‘H. Gordon Skilling: Life and Work’, Museum Kampa, Prague
The exhibition is part of a programme commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of this important Canadian historian, political scientist, and Slavist. A private view of the exhibition took place immediately after the international conference ‘Skilling’s Return to Prague: The Work of H. Gordon Skilling in the Light of Contemporary Research’. The conference was held under the auspices of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Karel Schwarzenberg, at the Klementinum and Czernin Palais, Prague, on 27–29 May 2012. The exhibition, in Museum Kampa, is open to the public from 30 May to 5 August 2012. The private view of the exhibition on 29 May opened with a speech by the Vice-Chairman of the Senate, Petr Pithart (in Czech only).
The Czech/English exhibition catalogue contains documents, correspondence, an essay, and other written material, and is richly illustrated with photographs, many of which, because of their size, could not be included on the exhibition panels. It is divided into twelve thematic sections, which in sum present, from various angles, the individual stages of Skilling’s life and the most important results of his scholarly work. The catalogue is available in Museum Kampa and the Czechoslovak Documentation Centre, Josefská 34/6, Praha 1 – Malá Strana (csds@csds.cz). The price is 250 Kč.
Contents of the catalogue
- Preface
- H. Gordon Skilling (28 February 1912 – 2 March 2001)
- Student Years
- Encountering Czechoslovakia
- Journeys to Prague before the War
- Eighteen Years at American Universities
- The Miracle of Toronto
- The Interrupted Revolution
- Charter 77
- Support for Independent Culture
- A Golden Wedding
- In a Free Czechoslovakia
- Returning to an Old Topic – Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
- On His Seventieth Birthday (Milan Šimečka)
- Editorial note
A video by Dominik Jůn, made for the exhibition, can be seen on YouTube either with English subtitles or without.
