The special edition of magazine Theater der Zeit, which is dedicated to Czech theatre, appears in a year in which the Czech Republic celebrates anniversaries for a number of events that loom large in its history: the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 and the Munich Agreement of 1938 which wiped the country off the map again for a number of years, the Communist Putsch of 1948 by which Czechoslovakia became part of the Eastern Bloc behind the Iron Curtain of forty years, the Soviet occupation of 1968 and finally the establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993 - 25 years ago. Although this edition focuses largly on the current state of contemporary Czech theatre and introduces its key protagonists, historical reflections inevitably figure as well, sketching the lines along which theatre culture has developed, which coincide with political fault lines. The TdZ Spezial was produced in collaboration with the journal Czech Theatre, which has been published in English since 1991 and offers information on key events in the Czech theatre world. It is published by Arts and Theatre Institute in Prague.
