Closing the Festival / Meeting in the garden of the Arnold Villa

Meeting in the garden of the Arnold Villa

In the near future, major changes are awaiting the Arnold Villa, a hidden art deco jewel next to the Villa Tugendhat. The rescue plan to restore this monument involves the creation of a Centre of Dialogue, which will serve both the general public and scholars interested in the architecture of the 19th to 21st centuries. Part of the Centre will be developed as a garden café. At the close of the festival, we invite you for an informal meeting with our foreign and domestic guests and the festival organisers. We will provide some light refreshments but you are welcome to bring your own.

The Muroň-Vrtek-Kobiela Jazz Trio will play and, in collaboration with the Josef Arnold Cultural Centre, guided tours of the villa will be available throughout the event.

Come to the Villa Löw-Beer (Drobného 22) at 17:00 for a meeting with Ivo Hammer, who will show a newly discovered album of photographs of the Ernst Löw-Beer villa.

In collaboration with the Brno City Museum and with the Josef Arnold Cultural Centre.

18:00–20:00 Garden of the Arnold Villa, entry from Černopolní street next to house no. 47

Unknown album

Presentation of newly discovered photos of the Ernst Löw-Beer villa

Sometimes miracles happen. One such moment was when the husband and wife, Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat and Ivo Hammer, awardees of the City of Brno Prize for international cooperation, during the Meeting Brno festival 2017 received from their relatives of the Löw-Beer family a large while photo album of detailed photographs documenting the villa in Kalvodova 8, Brno – the last residence that the family built in Brno. The client was Ernst Löw-Beer, a cousin of Grete Tugendhat, owner of Villa Tugendhat and mother of Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat. Speaking about the house, the work of Vienna-based architects Rudolf Baumfeld and Norbert Schlesinger, will be the architectural historian Vladimír Šlapeta and conservator-restorer Ivo Hammer, who will show the above-mentioned album and describe the circumstances of their US lecture tour.

The programme will be held in Czech and German.

Free entry. The capacity of the event is full.

Change of venue!
17:00 vila Löw-Beer, Drobného 22

A garden party to celebrate Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

On the 190th anniversary of the birth of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, we invite you to a celebration in the impressive park of the Zdislavice chateau. On the writer’s very birthday, two contemporary writers, Pavla Horáková from Czech Republic and Ursula Wiegele from Austria, will meet in her birthplace for a talk and readings from their works.

The personality of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach will be introduced by the Germanist and leading expert on her work, dr. Eleonora Jeřábková, Ph.D.
The current owner Josef Gschwandtner (AT) will talk about the history of the chateau and plans for its reconstruction.
This meeting will be moderated by Mojmír Jeřábek, the director of the Czech Centre in Vienna.

Pavla Horáková (born 1974) is a writer, literary translator and radio editor. Since graduating, she has translated fiction from English and Serbian, and for several years worked with the foreign broadcasting staff of Czech Radio. She debuted with a detective trilogy for children about a group of friends, the Hrobaříci. Together with Jiří Kamen, she edited two books dedicated to the Czech participants in World War I, Přišel befel od císaře pána (2015) and Zum Befehl, pane lajtnant (2018), which grew out of a radio series, Polní pošta. In 2018, she published her first novel for adults, Teorie podivnosti, which won her the 2019 Magnesia Litera prize. She spent the early part of 2020 on a creative scholarship in Vienna, granted by the Austrian Foreign Ministry, and there she worked on a novel inspired by the memoirs of her great-grandmother from Moravian Slovakia; walking in her footsteps, Horáková has investigated long-the forgotten locales and stories of her great-grandmother’s Vienna years.

Ursula Wiegele (born 1963) is the writer in residence at the Meeting Brno festival and will spend several weeks in the city working on her latest book. The novel takes place in the 1940s, partly in Eastern Europe, which the Austrian author also wrote about in her earlier works. Ursula Wiegele was born in Klagenfurt and since 1993 has lived in Graz. After studying philosophy in Austria and Italy, she has worked as an editor, creative writing tutor and teacher of German as a foreign language. In addition to contributions in anthologies and literary magazines, she has written four novels: Cello, stromabwärts (Drava, 2011), Im Glasturm (Müry Salzmann, 2015), Was Augen hat und Ohren (Otto Müller Verlag, 2019) and Arigato (Otto Müller Verlag, 2020).

The programme of the Zdislavice celebrations will offer a play by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, performed by a local community theatre, and a tour of an exhibition of posters about the writer, guided by the curators, Zuzana and Eugen Brikcius. Visitors can also see a remarkable classicist sepulchre of the Dubský family, the final resting place of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.

The programme will be interpreted into Czech and German.

Travel by bus from Brno, departing at 13:00 from the stand in Rooseveltova street in front of the Janáček Theatre. Return by bus to the same place, with estimated time of arrival at 20:30.

The bus capacity is limited. Please buy your ticket via GoOut here.
Admission: 150/100 CZK.

In collaboration with Troubky-Zdislavice municipality, the association Czech National Trust, the Czech Centre in Vienna, the German Cultural Association of the Brno Region and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague.

13:00–20:00 Zdislavice, chateau park
13:00 bus departs from the stand in front of the Janáček Theatre, Rooseveltova

Czech-German religious service: “Whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27:1)

If people are threatened and persecuted or if they are forced to suffer injustice, for Christians this means a special call to action. Life in a community with God gives the faithful the certainty and strength to display their love for their fellow human beings. Psalm 27 says: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

Throughout the 20th century, Czech and German Christians were able to take care of those who found themselves in difficulties, and proved their courage in trying times. We shall present the actions and the testimonies of faith of four courageous Christians of the era: Blessed Restituta Kafka, Přemysl Pitter, Father Dr Paulus Sladek and Cardinal Dr Josef Beran. As a symbol of reconciliation, the Coventry Cross of Nails will be brought to the Brno service.

The mass will be celebrated by Father Pavel Hověz of the Brno-Lesná parish and P. Klaus Oehrlein and P. Mons. Anton Otte. Musical accompaniment will be provided by the choir of Brno-Lesná parish.

In collaboration with Ackermann-Gemeinde; the service will be held partly in Czech and partly in German.

10:00 Church of Blessed Maria Restituta, Nezvalova 13

Commerating the victims of World War II

Infamous Gestapo jail and place of execution, the Kounic Halls of Residence became a symbol of the suffering of its inmates who numbered in the thousands. Hundreds of people – resistance fighters and Czech patriots – met their violent deaths there. After the end of the war, the suffering continued until autumn 1945, when Brno’s Germans were held prisoners there.

With the participation of guests from Germany, we will honour here the memory of the victims of World War II.

18:00 Kounic Halls of Residence, Králova 45

Meeting with the writer Ursula Wiegele

As part of Meeting Brno festival, the Austrian writer Ursula Wiegele will take up a creative residency in Brno. At a meeting with the author, we will talk about the path she took towards a writer’s career, and how her works and literary characters came to be. She will read from her most recent novel, Arigato, describing, among other things, the fate of the German-speaking minority in Italy’s Val Canale valley.
Presented and interpreted by Zuzana Fuksová.

The programme will be held in Czech and German.

Free entry

In collaboration with the Österreich Institut Brno.

17:00 Österreich Institut, Moravské nám. 15

Opening a trail to trace the footsteps of the Löw-Beer family; with a concert at Tugendhat House

Get to know those who built Tugendhat House, as well as the factory that became “Schindler’s Ark”, made famous by Steven Spielberg’s celebrated film Schindler’s List. Daniel Low-Beer, one of those who designed the new trail, will present its first two stations, two buildings indelibly linked with the fates of his family. From Villa Löw-Beer we will walk into the Tugendhat House, where a chamber music concert will be held.
We’d like to invite you for a beer with Löw-Beers and performers after the concert.

Concert programme:
Leoš Janáček: Sonata for violin and piano
Erwin Schulhoff: Suite for violin and piano – selections

Performers:
Jana Vonášková-Nováková – violin
Libuše Pančochová – piano

In English, interpreted into Czech.

The capacity of the event is already full! Thank you for your understanding.

19:00 Meet in front of Villa Löw-Beer, Drobného 22

Cathedral and mosque. An interfaith dialogue

Cathedral and mosque. An interfaith dialogue.

In the new capital city close to Cairo, an enormous Coptic cathedral was opened last year. And that same day, the biggest mosque in the Middle East was opened nearby – an unusual expression of the desire for reconciliation.
How do Egypt, Israel and the Czech Republic support the coexistence of different religions?

Discussants:
E. Saïd Hindam – ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the Czech Republic
Daniel Meron – ambassador of the Israel to the Czech Republic
Tomáš Petříček – foreign minister of the Czech Republic

Moderated by:
Martina Viktorie Kopecká – minister of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, president of Meeting Brno festival
David Macek – sociologist and therapist

The programme will be held in Czech and English.

Free entry

19:00 Augustinian Abbey, Mendlovo náměstí 1

Festival Opening

„Stand Out!“ – Opening evening of the festival

We start the festival by presenting the major points in this year’s programme. We will follow up on past years and show how Meeting Brno inspires beyond the borders of Moravia. The evening will be hosted by the president of the festival, Martina Viktorie Kopecká, who will invite a number of our festival guests for a conversation. Father Pavel Hověz will share the powerful story of the new Church of Blessed Maria Restituta in Brno-Lesná. The Benedictine nun Francesca Šimuniová and the prior of the Discalced Carmelites Pavel Pola will unveil the plans for a “reconciliation pilgrimage” from Prague’s Staroměstské náměstí to the White Mountain to mark the 400th anniversary of the battle. The evening will include a performance by the cimbalom band Pajtáš.

Martina Viktorie Kopecká – a minister of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, psychotherapist and crisis intervener. It was only thanks to a corporate job that she discovered what she did not want to do in her life, and started to seek her own path. Since 2013 she has been a member of the leadership of the World Council of Churches. Pope Francis awarded her a medal and invited her to attend the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican. She’s learning how to ride a bike. She writes her blog, A minister’s diary, and is one of the 33 Great Women from a Small Country; she drinks rum and likes Mickey Mouse.

Programme will be held in Czech only.

Free entry

18:00 Augustinian Abbey, Mendlovo náměstí 1

Reconciliation March

For the 14th time we will follow in the footsteps of more than 20,000 Brno people who were driven towards the border with Austria 75 years ago. While able-bodied men had to stay in the city to endure forced labour, women, children and old men were ordered to march. At least 1,700 of them perished along the way and in the following days and weeks.

Since 2015 we have been walking, symbolically, in the opposite direction to the historical march, that is, from the mass grave in Pohořelice back to the garden of the Augustinian abbey in Staré Brno. Five years ago, Brno’s councillors adopted a Declaration of reconciliation and a shared future, which became a milestone in Czech society’s coming to terms with this chapter of its history.

This year’s march will be a remarkable experience and an opportunity for inspirational encounters. Dozens of witnesses and public figures from Czechia, Austria and Germany will take part in the event, and societies involved in relations with our German-speaking neighbours will present their activities at their stands and provide an accompanying programme.

Participants may join or leave the march at any point, thanks to special shuttle buses available throughout the day. The timetable of the buses.

On the day of the Reconciliation March, there will be a blessing celebration at the newly-constructed Church of Blessed Maria Restituta in Brno’s Lesná housing estate. Thus, this year’s March will also be dedicated to commemorating this brave nun, a native of Brno, who opposed Nazi terror and became one of its victims. Those interested in participating in the ceremony (11:00) will be brought to Lesná by bus direct from the Reconciliation Cross in Pohořelice.

Free entry

The 2020 Reconciliation March project, reg. no. KPF-02-173, is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund as part of the programme Interreg V-A Austria – Czech Republic.

8:30 and 9:00 buses depart from Mendlovo náměstí, Brno
9:30 opening comments and honouring the victims at the Reconcilliation Cross, Pohořelice
18:00 closing celebration in the garden of the abbey at Mendlovo náměstí, Brno