National and University Library and other sources of the National Library’s reserve fonds.

At the end of the seminar Mgr. Tomáš Foltýn spoke again, adding what remains for us to do in the project and thanking all the speakers and participants of the seminar for the time well spent; and he invited all the guests to the opening of the exhibition Books discovered once again in the Clementinum, which took place late in the afternoon of the same day.

Photographs: Nina Seyčková, Jana Rumanová, Anna Vandasová