First of all, just to make things clear, we do not claim, that this year will bring us something fateful, just because it ends in a number eight. It serves us more as an alibi – just in case. Either way, people say that most of us see years ending in a number eight as something magical. Are these numbers more easily remembered or is it something else? We dare to say that almost anyone you asked about significant years ending in eight would be able to name name at least four years: 1918, 1938, 1948 or1968. It is true that all these four years were of great and unquestionable importance to the fate of our ancestors and therefore ourselves.
Many will play the game with eights this year. We will not be left behind. It is a must for Prague Portal to commemorate at least some of the numerous dates that were of deep significance to the city and its citizens. The fact that these significant events took place in a year ending in the number eight means that this year we will celebrate their so called ‘round anniversary‘ (a Czech expression for an anniversary ending in zero, e.g. 70th anniversary) Some of the events will not be very old, some of them, on the other hand, will take us to the distant past. Details concerning what anniversaries we will deal with and when on our website this year will be announced elsewhere. However, we can already say that we will not omit the foundation of Charles University or Prague's New Town and from more recent events we will definitely cover the political anniversaries of February 48 and August 68. As for culture, we will bring to your attention the foundation of the National Museum and the National Theatre, but also the theatres “Na Zabradli“ and “Rokoko“. And we will not stop at that.
We mean to approach the project a little bit more ambitiously. We do not only want to "copy" history. We believe, that every commemoration of important events does not only mean generally known facts. It also gives us the opportunity to explore what is less well known or to look at it from a contemporary point of view. The best way to illustrate this with an example. Let’s take the 660th anniversary of the foundation of Charles University which we would like to use in order to outline its present form and its future plans. On this occasion we would also like to commemorate the founding of the National Museum 190 years ago and remember the National Revival, but we would equally like to show what Prague museums have to offer at the moment.
However, beside the dates that we will look at more attentively, we will not forget other dates ending in eight that might not seem so important at first sight, yet their impact was immense at the time. Among these we will mention, for example, the year 1968 when Zivnostenska banka, the first financial institution of Czech traders, was founded, or the relatively recent year 1978, when our first cosmonaut Vladimir Remek went into space. Nor can we omit such important dates as those connected with the election of Czech King Jiri z Podebrad (George of Podebrady) or the ‘round anniversary‘ of Prague’s so called defenestration and many others.
Since a game with dates is full of numbers and not everybody likes numbers, we would like to refresh the project Years Ending in Eight with something other than letters. That’s why we are planning to do questionnaires, multimedia demonstrations and we will try to interconnect our portal with websites of those institutions whose anniversaries we will commemorate. We will see how successful these plans are be and we hope that you might also have something to offer to make the project more interesting.
As we are sure we will not remember all of the anniversaries connected with 'number eight' we appeal to you, your memory and your creativity to send us some suggestions at: www.redakce.portal@cityofprague.cz. Write about anything that interests you or that you think might interest others on the given topic. We are looking forward to your contributions.