Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

In 1936, the Umělecká beseda (Artistic Forum) began planning an ambitious retrospective exhibition entitled 1000 Years of Czechoslovak Art, intended as part of the 1941 jubilee exhibition. The project aimed to demonstrate a millennium of cultural continuity and unity between Czechs and Slovaks through artistic monuments. It sought to emphasize their shared Great Moravian heritage and historical solidarity despite changing state formations, while presenting a comprehensive view of artistic development across Czechoslovak territory. [Šourek 1936] Although the exhibition was never realized, a remarkable volume of surviving documentation allows us to reconstruct its intended scope.

The project emphasized the republic's unity – not only political but also cultural and spiritual – including the national minorities. Its concept reflected the growing tensions between the nations and strove to manifest the cultural solidarity integral to all components of the state. Karel Šourek – the Artistic Forum’s exhibition manager from 1935 onward – saw the exhibition as an expression of cultural democracy in Czechoslovakia and cohesion of all the aspects of the state, enriched "with national or rustic accents from the individual regions." [Šourek 1936] The exhibition also aimed to challenge the existing practice of studying art by individual regions (Czech, Moravian-Silesian, and Slovak) and offer a more comprehensive, transnational interpretation of cultural history. According to Šourek, scholars had already thoroughly examined the artistic production of the Czech and Moravian-Silesian lands, but a more in-depth picture of Slovak art had yet to emerge. To this end, the Artistic Forum planned another comprehensive exhibition, Old Masters of Slovakia, which they announced while still planning the Czechoslovak Art Exhibition. [Šourek 1936] Old Masters of Slovakia took place from June to October 1937 in the Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle, enjoying great popularity with the public.

On April 17, 1936, the Fine Arts Department of the Artistic Forum held a meeting with representatives of state authorities, art corporations, Prague museums, and art historians. During the meeting, they formed a smaller organizational committee for the exhibition. Its members included Eustach Mölzer (initiator of the 1941 Jubilee Exhibition), Vincenc Kramář, Václav Vilém Štech, and Karel Šourek [Kht 1936].

A delegation from the Artistic Forum, led by chairman Václav Rabas, presented the exhibition project to President Edvard Beneš on May 27, 1936. Beneš welcomed the show as an expression of the Czechoslovakist ideal (Rabas 1936). Though the concepts of Czechoslovak unity and cultural integrity had lost much of their meaning by the 1920s, becoming mere formal elements of ceremonial state rhetoric, they regained significance as the geopolitical situation changed. This time, they helped articulate the republic's internal cohesion in response to the growing threat posed by Nazi Germany's politics. [Ducháček 2019, p. 180]

Compared to the Exhibition of Contemporary Culture in Brno (1928), which celebrated the modernity and international character of Czechoslovak culture, the 1000 Years of Czechoslovak Art exhibition marked a fundamental shift in how Czechoslovak culture was presented. During a period of economic crisis and Nazi expansionism, the state sought a deeper cultural and historical synthesis that emphasized the republic's internal integrity. Although the exhibition received political support and aligned with the state's official cultural policy, it was never realized due to changing political circumstances, external threats, and the outbreak of the Second World War.

Lucia Kvočáková

Works Cited

Šourek 1936: Karel Šourek, 1000 let československého umění, Život XIV, 1935–1936, pp. 118–119

Ducháček 2019: Milan Ducháček, Čechoslovakismus v prvním poločase ČSR: státotvorný koncept nebo floskule?, in: Adam Hudek – Michal Kopeček – Jan Mervart (eds.), Čechoslovakismus, Praha 2019, pp. 149–181

Rabas 1936: Václav Rabas, Oslovení prezidenta republiky Dr. Edvarda Beneše při audienci zástupců Umělecké Besedy na Hradě pražském dne 27. května 1936, Život XIV, 1935–1936, pp. 141–142

Kht 1936: Kht, 1000 let československého umění, Život XIV, 1935–1936, pp. 140

Tisíciletí čsl. umění, Polední list IX, 1936, no. 108, 17. 4., p. 2