BBLA is pleased to announce that Martina Navratilova receives the 2024 BBLA Award for Unparalleled Service to the Czech and Slovak Communities.
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Beginning of January, we rented one of our rooms to a group that does not fit our strong non-political stance, and inadvertently stirred up quite a bit of controversy. Our peaceful existence was hit with a tornado when an avalanche of letters and calls commenting on the event started landing on us.
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BBLA is pleased to announce that Peter Sis, a Czech-American illustrator, author, and filmmaker, receives the 2022 BBLA Award for Unparalleled Service to the Czech and Slovak Communities.
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Make donations to help save lives and democracy in Ukraine! Our recommended non-profits: in the Czech Republic and in the US.
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BY JOSEPH BALAZ
I trust that despite certain challenges the world is facing, you had a relaxing and enjoyable summer. With great pleasure and pride, I would like to invite you to several important events that BBLA will present to our faithful audiences “in person” in September.
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BBLA is pleased to announce that Sir Tom Stoppard, a Czech-born British playwright, is the recipient of the 2021 BBLA Award for Unparalleled Service to the Czech and Slovak Communities. He supported Czech and Slovak dissidents during the harsh times of the 1970s and 1980s.
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We are thrilled to present the 2021 Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival as it returns to in-person format at Bohemian National Hall. Entitled “Embracing the Inexplicable,” the 2021 edition is conceived as an occasion for our international community of artists and audiences to reconvene in order to heal collectively and embrace the uncertainties amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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By Joseph Balaz | As we are heading into the fall, in compliance with the New York City rules, we cannot invite you back for in-person events at our beautiful Bohemian National Hall, not yet. However, BBLA and its member organizations feature events online, so follow us on social media to see what and when happens in our community, and when and how we reopen for in-person events.
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BBLA is thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2020 BBLA Award for Unparalleled Service to the Czech and Slovak Communities—Ambassador William and Wendy Luers. They will be honored on September 24 at the 2020 Annual Gala Celebrating Cultural Diplomacy organized by BBLA and the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation.
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We are delighted to announce that BBLA and the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation (VHLF) will be hosting the 2020 Annual Gala on September 24, 2020. The 2020 Annual Gala celebrates cultural diplomacy in honor of Ambassador William and Wendy Luers.
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Ruzena Bunza, a long-time member of the Czechoslovak Society of Art and Sciences in New York, passed away peacefully in her home on June 23, 2020, just one month shy of her 104th birthday.
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BY MARTIN NEKOLA
Before the First World War, more than 50,000 Czechs lived in New York City. When the moment of the struggle for national self-determination came, these Americans generously supported the anti-Habsburg resistance led by Professor Tomas Garrigue Masaryk.
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By Martin Nekola
Exactly one year after the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, on February 25, 1949, the Council of Free Czechoslovakia (Rada svobodneho Ceskoslovenska) – umbrella organization of the anti-communist exile – was founded in Washington, D.C.
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By Claire Nolte
Barbara Kimmel Reinfeld (1935-2020) was born in Prague in 1935 and fled to the West with her family in 1948. They settled in America, where she completed her undergraduate education at Carleton College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. at Columbia University.
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It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Milan Fryscak, longtime professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University and for many years President of the New York Chapter of Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). He passed away on April 16, 2020. He was a leader and active participant in numerous Czech cultural and émigré organizations for over 40 years.
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By Zuzana Justman
I met Milena shortly after she succeeded in leaving Czechoslovakia in 1961. Milena was always writing. She mainly wrote screenplays of which the best known is the script for "Zapomenute svelto” ("Forgotten Light"), which received three Czech Lion Awards in 1997. She was highly intelligent and well-read and she never lost her sharp sense of humor and irony.
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By Joseph Balaz
I wish I could use my sketchy, overdeveloped sense of humor to combine the Covid-19 situation with April Fools' Day but will instead practice silly jokes distancing. With 129 years of BBLA history under our belt, we certainly will not get bogged down by this tiny, minuscule bug while still taking it extremely seriously.
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By Majda Kallab Whitaker
In a heady, multi-million-dollar New York City real estate transaction, the historic Jan Hus Presbyterian Church will be leaving its 131-year-old edifice at 351 East 74st Street, and moving to a new location at East 90st Street and First Avenue. The Jan Hus Church building has been purchased and will be renovated by the Church of the Epiphany, which in turn will see its 1930s church at York Avenue and 74th Street demolished and replaced by a Weill-Cornell Medical Center building.
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