Twenty years ago this month, the nearly 700 mile border between East and West Germany started to disappear. "The fence is long gone, and the no-man's land where it stood now is part of Europe's biggest nature preserve. The once-deadly border area is alive with songbirds nesting in crumbling watchtowers, foxes hiding in weedy fortifications and animals not seen here for years, such as elk and lynx. But one species is boycotting the reunified animal kingdom: red deer." According to the Bavarian National Forest Park Service, scientists [link in German] have recorded nearly 11,000 GPS locations for 'Ahornia," a red deer who appears to never enter the Czech Republic.
posted by webhund on Nov 4, 2009 - 22 comments

The BBC World Service has put together a special report on the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe (they also have a simpler portal). There is a wealth of material, including TV reports on key events from the BBC archives, interviews, a map timeline, a report on Catholicism's role in the 1989 revolutions, a first-hand report of what it was like to gather news in East Germany during that time and much more.
posted by Kattullus on Oct 27, 2009 - 20 comments

Q: Which was the last country in Europe to establish diplomatic relations with the Czech Republic?
A: Liechtenstein. [more inside]
posted by djgh on Sep 20, 2009 - 19 comments

SatiricalCzechArtFilter: A massive art installation at the European Council building in Brussels has raised hackles. Bulgaria, in particular, is not pleased at being represented as a "Turkish Toilet." [more inside]
posted by LMGM on Jan 14, 2009 - 37 comments

The žižkov television tower in Prague was pretty weird looking to begin with, since 2000 it's gotten much stranger...
posted by Artw on Jul 19, 2008 - 42 comments

Some countries are shaped like their economic Phillips curve. Japan bears a strong resemblance to its Phillips curve. The Czech Republic does too, a little. And Canada’s similarity to its Phillips curve it less obvious, but it’s still there.
posted by tepidmonkey on Nov 4, 2007 - 21 comments

The Black Light Theatre of Prague ("Černé Divadlo" or simply Black Theatre) is a Czech performance style characterised by the use of black box theatre augmented by black light trickery. Although this performance style can be found in many places around the world, nowhere is it more prolific or specialized than in Prague. Some sample images: 1 2 3 4. YouTube: 1 2 3.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Feb 8, 2007 - 13 comments

Like magic, the vibrating broomstick of progress sweeps the Czech Republic. (Czech government likes celebrities).
posted by Pretty_Generic on Jul 14, 2004 - 1 comment

The European Union welcomes 10 new members! As I write this, the celebrations have started as Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia become members of the EU today. While some folks are gonna party like crazy, others are warning of doom and gloom. What do you think? Will this have significant effects on global culture, politics, and economics - or will it merely represent a paper change within the rarefied world of European diplomats, with little other than localized effects on day to day life?
posted by MidasMulligan on Apr 30, 2004 - 43 comments

David Cerny: frilly pink tanks, babies climbing TV towers, and the president feeding slops to the director of the national gallery out of giant asses. Why, this could only be the NEA gone awry! Actually, it’s Magic Prague, the land of Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera, and the artist, like the dissidents of past generations, would rather not do political art , political art. His latest sculpture ridicules the perverse situation in which the country finds itself post Havel: a place where right-wingers like President Klaus and national gallery director Milan Knížák— a past collaborator with secret police, and worse, completely idiotic and banal performance artist — prosper and rub shoulders at the expense of those with a conscience and good taste. Like David Cerny. This isn’t the freshest post, but I’ve been waiting to join Mefi for a long time, and today is the first day I can post.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk on Apr 9, 2004 - 4 comments

The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia. Posters, pamphlets, social protest material. 'In the morning hours of August 21, 1968, the Soviet army invaded Czechoslovakia along with troops from four other Warsaw Pact countries. The occupation was the beginning of the end for the Czechoslovak reform movement known as the Prague Spring. This web site contains material from the days immediately following the invasion, and they reflect the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia at the time: tense, chaotic, uncertain, full of pathos, fear, and expectation... '
Related :- the Berlin Wall and East Side Gallery; A Concrete Curtain: The Life and Death of the Berlin Wall; Szoborpark in Budapest, with its gigantic Cold War-era statues.
posted by plep on Aug 12, 2003 - 6 comments

The Ossuary in Sedlec in the Czech Republic is a chapel, built around 1511, decorated in 1870 by a local woodcutter. His material? Human bones.
posted by fidelity on Apr 19, 2002 - 13 comments

Smoking creates "indirect positive effects." A report from tobacco giant Philip Morris concluded that the Czech government saved money because of the "indirect positive effects" of the early deaths of cigarette-smokers. PM makes about 80 percent of the cigarettes smoked in the Czech Republic. Said a Philip Morris spokesman: "Tobacco is a controversial industry, but we are still an industry and sometimes we need some economic data on our industry."
posted by tranquileye on Jul 17, 2001 - 39 comments