Miss World
Czech beauty Tatana Kucharova was voted for Miss World in Warsaw on September 30, 2006. Eighteen-year-old High School student Tatana (88-63-90) was born in Trnava (Slovakia) and grew up in Opocno (Bohemia). She is beautiful, intelligent and ambitious young woman likewise Czech women often are. Remember also Eva Herzigova, Tereza Maxova, Petra Nemcova or Ivana Trump.
Tatana Kucharova
Tatana Kucharova
Czech Sportsmen
A lot of excellent hockey players in NHL teams in the USA and Canada came from the Czech Republic. The best known are Jaromir Jagr (born 1972) who played for New York Rangers, Pittsburg Penguines, Washington Capitals and goalkeeper Dominik Hasek (born 1965) who helped the Czech team to get the Olympic Gold in Nagano. In NHL he played for Chicago Blackhawks, Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings. Also the Czech tennis school is world famous and a lot of good tennis players came from there. Martina Navratilova (born 1956) is the one of the most successful representative together with Ivan Lendl (born 1960). She has won Wimbledon nine times and in total she has won 164 titles from international tournaments.
Jaromir Jagr
Dominik Hasek
Martina Navratilova
Ivan Lendl
Read more about Jaromir in an interesting book Jaromir Jagr (Ice Hockey Legends) by Dean Schabner
Find more about Dominik in a wonderful book Dominic Hasek (Ice Hockey Legends) by Mike Burgan
Know more about Martina in a great book The Lesbian Idol : Martina by Louise Allen
Discover more about Ivan in an excellent book Ivan Lendl by Chip Eliot
Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel (born 1936) is well known dramatist, essayist, philosopher and the president of the Czech Republic. The central theme of his literary texts is human identity and the mechanisms of dehumanized power. In the 70's and 80's he was something like a spiritual leader of the dissidents. After Velvet Revolution, in January 1990, he became president of the country and he stayed in the presidential office till February 2, 2003. Mr. Havel is very popular in the country and abroad as well.
Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel
Find more about Havel - dramatist in book Critical Essays on Vaclav Havel by Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz
Read more about Havel - philosopher in book Disturbing the Peace by Karel Hvizdala
Find more about Vaclav Havel also at his personal web site by Barrandov Studio
Jaroslav Heyrovsky
Nobel Prize Laureates
Another Czech Jaroslav Seifert (1901-1986) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1984. He published over 30 collections of poems and also the children's literature. In his poems Seifert has celebrated Prague and the cultural heritage of Czech Republic.
Jaroslav Seifert
Read more about Heyrovsky and Seifert in book 100 Years of Nobel Prizes by Baruch A. Shaley
Enjoy some poetry by Seifert in book The Early Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert translated by Dana Loewy
Bedrich Smetana
Czech Musicians and Composers
Another famous composer Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) is the author of the Cycle of Symphonic Poems My Fatherland. Classical music fans probably know other composers Leos Janacek and Zdenek Fibich. By the way, the famous song Roll out the Barrel was composed by another Czech Jaroslav Vejvoda in 1929.
Antonin Dvorak
Read more about Antonin Dvorak in a wonderful book Dvorak and His World by Michael Beckerman
Josef Sudek
Josef Sudek
Another Czech, Josef Sudek (1896-1976) is one of the world's best photographers. In his works the subjective and objective points of view are intermixed. His fragile and pellucid photographs present, in a fascinating manner, the harmonious beauty of everyday objects, nature and human life.
Milos Forman
Milos Forman
A film director Milos Forman (born 1932) is considered one of the most significant film directors in the world today. He received the Oscars for his films One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus. He also directed a film version of the musical Hair.
Find more about Josef Sudek's work in a wonderful book Josef Sudek by Anna Farova
Read more about Milos Forman's career in an excellent book Milos Forman by Thomas J. Slater
Franz Kafka
Czech Writers
Another Czech writer Milan Kundera (born 1929) reached the international fame by his novels The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1985) and Immortality (1990). He got some prestigious literary awards for his work and he is acknowledged as one of the world's best contemporary writers. It is surprising but the word robot is not the English one but has its origin in the Bohemia. In 1920 another Czech writer Karel Capek used this word for the first time in his theater play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots).
Milan Kundera
Read more about Kafka in an excellent book Franz Kafka by Ronald Speirs
Read one of the most famous Kundera's novel Immortality in translation by Peter Kussi
Read another famous Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being in translation by Michael Henry Heim
Emil Zatopek
Another Czech Sportsmen
Another famous Czech, Vera Caslavska (born 1942) won two golds, on the vault and beam, at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. She ruled women's gymnastics between the 1964 and 1968 Olympics.
Vera Caslavska
Around the World on a Bike
Czech bicyclist Vitezslav Dostal (born 1959) rode his bike around the world on the Czech brand bike Velamos. He started his wonderful bike tour in Prague in September 1994 and came back three years later in September 1997. He rode his bike 59 460 km (36 924 miles) through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Equator, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, USA, Great Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.
Vitezslav Dostal