The weekend edition of Czechia in 30 Minutes revisits the story of the Jan Hus Educational Foundation, a British initiative that secretly supported Czech and Slovak thinkers during communism. Among its quiet heroes were Barbara Day and Nancy Durham, whose courage helped preserve independent education and free expression. The legacy of the Jan Hus Foundation is now honored in a new exhibition in Brno called Sparks of Freedom.

News, what do travellers need to know about the EES system, 3,000-year old bronze vessel to go on display, interview with actress Zuzana Stivinova

Zuzana Stivínová is a well-known Czech actress. She played one of the main roles in the stage version of Václav Havel’s Leaving in 2007 and today is most commonly to be found on the boards of the National Theatre in Prague. She has also worked with such screen directors as Věra Chytilová and Miloš Forman, and starred in the acclaimed TV drama Wasteland. Stivínová, who comes from an artistic background, also spent several years living in New York in the 2010s.

Future Czech government line-up on hold, as police investigate ministerial candidate for hate speech. Archaeologists discover three-thousand-year-old settlement in the Pardubice region. And through the work of Czech NGO Koridor UA, we take a look at what everyday life is like in parts of Ukraine and what it means to help on the ground.

Signal Festival to light up Prague for the 13th time; New Brno exhibition tells the story of how Oxford philosophers supported Czech dissidents; The hope of Czech AI Matyáš Boháček talks about hopes and concerns for the future of AI

A racism scandal is putting talks to form a new Czech government at risk. President Petr Pavel highlights the threat Russia poses to Europe during his speech at the Forum 2000 international conference. An interview with the translator, Susan Reynolds, of a new editon of Czech classic The Grandmother.

A new translation of one of the most important books in Czech literature, The Grandmother (Babička) by Božena Němcová, will be launched by the UK-based Jantar Publishing at the end of this month. It’s the work of Englishwoman Susan Reynolds, who previously produced an acclaimed translation of another Czech classic, Karel Jaromír Erben’s Kytice. I spoke to Reynolds about how she approached rendering The Grandmother (originally published in 1855) in English, its author’s pioneering spirit and more.

In this week’s Czechia in 30 Minutes, we head back to Ostrava, once one of the industrial hearts of Czechoslovakia. The city is still losing young people, but its leaders hope that education, science and culture can reverse that trend. A visit to the University of Ostrava’s new city campus shows how modern laboratories, art studios and sports facilities are helping to transform both the university and the city around it.

In this week’s Czechia in 30 Minutes, we head back to Ostrava, once one of the industrial hearts of Czechoslovakia. The city is still losing young people, but its leaders hope that education, science and culture can reverse that trend. A visit to the University of Ostrava’s new city campus shows how modern laboratories, art studios and sports facilities are helping to transform both the university and the city around it.