Professor Tomáš Petráček on Czech Radio Hradec Králové

On Czech Radio Hradec Králové about our series of lectures on the relationship between the city and the church and of course also about… but you know.

You also came to invite us to a series of eight historical lectures for the public, which will take place from Wednesday in the attractive church interiors of Hradec Králové. What is it about?

It came about because this year Hradec Králové is intensely celebrating 800 years since the first mention of the city. It was no longer a residential agglomeration of an urban type, but a real royal city with everything. And so the Bishop of Hradec Jan Vokál and I said that the church would also like to contribute to the celebrations. We came up with a series of eight lectures on the relationship between the church and the city. How the church participated in the building of our famous city. We are doing this in cooperation with colleagues from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Prague, where there are excellent historians, and because we have quite a few friends and connections, we invited Miloš Doležel, a well-known writer and poet, to do so.

And we thought of giving lectures in places where people normally cannot get to. Such as the former seminary church of St. John of Nepomuk, today the Municipal Music Hall. So the lecture is always somehow tied to that specific place. One will also be given by a well-known figure from Hradec, a member of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Matěj Havel, who is my former doctoral student. He will talk about Canon Reyl, and it will be in the current building of the Bishop’s Gymnasium, where there is a beautiful chapel, where people normally have no chance to get to and which Canon Reyl built.

Record of interview