COURAGE

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Established as People's Community Center [Chitalishte] "Napredak" [Progress] in 1927, the Chitalishte in Chepintsi is still active today. Till 2005 it maintained a library with over 12 000 editions; a dance school, a singing group, a cinema hall. At the Chitalishte functioned also the "Club of the Regional Ethnographers [kraevedi]". In 2005, due to the restitution of the building, the Chitalishte remained for several years without own spaces and was not functioning; part of the library fund was destroyed due to poor conditions in the derelict after the restitution building. In 2009, some rooms on the top floor in a building that functioned in the 1960s-1970s as a maternity hospital were given to the Chitalishte for the needs of the library. After a partial renovation and with great volunteer work of the librarian Maria Petkova Ivanova (daughter of Yagoda and Petko Ogoyski) the main part of the editions was saved and the library opened again.

The Chitalishte is on budget at the Ministry of Culture. The limited budget allows only two posts – a librarian and a secretary. The Chitalishte's management is honorary: Chairman Nikolay Likovski, vice-chairman – Petko Ogoyski.

The management of the Chitalishte and the Town Hall of Chepintsi discuss the option of reconstructing a building for the needs of the Chitalishte with the construction of a museum part in which the collection of Petko Ogoyski could be transferred.

Czech Radio is a Czech public broadcasting body established by law. At present, Czech Radio operates four nationwide stations: Radiožurnál, Dvojka, Vltava and Plus, as well as regional broadcasting. Czech Radio began broadcast on 18 May 1923. Czech Radio also operates one of the largest sound archives in Central Europe. It holds 80 000 hours of phonograph records and 25 million pages of written material. The Archive supports the radio program, preserves the cultural heritage of the Czech nation and makes it accessible to the public.

Czech Television is a public service broadcasting company covering a vast majority of the Czech territory, the successor organisation of the Czechoslovak Television and a member of the European Broadcasting Union. As a public service medium, it has an obligation to provide all citizens access to information, culture, education and entertainment. The broadcasting is continuous and on six television channels CT1, CT2, CT24, CT sport, CT :D and CT art. The organisation is established by the Act on Czech Television from 1991, which sets the framework for its operation, including a fulfillment of public service tasks as a television broadcasting company and a form of financing. The budget of the institution is primarily provided from the income the television charges and as a complementary source of financing serves legally defined business activities (advertising, sponsorship, etc.).

Czech Television is liable to the Czech Television Council that represents the public's right to control CT activities. Among others, it is the responsibility of the Council to: nominate and remove the General Director, approve the budget of Czech Television and control its compliance or supervise the fulfillment of public service tasks as a television broadcasting company. The council has fifteen members that are elected and removed by the Chamber of Deputies in order to represent significant regional, political, social and cultural bodies of opinions. Members of the Council are elected for six years and there are strict demands on their impartiality and objectivity.

The Czechoslovak Documentation Centre for Independent Literature (CSDS) was founded in March 1986 in the Federal Republic of Germany. Its founding members were significant personalities of the then Czechoslovak exile: Jiří Gruša, František Janouch, Josef Jelínek, Ivo Kunstýř, Ivan Medek, Jiří Pelikán, Vilém Prečan, Karel Jan Schwarzenberg, Pavel Tigrid, Jan Vladislav and Ľubomír Ďurovič. Since November 1986, the center of Schwarzenberg, Bavarian Scheinfeld, has been home to work and study facilities. Historian Vilém Prečan has been the director and curator of the Documentation Center since its foundation. After his emigration in 1976, he sought to build an archive of independent Czech and Slovak literature and a research center to stimulate and organize studies on independent activities in Czechoslovakia after 1968.

Since its inception, the Documentation Center has combined the functions of a literary archive, a specialized library and research, study, information and publishing facilities. The centerpiece of the center's activities was the effort for all-round effective aid for domestic dissent and civic initiatives in Czechoslovakia.

Prečan systematically collected testimony of independent thinking and creation in Czechoslovakia after 1948, related to independent cultural, political and religious activities. First to be developed were collections of Czech and Slovak samizdat literature, which was constantly threatened at home with seizure by the State Security. These original samizdat texts and periodicals of ČSDS were copied and regularly distributed to large libraries, especially university libraries, editions of exile magazines, radio stations and human rights organizations. In this way, the center assisted in ensuring that works of independent Czech and Slovak literature and information on home dissent flowed smoothly into the information system of the free world.

ČSDS also produced its own publications. The most important was the magazine Acta, which was published both in Czech and English, and along with articles of a literary nature, bibliographic catalogs of samizdat editions also appeared.

In addition, ČSDS helped to smuggle books, magazines, documents and technical equipment for producing samizdat literature, such as copiers and, later, computers.

This archive, which was unique in the history of European exiles, received the Friedrich Bauer Literature Award in October 1993 from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

After 1989 there was a gradual transformation of ČSDS into a non-state research institute for the history of anti-totalitarian resistance in the Communist era. In September 2000 its collections moved to the Czech Republic and in 2003 they were transferred to the National Museum.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was established in January 1969 in connection with the adoption of the Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation. At the same time, two republican ministries - the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Socialist Republic and the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Socialist Republic - were established. The authority of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (FMV) was stipulated by Act No. 166/1968 Coll., through which the FMV was responsible for coordinating the activities of the bodies of both republics in heading the security services and components of the armed security services which were to fulfil special tasks in the protection of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and its federal bodies and institutions. It was also responsible for implementing state administration in regard to issues concerning both republics, for the protection of state and economic secrets, for the legal regulations concerning the borders of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and its state symbols, and for the legal regulation of road traffic rules.