Last weekend Czechs marked the 160th anniversary of the birth of the co-founder of Czechoslovakia and the country’s first president T.G. Masaryk. Although Czechs fondly refer to him as “tatíček Masaryk” or papa Masaryk, there is no doubt at all that they have enormous respect for the statesman and philosopher who in 1918 laid the founding stone of a new state and gave Czechs and Slovaks their first lessons in democracy.
This week in Mailbox: The first Bohemian chronicler Cosmas, listening to Radio Prague on smart phones, listening in the Czech Republic, a comment on the reduction of the number of winners each month, saving wild animals in the Czech Republic. Listeners quoted: Joe T. Vosoba, Armin Gerstberger, Kristina Pletková, Colin Law, Steven Bell.
The philosopher, scientist and mystic, John Dee, was one of the great figures of Elizabethan England. He was a close confidante of the Queen and one of the founders of modern science, at a time of transition from the medieval to the modern age – a time when science and alchemy, magic and mathematics intertwined. In the 1580s John Dee came to Bohemia, along with family and his mysterious friend and assistant, the alchemist Edward Kelley – who supposedly possessed the gift of communicating with spirits. Between them, they left an indelible mark on Czech history.
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