Although the Iron Curtain fell more than 11 years ago, many people know little about the lands, people and culture it cloaked.
A festival of events this spring at Kansas University will present evidence in visual arts, drama and film of the Czech nation's place at the heart of European culture.
"The Cold War set up an artificial divide by cutting Europe up into western and eastern halves through the middle of Germany and along the western border of the Czech lands," said Bruce Berglund, assistant director of Russian and East European studies at KU. "We hope this festival helps to show people that this area that we've lumped into Eastern Europe is really part of Europe."
The program's anchor event is a Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art exhibition of innovative Czech theater design from the decades of communist rule: "Metaphor and Irony: Czech Scenic and Costume Design 1920-1999." It will be displayed at the museum from April 12 to June 3.
The exhibition will be complemented by a program developed by KU's Center for Russian and East European Studies, the department of theater and film and University Theatre, the Lied Center and the Hall Center for the Humanities.
"Crossroads of Europe: Czech Culture" events include:
"Czech it out! Culture from the heartland of Europe," Thursday-mid-April, Watson Library.
University Theatre productions of Vav Havel's "Temptation," 7:30 p.m. March 30-April 1 and 3-7, and Bedrich Smetana's classic opera "The Bartered Bride," 7:30 p.m. April 13-14 and 19-21 and 2:30 p.m. April 15.
Lied Center performances by the internationally acclaimed Czech puppet theater company, Drak, 6:30 p.m. April 25 and 7:30 p.m. April 26-27.
A Czech cinema festival sponsored by the department of theater and film and the Hall Center for the Humanities, which includes "Closely Watched Trains," April 1, and "The Shop of Main Street," April 22, both at 2 p.m. at the Spencer Museum of Art.
An adult study tour of the former Habsburg Empire, June 2-17.
"Central Europe at the Crossroads" conference, April 7, Kansas Union.
KU Perspectives on "Metaphor and Irony," 3:30 p.m. April 18, 25 and May 2, Spencer Museum of Art.
"From Beauty to Brains: Czech Sculpture in Glass," lecture by Suzanne Franz, 7 p.m. April 19, Spencer Museum of Art.
In addition, KU Continuing Education and the Center for Russian and East European Studies will present "The Heart of Europe," a six-week evening course, which started Wednesday and will run through April 18, as part of the 'KU for Lawrence" series of noncredit courses.
The course will feature presentations by KU faculty and visitors from the region about the art, music, literature and architecture of Central Europe.
"A number of people who study the history and the culture of this region point out that the 50 years of communist rule was something of an artificial divide," Berglund said. "These nations were always part of European civilization.
"When you travel to the far eastern parts of Poland, you travel to small towns in far eastern Slovakia, you see Gothic architecture, Baroque architecture you see signs of the Renaissance. So this was part of, for centuries, part of Europe at large."
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