Ambassador Hynek Kmoníček at Prague Spring 50

IANR Media Author

04/11/2018 Added

19 Plays

Description

Remarks by Ambassador Hynek Kmoníček at Prague Spring 50. https://praguespring50.unl.edu/speakers#hynek-kmonicek

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:10.600]Gentler ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure
[00:00:14.130]to be here, back in Nebraska,
[00:00:16.010]to the state with the highest percentage
[00:00:19.170]of the people of the Czech origin in the United States.
[00:00:22.970]If I remember correctly, (applauding)
[00:00:28.570]if I remember correctly, we scored like five
[00:00:31.720]and half percent of the citizens
[00:00:34.310]of Nebraska in the the last census,
[00:00:37.120]and I believe we are going to have more children,
[00:00:40.750]so we will get even bigger over the years.
[00:00:46.760]I should limit my remarks to a very few remarks,
[00:00:50.820]because usually the most boring part of any
[00:00:53.480]conference is remark of ambassadors.
[00:00:58.580]As you've heard, nothing from what I've went
[00:01:01.040]through qualified me to speak today about
[00:01:04.750]Prague Spring, 50 years ago.
[00:01:08.850]But they are the things which are relevant
[00:01:11.550]from the Prague Spring, even for my generation,
[00:01:14.750]and I happen to be six years old when
[00:01:17.840]this traumatic event happened.
[00:01:20.820]Because, even if we do not acknowledge
[00:01:24.490]it very often, we actually live still, in the 60's.
[00:01:29.900]Chancellor, you are right.
[00:01:32.210]Most of what we believe in started in the 60's.
[00:01:38.560]We are still listening to the music of the 60's,
[00:01:41.640]which we call modern, because we dilute them,
[00:01:45.310]the melodies of the 60's, but this is, still,
[00:01:50.070]post-modern 60's we are listening to.
[00:01:53.240]We are still living in the architecture of the 60's
[00:01:56.430]because, I think it was in the 60's,
[00:01:58.700]when came this crazy idea that the down towns
[00:02:01.850]of the town should be high rises with no people,
[00:02:05.460]and people should live in some concrete boxes
[00:02:08.020]far away on some highway.
[00:02:11.250]We still inhabit the 60's.
[00:02:14.650]And we also inhabit the intellectual
[00:02:18.320]countryside of the 60's.
[00:02:20.970]Basically, everything what we deal today,
[00:02:23.965]has the beginning in the 60's.
[00:02:26.800]If we deal with an environment,
[00:02:29.190]organic food, well, these are the flower children of 1968.
[00:02:34.770]If we deal with globalism
[00:02:36.900]and the idea that everybody counts,
[00:02:39.000]everybody is interconnected,
[00:02:41.090]that's the basically hippies idea,
[00:02:44.700]which through many permutations, ended up with globalism,
[00:02:49.260]global village, and multiculturalism.
[00:02:52.890]And we also live with the heritage
[00:02:56.492]of the second half of the 20th century
[00:03:00.770]where one of the major questions was,
[00:03:04.630]is socialism possible or not?
[00:03:09.980]If it is possible, is it livable or not?
[00:03:15.550]And, in that way, the events in Prague, 1968,
[00:03:21.070]are not part of the Czech history only,
[00:03:24.410]they are the parts of the world history.
[00:03:28.210]Because everything what happened
[00:03:30.270]in Prague during this half of year,
[00:03:34.417]was basically a Czech attempt
[00:03:37.340]to answer some of these questions.
[00:03:41.630]The question was, for example,
[00:03:45.260]if the socialist regime that time
[00:03:48.580]existing, are real socialists.
[00:03:51.840]If you can reform them.
[00:03:54.710]If you reform they, will they collapse?
[00:03:59.500]Is it possible to have something,
[00:04:02.940]like a socialism with a human face,
[00:04:05.750]in the time when Brezhnev started
[00:04:09.010]wearing a new face after Khrushchev?
[00:04:13.100]All these questions were answered in Prague,
[00:04:15.640]and they were not just the questions
[00:04:18.090]of the Czech national history,
[00:04:20.760]they were the questions of the world history.
[00:04:24.910]And I'm very grateful that the University
[00:04:28.130]of Nebraska and the department of history is very
[00:04:31.010]much aware of this overlap of the Czech
[00:04:34.620]and the world history, as this conference,
[00:04:37.270]we are just about to open is the best proof.
[00:04:42.150]Obviously, there was also the Czech
[00:04:44.940]angle of all the evidence, which happened between
[00:04:48.910]January and August '68, but actually
[00:04:52.820]many months before, and many years after.
[00:04:56.980]1968 was also, for many of the Czechs,
[00:05:00.630]one of the answers if there is something like a special
[00:05:04.750]Slavik brotherhood.
[00:05:06.950]Can we rely on the Slavik brotherhood
[00:05:10.820]with relation to that times Soviet Union?
[00:05:14.000]Now the Russian Federation?
[00:05:16.360]Or the result will be that one day you will wake up,
[00:05:19.780]and you have tank under your window.
[00:05:22.540]And next year you are American.
[00:05:25.090]That's not what you expected, mostly, from your life.
[00:05:29.460]It was also the Czech tried to
[00:05:33.500]understand where the Czech identity is.
[00:05:38.850]As we live in the place which is partly eastern Europe,
[00:05:44.420]partly center Europe, and we believe that we have
[00:05:48.210]a completely western European culture.
[00:05:52.700]All these questions were tried,
[00:05:56.160]and lost, with the Soviet tanks
[00:05:59.480]in August, 1968, on the streets of Prague.
[00:06:04.400]For many people also in this hall,
[00:06:07.850]it is not just the history.
[00:06:10.160]It's the big part of their life.
[00:06:13.100]Sometimes it is their personal story.
[00:06:16.730]But we all know that the questions which were opened
[00:06:20.190]in the late 60's are still with us.
[00:06:24.550]And the answers are relevant for what we believe today.
[00:06:30.810]What do we want from ourselves today?
[00:06:35.330]And I believe that a conference
[00:06:38.550]will give me some answers to these questions,
[00:06:43.020]and I believe that we all will be listening
[00:06:46.390]to the participants who will share their knowledge
[00:06:50.300]and their personal stories with us, starting from tomorrow.
[00:06:55.540]So, one more time, let me thank the organizers,
[00:06:58.990]for giving us the chance to have this conference,
[00:07:02.640]and that many Czechs, and that much knowledge,
[00:07:05.890]in one room in Nebraska.
[00:07:08.220]Because, where else?
[00:07:11.950]So, let me conclude with that
[00:07:14.460]and invite on the podium,
[00:07:18.840]somebody who you will probably know,
[00:07:23.300]that's celebrated alumni of the University of Nebraska.
[00:07:30.330]The person who is behind almost
[00:07:32.980]everything that has the label Czech in Lincoln.
[00:07:39.019](speaking in foreign language)
[00:07:40.150]The floor is yours.
[00:07:41.300]Thank you. (applauding)

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Ambassador Hynek Kmoníček at Prague Spring 50

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments