The Prague Post
September 7th, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Prague accomodation

Home » Archives » Opinion

Letters to the Editor


Letters | Search restaurants | Archives

July 18th, 2007 issue

Russian symbols

About getting Russian symbols off of Czech monuments: Try to understand it from the Czech point of view (“Seeing red,” News, July 4–11). To us, those symbols mean 40 years of oppression and crimes against humanity. Only somewhere in the background is there some gratitude for fighting the Nazis. One of the Baltic politicians in the 1940s (asked why his countrymen fought against the Russian “liberators” and preferred to stay under the Nazis) said, “The Germans can take our lives. But the Russians are trying to take our souls!”
Think about it.
 
Honza Čekal
Prague
Vandals and tourists
I am responding to your editorial regarding vandalism to the temporary art exhibits around Prague (“Sculptures must be protected from vandals,” Opinion, June 27–July 3).  
I have lived in five European cities and traveled the world for over 40 years on business. I believe I have a serious appreciation for art in all of its forms.  Over the past few years I have been embarrassed with some of the pieces that have been selected for public display throughout Prague, a city where I have lived for the past 14 years.
Many of the pieces selected were not appropriate for viewing by a cross-section of society.  
They were a form of bathroom humor at best and pointlessly pornographic at worst.  
Tourism is down considerably in Prague. I am not so naive as to imply that it relates in any way to the bad taste exhibited by some of the so-called art selected for public display. It is clear that it relates more to increasing prices, the continual plethora of thievery and pickpockets, the premeditated harassment of tourists by the police and the repeated rip-offs by storekeepers and taxi drivers.  
The ongoing rudeness heaped on tourists in most every restaurant in Prague by waiters and general staff does not encourage tourist repeat visits.
I believe the objects that are purported to be art are a small issue in the decline of tourism. I do not support in any way vandalism of any kind or in any form. A noted contemporary artist is oft quoted as saying, “Art is anything you can get away with.”
I believe the vandalism is simply the public telling those responsible that they can’t get away with these eyesores, which are being foisted off on the public as art.
There are very few cases of vandalism against any of the great works of art on display around the world, and in nearly every case they were perpetrated by emotionally disturbed people of diminished capacity.
Edward L. Barner
Prague


Other articles in Opinion (18/07/2007):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.