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I Served The King Of England
''I Served the King of England'' ( cs, Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále) is a novel by the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal. The story is set in Prague in the 1940s, during the Nazi occupation and early communism, and follows a young man who alternately gets into trouble and has successes. Hrabal wrote the book during a period of censorship in the early 1970s. It began circulating in 1971, and was formally published in 1983. It was adapted into a 2006 film with the same title, directed by Jiří Menzel, a noted director of the Czech New Wave. Plot summary The novel is narrated in the first person and follows the life of Dítě (a name meaning "child" in Czech), an aspiring hotelier. He is rather short, which causes him to have an inferiority complex; he goes to great lengths to disguise this perceived flaw. At the beginning of the novel, Dítě is starting out as a busboy at the Golden Prague Hotel, which, despite its name, is located in the countryside. It is here that Dítě begins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bohumil Hrabal
Bohumil Hrabal (; 28 March 1914 – 3 February 1997) was a Czech writer, often named among the best Czech writers of the 20th century. Early life Hrabal was born in Židenice (suburb of Brno) on 28 March 1914, in what was then the province of Moravia within Austria-Hungary, to an unmarried mother, Marie Božena Kiliánová (1894–1970). According to the organisers of a 2009 Hrabal exhibition in Brno, his biological father was probably Bohumil Blecha (1893–1970), a teacher's son a year older than Marie, who was her friend from the neighbourhood. Marie's parents opposed the idea of their daughter marrying Blecha, as he was about to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army.“Vítová: Hrabal dostal šest pětek, a v Brně skončil”, Brněnský deník, 29 March 2009 World War I started four months after Hrabal's birth, and Blecha was sent to the Italian front, before being invalided out of service.Novinky.cz, 31 October 2004, reprinted from Právo Blecha's daughter, Drahomíra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheb
Cheb (; german: Eger) is a town in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 30,000 inhabitants. It lies on the river Ohře. Before the 1945 Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, expulsion of the German-speaking population, the town was the centre of the German-speaking region known as Egerland, part of the Northern Austro-Bavarian dialect area. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument reservations, urban monument reservation. Administrative parts Cheb is divided into the following parts: * Bříza * Cetnov * Cheb * Chvoječná * Dolní Dvory * Dřenice * Háje * Horní Dvory * Hradiště * Hrozňatov * Jindřichov * Klest * Loužek * Pelhřimov * Podhoří * Podhrad * Skalka * Střížov * Tršnice Name and etymology The name of the town was in 1061 recorded as ''Egire''; in 1179 it was known as ''Egra''; from 1322 as ''Eger'' and the surrounding territory as ''Regio Egere'' and ''Provin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Hřebejk
Jan Hřebejk (; born 27 June 1967) is a Czechs, Czech film director and actor. Life and career Born in Prague, Hřebejk graduated from high school in 1987 and continued his studies at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) from 1987 to 1991, majoring in screenplay and dramaturgy. He was at FAMU alongside Petr Jarchovský, who is also his classmate from high school and subsequently a frequent collaborator as a screenwriter. While at FAMU, Hřebejk directed and produced two short films, ''Co všechno chcete vědět o sexu a bojíte se to prožít'' (1988) and ''L. P. 1948'' (1989), from scripts written by his classmate Petr Zelenka (director), Petr Zelenka. His professional directorial debut was a short film for Czech TV, ''Nedělejte nic, pokud k tomu nemáte vážný důvod'' (1991), also written by Zelenka. His films caught the attention of viewers and critics, and entered student film festivals. Also while still at FAMU, Hřebejk and Jarcho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival ( cs, Mezinárodní filmový festival Karlovy Vary) is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival is one of the oldest in the world and has become Central and Eastern Europe's leading film event. History The pre-war dream of many enthusiastic filmmakers materialized in 1946 when a non-competition festival of films from seven countries took place in Mariánské Lázně and Karlovy Vary. Above all it was intended to screen the results of the recently nationalized Czechoslovak film industry. After the first two years the festival moved permanently to Karlovy Vary. The Karlovy Vary IFF first held an international film competition in 1948. Since 1951, an international jury has evaluated the films. The Karlovy Vary competition quickly found a place among other developing festivals and by 1956 FIAPF had already classified Karlovy Vary as a category A festival. Given the creation of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larks On A String
''Larks on a String'' ( cs, Skřivánci na niti) is a 1969 Czech film directed by Jiří Menzel. The film was banned by the Czechoslovak government, but was later released in 1990 after the fall of the Communist regime. It tells the stories of various characters considered bourgeois by Czechoslovakia's communist government in the 1950s, who have been forced to work in a junkyard for the purposes of re-education. It won the Golden Bear at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival. Cast * Rudolf Hrušínský as Trustee * Vlastimil Brodský as Professor * Václav Neckář as Pavel Hvezdár * Jitka Zelenohorská as Jitka * Jaroslav Satoranský as Guard Andel * Vladimír Šmeral as Minister * Ferdinand Krůta as Kudla * František Řehák as Drobecek * Leoš Suchařípa as Public prosecutor * Vladimír Ptáček as Mlíkar * Eugen Jegorov as Saxophonist (as Evžen Jegorov) * Naďa Urbánková as Lenka * Věra Křesadlová as Convict * Věra Ferbasová Věra Ferbasová (21 Sept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closely Watched Trains
''Closely Watched Trains'' ( cs, Ostře sledované vlaky) is a 1966 Czechoslovak film directed by Jiří Menzel and is one of the best-known products of the Czechoslovak New Wave. It was released in the United Kingdom as ''Closely Observed Trains''. It is a coming-of-age story about a young man working at a train station in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. The film is based on a 1965 novel by Bohumil Hrabal. It was produced by Barrandov Studios and filmed on location in Central Bohemia. Released outside Czechoslovakia during 1967, it won the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 40th Academy Awards in 1968. Plot The young Miloš Hrma, who speaks with misplaced pride of his family of misfits and malingerers, is engaged as a newly-trained train dispatcher at a small railway station near the end of the Second World War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. He admires himself in his new uniform and looks forward, like his prematurely retired train driver fathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baron Munchausen
Baron Munchausen (; ) is a fictional German nobleman created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe in his 1785 book '' Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia''. The character is loosely based on a real baron, Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen. Born in Bodenwerder, Electorate of Hanover, the real-life Münchhausen fought for the Russian Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739. Upon retiring in 1760, he became a minor celebrity within German aristocratic circles for telling outrageous tall tales based on his military career. After hearing some of Münchhausen's stories, Raspe adapted them anonymously into literary form, first in German as ephemeral magazine pieces and then in English as the 1785 book, which was first published in Oxford by a bookseller named Smith. The book was soon translated into other European languages, including a German version expanded by the poet Gottfried August Bürger. The real-life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Review Of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of Books'' was founded in 1979, when publication of ''The Times Literary Supplement'' was suspended during the year-long lock-out at ''The Times''. Its founding editors were Karl Miller, then professor of English at University College London; Mary-Kay Wilmers, formerly an editor at ''The Times Literary Supplement''; and Susannah Clapp, a former editor at Jonathan Cape. For its first six months, it appeared as an insert in ''The New York Review of Books''. It became an independent publication in May 1980. Its political stance has been described by Alan Bennett, a prominent contributor, as "consistently radical". Unlike ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (TLS), the majority of the articles the ''LRB'' publishes (usually fifteen per issue) are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Wood (critic)
James Douglas Graham Wood (born 1 November 1965) is an English literary critic, essayist and novelist. Wood was ''The Guardian''s chief literary critic between 1992 and 1995. He was a senior editor at ''The New Republic'' between 1995 and 2007. , he is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard University and a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' magazine. Early life and education James Wood was born in Durham, England, to Dennis William Wood (born 1928), a Dagenham-born minister and professor of zoology at Durham University, and Sheila Graham Wood, née Lillia, a schoolteacher from Scotland. Wood was raised in Durham in an evangelical wing of the Church of England, an environment he describes as austere and serious. He was educated at Durham Chorister School and Eton College, both on music scholarships. He read English Literature at Jesus College, Cambridge, where in 1988 he graduated with a First. Career Writing After Cambridge, Wood "holed up in London in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1948 Czechoslovak Coup D'état
In late February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia. It marked the onset of four decades of the party's rule in the country., sk, Február 1948) or "Victorious February" ( cs, Vítězný únor, sk, Víťazný február) The coup's significance extended well beyond the state's boundaries as it was a clear marker along the already well-advanced road to full-fledged Cold War. The event alarmed Western countries and helped spur quick adoption of the Marshall Plan, the creation of a state in West Germany, paramilitary measures to keep communists out of power in France, Greece and especially Italy, and steps toward mutual security that would, in little over a year, result in the establishment of NATO and the definitive drawing of the Iron Curtain until the Revolutions of 1989. Background In the aftermath of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was in a favorable po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
