Prague and Its Myths

The workshop will explore the various declensions of the idea of Prague in modern and late modern times, with a focus on literature, social practices, religious phenomena, and heritage-making processes. These motifs or tropes are hereby defined as “myths”, borrowing from forms of both high and popular culture. They refer to specific images and traces of the contrasting and multifaceted pasts of Prague and its history. In particular, the city’s religious and esoteric heritage and its multicultural and ‘hinternational’ background, to use Urzidil’s phrase, now find renewed value as symbols of a shared Czech identity and history, with some places dignified as places of memory (“lieux de mémoire”) and others ignored or silenced (“lieux de l’oubli”), and their historical meanings partly recast.

More information you can find on this website 

Sponsor institutions

• CEFRES (Centre français de recherche en sciences sociales)
• Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University
• The Institute for Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Scientific and organising committee

• Alessandro Testa - ISS
• Mateusz Chmurski
• Michèle Baussant

• Date: 5 April, 2024
• Location: CEFRES, Na Florenci 3, Prague, and online
• Language: English