The Sudetenland is a place where history did not remain in archives. It lives in the names of houses and villages, in the empty spaces left behind, in buildings that still seem to carry the imprint of their former inhabitants, in the silence – and in what tries, again and again, to begin anew. In this programme, we do not want to treat “wild country” as legend or stigma. We are interested in what it means to live in a landscape that remembers loss – and how one might find home there.
The discussion will be moderated by Ivana Svobodová, a reporter for the weekly Respekt, who has long explored how major historical events shape individual lives. Sociologist Daniel Prokop will offer a perspective on how inequalities and opportunities form in regions – and what determines whether people come to identify with a place, or leave it behind. Entrepreneur and philanthropist Martin Vohánka, a native of Most, will open the question of what long-term civic and philanthropic support can mean for a landscape and its community. Writer and documentary-maker Veronika Kupková, who has long focused on border regions and stories of memory, will add hands-on experience from the field: how a relationship to place is rebuilt in practice – through people, work, and shared storytelling.
Organised in cooperation with the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University.
