The Council of the Capital City. At its regular meeting today, the Prague City Council appointed new members of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of the Memory of the 20th Century. František "Čuňas" Stárek, a researcher, former dissident and publisher of the Vokno magazine, Petr Koura, a renowned historian, and Tomáš Jirsa, a lawyer and a representative of the post-revolutionary generation, were added to the museum's highest controlling body. The new members of the board of trustees are primarily facing the election of a new director of the museum.
"I am glad that the members of the board of trustees include personalities who have a relationship to the topic of recent history and the necessary erudition," said the chairwoman of the board of trustees of the Museum of the Memory of the 20th Century and Councillor of the Capital City of Prague. Hana Kordová Marvanová, the chairwoman of the Memory of the City of Prague Council.
František Stárek is a signatory of Charter 77, before the revolution he was the publisher of the Vokno magazine. He was repeatedly imprisoned for his attitudes and activities during the period of normalisation, and is currently a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, where he focuses on resistance and resistance between 1938 and 1989. Until now, he has been a member of the Collegium, the Museum's professional advisory body.
The other appointee, historian, educator and researcher Petr Koura, PhD, also an existing member of the College, specializes in the Second World War, the topics of occupation and resistance. Currently, he works as the director of Collegium Bohemicum, a non-profit society that maps the fate of the German inhabitants of the former Czechoslovakia.
The third permitted member of the Museum's Board of Trustees is lawyer JUDr. Mgr. Tomáš Jirsa, who has dealt in the past with, among other things, the topic of collectivization of the Czech countryside and legality in the 1950s and 1960s and the settlement of claims for property taken by the state in 1939-1989. As part of the Mene Tekel festival, he received the Fragments of Memory Award for his remembrance of the recent past.
The Museum of the Memory of the 20th Century was founded symbolically on the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution on 17 November 2019 to preserve the historical memory of the events of the 20th century that were related to the emergence, existence and fall of totalitarian regimes in Czechoslovakia. Last year, the museum organised a series of expert talks and discussions, published a comprehensive publication Lennon's Wall and organised the autumn festival of documentary films Unbroken and Sacrificed. The second edition of the film festival, a multi-day showcase of documentaries relating to the 20th century, will also take place this November.
"Together with the Kampa Museum, we are also preparing an exhibition for the upcoming 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. We have also established cooperation with the Václav Havel Library, which regularly hosts debates with historians and public figures on current topics and anniversaries," said Jan Kalous, interim director of the Museum of the Memory of the 20th Century. However, the museum's long-term task is primarily to work on the design of the future permanent exhibition.