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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Praha church

Watch this interesting video by KLRU television, a public TV station in Texas that did a story of churches built by 19th century Czech immigrants to this rough but promising territory. These churches transport the visitor back to a different era, a different way of life. The story of these buildings is the story of a people striving to succeed in a new country and still preserve the values and culture of their homelands.
The video, by Tom Spencer, also describes how today’s Czech generations preserve their culture and are proud of their ancestors, heritage and faith. It is almost one hour long but it is worth of watching.

More information about the video can be found HERE.

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Sledujte toto zajímavé video připravené stanicí KLRU, veřejnou televizní stanicí v Texasu, o kostelech postavených v 19. století českýmí přistěhovalci v tomto drsném, ale slibném území. Tyto kostely povedou diváky zpět do jiné éry, jiného způsobu života. Příběhy těchto budov jsou příběh lidí snažích se uspět v nové zemi a přesto si zachovat hodnoty a kulturu jejich domoviny.
Video, od Toma Spencera, také popisuje, jak si dnešní české generace zachovávají jejich kulturu a jsou hrdí na své předky, kulturní dědictví a víru. Video je téměř jednu hodinu dlouhá, ale stojí za sledování.

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WATCH THE VIDEO HERE  

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Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

There is no denying the influence that Facebook has on the world and how we communicate, but the story that we first came across on Radio Praha really touched our hearts. Ladislava Schroderova didn’t know much about computers just a little over a year ago, but after hearing stories of families being reunited with loved ones on Facebook she set out on a mission to find her long lost son Jiri.

Ladislava was separated from her son in the 1980s when her estranged husband took custody of Jiri and defected to Austria. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Katerina Erlebachova, author of this story, is an expat living in Ireland. Even though the story is not related to the Czech culture, we believe it belongs on this site. It describes the world and people through the eyes of a Czech woman, who found inspiration while living abroad and meeting people that impact so many of us around the world.
We would like to thank you for the wonderful and inspirational story.

Liam´s present life

Living alone and independently in a small house in Galway, Liam regularly trains in the gym, does tai chi, goes swimming, and works with a large variety of therapeutic modalities. He flies regularly to London for chiropractic treatment. He is extremely disciplined in his diet which is mostly organic with a large percentage of those foods being raw and unprocessed. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Katerina Erlebachova, author of this story, is an expat living in Ireland. Even though the story is not related to the Czech culture, we believe it belongs on this site. It describes the world and people through the eyes of a Czech woman, who found inspiration while living abroad and meeting people that impact so many of us around the world.
We would like to thank you for the wonderful and inspirational story.

Three years ago I was slowly walking alone down an ancient street in Galway, a city in the West of Ireland. I had a mood that people in the Czech Republic call ’spleen’. A mood when the day feels grey and the mind wanders from nothing to nothing. My gaze drifted to the window of a health food shop and came across something inside that I couldn’t look away from. A very big guy leaning on crutches was laughing widely. I went inside for a moment to observe the situation. The man moved very slowly, then his body stopped shaking for a moment. I had to concentrate to hear what he was saying because his articulation was difficult to understand. When I realized what he was saying I was astonished. He was telling jokes, dallying with the salesgirls. I bought some healthy chocolate in the healthy shop. I went outside and ate it all up. It was irritating. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

This year’s month of March did not treat our community overly kindly. The row of friends to whom we said good bye this March is longer than other years. Quite a number of us gathered the last day of the month in Montreal to attend a somewhat different funeral: we lost a consulate. And this was not a run-of-the mill consulate. Which is not to suggest that the Czech Republic (and before that Czechoslovakia) ever had in Canada an unusually high number of consular establishments. But the Montreal consulate had much closer ties ties with the Czech (and even more Czechoslovak) history, than is usually the case.

What goes for the Montreal consulate, goes equally for the City of Montreal: it was in Montreal where in 1924 a group of immigrants from Czechoslovakia - mostly Slovaks - established Československý podpůrný spolek (Czechoslovak Mutual Benefit Society); it was in Montreal where in 1929 two newspapers commenced publication: Slovenské Bratrstvo (Slovak Brotherhood) and Kanadské noviny (Canadian Newspaper) - /the first Slovak newspaper in Canada, Slovenské slovo (Slovak Word), was published in Blairmore, Alberta in 1910/. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Cermak (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

1.
Q.: When did you emigrate to Canada and why? Was it entirely for political reasons? And why Canada?

A. I left Czechoslovakia (on my knees, secretly, “over the hillocks”) with my blacksmith friend Lada Dufek on October 28, 1949 (we were selfishly counting on the police raging in Prague). ‘Our’ ship, ‘U.S.A.T. Le Roy Eltinge’ arrived in Canada (in Halifax) on April 23, 1949. That ship wasn’t completely ‘ours’ but we Czechoslovaks formed a formidable group: 113 people. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Cermak (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

This remarkable story really began in 1921, when guided by J. J. R. MacLeod, Frederick G. Banting and Charles H. Best isolated from the pancreas the hormone later called insulin and discovered its use in treatment of diabetes. Collip, a visiting Canadian professor, purified insulin so that it could be given to diabetic patients. For this discovery Banting shared with MacLeod the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Banting died in 1941 in a plane crash while on route to England on a medical war mission. That year Best, who at that time served as associate director of the Connaught Laboratories (where a few years later - and this constitutes the first, very indirect connection suggested in the title of this article - Mikuska Perinova worked as a technician on the development of the Salk polio vaccine) was appointed director of the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research at the University of Toronto. There was depression in various members of the family and his omission in awarding the Nobel Prize may have later contributed to his severe depressions. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

The Government of the Czech Republic has decided to close down our 90 year old Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Montreal on March 31. 2010

For 90 years the Czech Consulate in Montreal, a landmark and relevant member of the diplomatic community in Canada and Montreal in particular, has efficiently provided consular services and placed its substantial cultural, educational, humanitarian and scientific resources, not only for the disposition of Czechs and Canadians, but also for persons and institutions of a wide array of nationalities from the rest of the world.

Furthermore its staff has been awarded various honors, the most recent granted to the present Consul General, The Honorable Ms. Jaroslava Jeslinkova, Woman of the Year 2009 by the Fédération des Caisses Desjardins du Québec. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Čermák (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

Josef Čermák is one of our frequent contributors. Throughout the last 8 months, he has written many articles about our community in Canada and other stories that many Czech and Slovak expatriates relate to. This time his story has a sad tone to it as he announces the death of his friend, Joseph Ctirad Vrana, and one of the Czech immigrants in Canada. Click on the image if you would like to read his personal message.

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Česká verze ZDE

Photo for CzechFolks.com © Marie Zieglerová

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Antonin Vaclavik (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

(Translated by Helena Kaczérová)

There are not many countries and nations in the world today which can still boast, of such rich folk art as that peculiar to Czechoslovakia and its peoples. Its immense wealth, endless variety of form, colors – sometimes bright, sometimes soft – its remarkablemony and fineness of work, have won for the art of the Czech and Slovak people the admiration of all who have met with it.

Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Author: Josef Cermak (CzechFolks.com PLUS)

The author of the book “Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed”, Mary Heinmann, is an American historian teaching at the Strathclyde University in Scotland. Her book was published by the Yale University Press.

According to the review (an example of how reviews should be written) in the Economist (Nov.21, 2009), Ms Heinmann sees the former Czechoslovakia as a political entity which was born out of trickery and died in failure; as an artificial creature, essentially a fraud, and the wily duo responsible for the fraud, Tomas Masaryk and Edward Benes, who duped the victorious Western allies into creation of a new country, which ignored the interests of all ethnic groups (particularly the Germans) except Czechs and Slovaks; its treatment of the Sudeten Germans in the first republic as the ultimate cause of the first Czechoslovak republic’s downfall and (together with reparations imposed on Germany) in large part responsible for the Second World War; following the Munich agreement, it engaged in anti-Semitism, which - in her view - was simply continuation of existing tendencies; and the work of Edward Benes and Jan Masaryk during the Second World War she sees as a story of Czech guile and Western gullibility, while describing the three postwar years before the communist seizure of power as a horrible period of racial revenge, rape, robbery and deportation inflicted on guilty and blameless Germans alike. And the Prague Spring was simply a by-product of a factional fight in the Communist Party. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »

Článek v ČEŠTINĚ dole (Klikněte na “Read the rest …”)

Would you like to see how Prague used to look like 100 years ago? You may want to go to the website below that shows authentic Prague photos and compares them to real paintings by the Czech artist Jan Minarik (1862 – 1937). The website is well done and easy to use, and allows you to move a bar in the middle of the photo to look at the old painting or the most recent photographs. You will be able to see places such as Havelsky trh, Kaprova and Maiselova Street, Charles Bridge, the National museum building, and many other beautiful places in the capital of the Czech Republic. You will be able to explore a total of 29 photograph/paintings and see, in some cases, dramatic changes in the landscape, and building sizes and orientation. Read the rest of this entry (Čtětě více ZDE) »