Czech Center New York launched the exhibition "100 years of Czech Radio". The event was followed by a meetup with Czech radio correspondents and by a concert "From Baroque to Jazz" performed by Radio Brass Quartet the following day. The opening remarks were given by Arnošt Kareš, Consul General of the Czech Republic in New York.
Director of the foreign broadcasting department of Czech Radio (Radio Prague International) Klára Stejskalová on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition 100 Years of Czech Radio at the Czech Center Gallery said:
Dear friends,
Thank you for joining us in our celebration of Czechoslovak Radio’s centenary. Radio is an incredible phenomenon. And we can be proud that Czechoslovakia was the second country in Europe, after the BBC, to launch radio broadcasts. This was thanks to the successful film entrepreneur Eduard Svoboda. During a trip to the United States he realised the enormous possibilities that radio broadcasting afforded. The beginnings were modest. The first words carried on the airwaves, on May 21, 1923, were broadcast from a canvas tent, and instead of a microphone, the female announcer spoke into a telephone receiver. The first broadcast lasted for an hour, music was played, and in order for the single microphone to pick up the sound, the singer literally had to lie under the piano.
But radio broadcasts quickly gained enormous popularity and within 10 years Czechoslovak Radio had a million subscribers and even more listeners because whole families were listening. Radio can boast of several world “firsts”. It was the first to broadcast a sports event. Somewhat surprisingly, it was not football or hockey, but boxing. And there was a great deal of improvisation involved. The reporter in the sports hall phoned the technician from one phone box to another and the technician wrote the message down and brought it to the presenter, who then read it.
In 1936, Czechoslovakia launched a foreign service on shortwave - today's Radio Prague International, which I represent here. The service broadcast news about Czechoslovakia in a number of foreign languages, promoting the country’s politics, democratic values and culture abroad. It was also a link with expats, who were thus regularly informed about news and events in their homeland.
Czechoslovak – today Czech Radio, has an exceptional position in our country. And the reason is that its editors played a crucial role in groundbreaking moments of our history. The first time was at the end of the Second World War. On May 5, 1945, at noon, the radio broadcast a call for help, to which hundreds of Czech patriots responded and came to defend the building. Many people lost their lives in the clashes with Nazi forces but, by the evening, the radio was free to start broadcasting uncensored information again. Until the communists came to power. The second time editors and technicians played a similarly crucial role was in August of 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. The radio building on Vinohradská Street became the site of the biggest clashes between the outraged public and soldiers of the invading armies. The radio building was occupied at 9 a.m. on August 21, but independent broadcasts were maintained from undercover locations in the city, despite persistent efforts of the occupiers to stop them. Thanks to this, the radio provided uncensored information about the Russian-led invasion to people at home and abroad.
All this was possible because radio journalists were -and still are - people for whom the profession is not a job, but a life’s passion or in some cases even “a diagnosis”. This may also explain why Czech Radio is the most trusted medium in the country today.
100 years is a lot to comprise in one exhibition – but through these unique photographs from the Czech Radio archive we would like to give you a glimpse into Czech Radio’s past and present. In addition, using QR codes, you can listen to authentic recordings of broadcasts or keynote speeches that are in English, which the radio has thanks to its foreign broadcasts.
Thank you for your attention and I hope you enjoy the exhibition.
Exhibition opening. Photo credit © Barbora Ziegler
Meetup with Czech Radio correspondents - Photo credit © Barbora Ziegler
Concert "From Baroque to Jazz". Photo credit © Anežka Pokorná
