votes: The Czechoslovak Foreign Institute was established in the interwar period and again after 1948 it was subordinated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs What was the most difficult task when re establishing the institute in the 1990s The Czechoslovak Foreign Institute was removed from the administrative powers of the foreign ministry already in September 1989 and became a fully independent non profit organisation again After the events of November 1989 it was up to us to decide on the future of the organisation Some ideas emerged like renaming the institute the Czech Foreign Institute It happened right after 1989 Yes almost it happened at the turn of 1990 1991 because it started becoming obvious that the country was going to split After all it was decided by the majority of members that the original name would be kept We declared religious political and racial tolerance and embodied into our articles of association that we would cooperate with anyone who promotes the Czech and Slovak cultures and languages That’s why we cooperate with the departments of Czech Studies at the universities in Lvov St An interview with Jaromír Šlápota Chairman of Czechoslovak Foreign Institute ČSÚZ Jaromír Šlápota served as a deputy of the Parliament of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic in 1990 1992 He was a member of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak People’s Party and KDU ČSL When his term in offi ce ended he started a career in business He became a member of the Czechoslovak Foreign Institute He was elected its chairman for the fi rst time in June 1992 and has continued serving at this post until today The non profi t organisation experienced changes under his leadership and implemented many projects in cooperation with Czechs and their organisations in Bulgaria France Croatia Israel Mexico Germany Austria Romania Russia Ukraine and the USA Under his leadership the Czechoslovak Foreign Institute received the Gratias Agit award for contributing to the good name of the Czech Republic in the world in 2004 As the chairman of the ČSÚZ he was granted many awards by different institutions and organisations in 2007 he was awarded a Diploma of the Chancellor of the Ivan Franko National University in Lvov for good cooperation and support of the Department of Czech Studies In 2008 the Parliament of the Czech Republic awarded him with the silver memorial medal T G Masaryk for his longstanding and benefi cial work for the Czech Republic 62 Leaders Magazine II 2009 OCCUPATION VOLUNTEER CZECH CULTURAL DIPLOMAT Photo Paul Pacey
Leaders Magazine II 2009 63 iding them with teaching gy expert and academic ted establishing new consations of Czech people are already three generaks and also people of difho are unalike including n relations with Czechoand Slovakia So it was ity or an area of interest After careful consideraon supporting pupils and ools established in diffetural activities One of our pporting the Czech school ich has been growing for 0 pupils at the moment ergarten We are also coar schools in Croatia one ents and a kindergarten school and kindergarten them with teaching mater example we supported rary and supplied it with pecial IT classrooms with cultural activities one of e purchase of musical inss bands in Croatia and g groups In the last five d implemented erecting Masaryk in particular in the St Petersburg Uniured and was designated n 1916 as well as one saryk and M R Štefánik How do you finance your activities Do you have Ministry of Foreign Affairs upport from the Ministry we are foremost financed tions from our members 260 members of the e in Czech public and porganisation or a company he Institute members do you have members even though it is meet us regularly We are lations with them such as elgium which we support eration with the publisher ustralia We also cooperof Czech women who live cts were implemented in The cooperation with our usually implement a proct us directly and propose ivity or project We are inth established organisaecord because we do not stablishing organisations omeone to become active organisations with a sucable activities are our poy turn to us we are always ject We are quite flexible Very often we fund material support literature journals and periodicals study materials or equipment for instance one of our members recently funded publishing a Czech Ukrainian dictionary Otherwise we have around 15 stable partners with whom we have established long term cooperation All members involved in our activities are volunteers and implement the projects in their spare time We all have regular jobs or our own business activities All travel costs related to the projects come out of our own pockets I noticed you also cooperate with one organisation in China Yes we cooperate with several organisations which do not deal with Czech issues directly for example with the Society of Chinese People for Cooperation with Foreign Countries Their representatives visited us for the first time in 1994 and then we started cooperating We organised an exhibition of large format photographs of Shanghai together Now we are helping them to organise meetings with Czech officials and businessmen when they are visiting the Czech Republic for example we had a delegation from the Shanghai municipality coming to Prague and they were interested in our experience with property registers so we organised a meeting at the Office of the Government Representation in Property Affairs We are also organising meetings for businessmen recommended by the organisation Our delegation has been to China too at the invitation of the Society on the occasion of its 50 year anniversary What is your biggest project at the moment It is our cooperation with the Association of Czechs and Slovaks in the Republic of Croatia which is one the major organisations in the world with 9 10,000 registered members At the same time we have been cooperating with the Educational Association Komensky in Vienna which is managing the Czech school there on projects of comparable size for the last three years We have also been extensively cooperating with the three departments of Czech Studies I mentioned Every year we organise a regular summer course in Czech language two students from each of the schools in Croatia and Vienna and departments of Czech studies are invited every summer Besides studying Czech they are also making trips and getting to know the whole country These cooperations have always been multifaceted but it is also a sensitive issue The Czechs living abroad differ in their opinions on politics and culture They left the country for different reasons and political convictions they were variably successful and also lived their lives differently Living in a foreign country it is naturally much more difficult to become a full fledged member of society Are you also of assistance to those who want to return Are you getting many requests in this sense No the number of requests is minimal We can provide them with information but it would be an agenda too large for us it is rather up to the public administration It is also a question of legislation In 1992 1994 we tried to lobby for certain formulations in different laws namely in connection to voting rights and citizenship Today there are expert teams at the ministries and also deputies and senators are dealing with these issues so we have focused on practical cooperation with foreign organisations What personally brought you to this activity I am from Znojmo and I was asked at the beginning of the 1990s to help the Czechoslovak Foreign Institute with one particular matter So I became familiar with its activities I also knew one of the founding fathers of the Institute was Monsignor Jan Šrámek I liked what the Institute did and decided to be of moderate assistance The idea that my moderate assistance would last almost twenty years did not cross my mind at that time I am glad we are able to implement more and more substantial projects each year thanks to our members and their contributions At the moment the financial perspective and plan for the next year is ready and I am happy we managed to secure the same funding as the previous year The cooperation with our active partners will continue Do you have any plans for collecting and recording the stories of Czech people living abroad There is one of our internal publications titled Dictionary of names titles and notions of the Czech countrymen which contains some of their stories It was written by Dr Josef Kolínský There is for example one man originally from Slovacko who is a genius in engineering bridges He immigrated to the USA in 1948 and despite his impressive career and achievements he remained a very modest person and a proud patriot or another member bishop Jaroslav Škarvada who served as a secretary to cardinal Beran in Rome and a coordinator of the spiritual service for Czechs He was flying around the world and visiting them One of them has a cheese factory in New Zealand and he was telling me once how he personally piloted his small plane with the bishop on board When I was telling this story to bishop Škarvada he replied Yes I remember my prayers have never been so intense One hears many stories like that Do you plan to continue with your activities regarding the memorials Yes it is interesting that the licensing process didn t take longer than three or four months anywhere in the world not in Mexico City Ukraine St Petersburg or Košice In Mexico City we enjoyed great assistance from our ambassador Mr Sečka without whom we probably would not have been able to build the monument of T G Masaryk Once the statute was in place they even renamed the square where it was standing to Masaryk’s The Mexicans have a certain connection to Masaryk he communicated intensively with the Mexican president at that time and kept sending him the Czechoslovak laws and legislative proposals which were used as a template by Mexican legislators but it is a bit of a different issue We would like to build a memorial of cardinal Beran and cardinal Tomášek now at Svatý Kopeček because many pilgrims go there Unfortunately the licensing process is taking rather long We believe that the Czechoslovak Foreign Institute will accomplish many good projects with our countrymen around the world in the coming years By Věra Řiháčková českou verzi naleznete na www leadersmagazine cz Petersburg and Kiev provi materials video technolog publications We also start tacts with different organi worldwide In some countries there tions of Czechs and Slovak ferent emigration waves w their differing opinions on slovakia Czech Republic necessary to find an activ which would suit everyone tion we decided to focus o students of the Czech scho rent countries and also cult current major projects is sup established in Vienna whi some time with over 400 and 60 children in the kind operating with two gramma in Daruvar with 300 stude with 120 kids as well as a in Končenice We provide t rials and equipment for construction of a new libr literature and equipped sp hardware and software We also widely support our major projects was the struments for Czech bras support to several dancing years we also funded an three memorials to T G M Mexico City Uzhgorod at versity where Masaryk lect an honorary professor in joint memorial of T G Ma in Košice you some grants from the Min We received financial su of Finance only last year w by contributions and dona There are approximately Institute now who are activ litical life An individual or can become a member of th How many foreign memb We have some foreign m rather difficult for them to m instead keeping friendly rel the Czech organisation in Be and we just started coope of a Czech newspaper in A ate with an organisation o in Syria and several projec Bulgaria and elsewhere T partners is diverse and we ject with those who contac a suitable programme acti terested in cooperating wi tions with a certain track re have the possibility of es ourselves or persuading so in Czech issues Existing o cessful history and remarka tential partners When they ready to cooperate on a proj
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