Czech Republic

Last update: March, 2023

The system of state heritage conservation works to protect and provide professional oversight of a significant part of the cultural heritage of the CR. It involves not just agencies of public administration but also a very wide circle of other entities, owners of heritage sites, and owners of real estate that is located within heritage-protected areas. In total, there are around 40,000 immovable cultural monuments and 611 heritage reserves and conservation zones in the country.

A general interest in protecting and preserving cultural heritage and a living environment in settlements and the landscape that is good for society is declared as part of the constitutional order of the CR and is specifically stated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms (Art. 35 par. 3 and Art. 11 par. 3 and 4). The primary piece of legislation for heritage conservation is the Act on State Heritage Conservation – Act No. 20/1987 Coll.

The state organisation established to work on heritage conservation is the National Heritage Institute. It acts as the custodian of 103 heritage objects, which are accessible to the public, and also performs the function of an expert body in the field of heritage conservation, in conformity with Act No. 20/1987 Coll., on State Heritage Conservation.

In the field of cultural heritage, the key task is the proposal of a new Act on Cultural Heritage that should redefine public interest in the protection of cultural heritage, strengthen the role of cultural monument owners, simplify public administration in the field of cultural heritage or create a fund for motivating owners of cultural heritage. One essential preparatory step was to elaborate a statement of purpose for the Heritage Act that the Government of the Czech Republic adopted in Resolution No. 156 dated 6 March 2013. Since that time, however, progress has still not been made on preparing the new Act on Cultural Heritage.

The support and protection of monuments and cultural heritage in the CR has been a primary aim of all cultural policies. In the State Cultural Policy 2021-2025+ particular emphasis is placed on improving the legal environment in the field of cultural heritage. “Heritage legislation must emphasise the public interest in the protection of the heritage stock and create the conditions for the care of this stock in relation to key related laws (e.g. the Building Act, the Administrative Code or the Civil Code). At the same time, it will be necessary to make the heritage care system more flexible and efficient by setting up public administration information systems, thereby contributing to greater transparency and openness in the whole area”.

The new legislation should also focus on the field of archaeology. Its aim should be to link the care of archaeological heritage with spatial planning. This concerns in particular the carrying out of archaeological excavations, including the introduction of archaeological research projects as an important control mechanism.

It is equally important to develop the legal environment in the field of museums and galleries, including intangible cultural heritage. It is necessary to strengthen the management and registration of museum collections. It will be necessary to amend the 2000 Act on the Protection of Museum Collections, link it to the new Museum Act and establish a register of museums.

On 13 January 2017 the government adopted the last Concept of Heritage Conservation in the Czech Republic for 2017–2020.  This Concept was divided into two basic parts. The first part offers an assessment of the degree to which the Concept for 2011–2016 was fulfilled. The second part outlines the specific goals that heritage conservation in the CR seeks to achieve. Priority goals that were identified in this include the need for a relationship with the general public that in both directions is more open and more directly connected, and a call for legal assurances, intelligibility, and transparency in matters relating to the protection of cultural monuments and the overall stabilisation and strengthening of the role of heritage conservation in society.

In the field of movable cultural heritage, the MC is responsible for 20 museums, galleries, and monuments and for the National Film Archive (see also 3.2.). Museums and galleries are dealt with in the Concept for the Development of Museums in the CR (last one for 2015-2020, which is the third strategic document in this field). The first and most fundamental strategic objective is to maintain the capacity of public museums and galleries to professionally manage and expand collections and to cultivate a better understanding of them through academic research. The second objective is to create a better legal and economic environment for this field and the third is to expand the services of museums and galleries by employing the technological innovations of the 21st century.

The MC operates a unique database on museum-like collections that has slowly become a ‘Virtual Exhibition of Czech Museology’. An oral description of more than two and a half thousand objects is accompanied by visual materials, including photographs of objects, images from depositaries, laboratories, etc. Registration in this database is a precondition for applying for some grants from the ‘Integrated System of Movable Cultural Heritage Protection’.

In the field of the protection of intangible cultural heritage – folk music, theatre, dance, rituals, and traditional craft procedures – the UNESCO Convention on the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage was ratified in the CR in 2009. In May 2009, this Convention became part of the system of law in the CR, which is the first time that intangible cultural heritage has been supported by law. For the purpose of implementing this Convention, a network of information, training, and methodological bodies was set up for the documentation and conservation of traditional folk culture. At the national level the MC assigned this task to the National Institute of Folk Culture and at the regional level to museums designated by regional authorities. These regional bodies cooperate on fulfilling their tasks with other museums in the region and with national museums with ethnographic units (National Museum, Moravian Museum, Silesian Museum, National Open Air Museum, National Agricultural Museum), and they develop their own networks of volunteers and use the services of local chroniclers and the resource network of the Czech Ethnographic Society.

In conformity with the Convention, the National Council of Traditional Folk Culture, an advisory body of the Ministry of Culture, discusses nominations for the List of Intangible Properties of Traditional Folk Culture.

The Ministry of Defence administers the Ondráš Military Artistic Ensemble, which is engaged in the preservation and development of selected parts of traditional folk culture and cultural heritage.

In 2016 the Government of the Czech Republic approved the third successive Concept of More Effect Conservation of Traditional Folk Culture in the Czech Republic for 2016–2020. This Concept is intended to define the instruments that can ensure more effective conservation of traditional folk culture as a series of coordinated measures, the objective of which is to more effectively identify, document, protect, use, and pass on traditional folk culture to the next generations.

Every year since 2001, the Minister of Culture has awarded outstanding folk producers the title of "Bearer of the Tradition of Folk Craft", which publicly recognises their work.  Its aim is to preserve traditional crafts that are in danger of disappearing, document their practices and pass on these skills to their successors.

Last update: March, 2023

Archives in the CR fall under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior. The network of archives in the country is formed by public and private archives with accreditation. The category of public archives also includes specialised archives, as accredited institutions, and there are organisations administered by the MC that belong to this category. This particularly applies to the National Film Archive, the mission of which is to protect film heritage, help the public to learn about this heritage, and assist in the development of the Czech audio-visual industry and film culture. The archive was founded in 1943 and is one of the ten oldest and biggest film archives in the world. Other such organisations under the authority of the MC that this pertains to are the Archive of the National Museum, the Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature, the Archive of the National Gallery, the Archive of the National Library, the Archive of the National Technical Museum, and the Archive of the Moravian Gallery in Brno.

In 2018 the Government of the CR adopted the Concept of Support for the Work of Archiving for 2018-2025 with a View to 2035 (Ministry of Interior, 2018). The Concept focuses on evaluating the progress and development of archive work to the year 2017 and on this basis establishing the goals and steps that will lead to the further development of archive work and the functioning of archives. The objective is to define the basic problem areas in existing legislation on archive work and records management. It also addresses the issue of digital archiving and other areas associated with the introduction of electronic administration into the work of public administration and with the development of new technologies.

The CR has a very wide network of public libraries that has existed since the 1920s. In 2020, according to NIPOS statistical data, there were 5307 public libraries in the country. Public libraries are by law registered in a database maintained by the MC. The MC also administers three contributory organisations in this area: the National Library of the Czech Republic, the Moravian Library in Brno, and the K. E. Macan Library and Printing Office for the Blind. The MC’s advisory body on library and information services is the Central Library Board of the CR, which is also involved in drawing up key strategic materials, and it issues approval of some of these materials itself (the Concept for Lifelong Education or the National Concept for the Long-Term Protection of Digital Data in Libraries).

In 2019 an initiative called For Libraries! was founded in support of libraries that points to the long-term underfunding of library professions and to the social and environmental dimensions of the work that is connected to the dense network of libraries throughout the country.

Currently, the Concept of Support for Libraries in the CR for 2021-2027 with a view to 2030 is in force. Its task is to integrate the library system into the Strategic Framework Czech Republic 2030. The Concept formulates a basic vision of the development of the system within the three basic pillars: Libraries as pillars of civil society and natural centres, Libraries as institutions supporting education and learning, and Libraries as administrators of cultural and knowledge assets.

Each year the MC announces several special programmes relating to various areas of support for libraries, from digital access to the purchasing of publications and community work among small public libraries.

In 2020 and 2021, during the period of the Covid-19 closure of physical education in schools, the National Library, in agreement with the Agency of authors and other copyright holders DILIA, made over 206,000 titles of monographs and periodicals temporarily available online to students and teachers of universities. The agreement allowed access to the digitized holdings of the National Library and public universities online through the Kramerius application.

Last update: March, 2023

Theatres played a pivotal role in the country’s transition to a democratic society in 1989. Theatres were the first to go on strike at that time and they became a platform for the political discussions that were led by theatre artist and future president Václav Havel. While until then they had been centrally controlled, theatres were the first entities to be decentralised to a lower level of state administration when they were transferred to the municipal level (1993).

After 1990 the entire state-controlled sector of the arts underwent decentralisation and privatisation and parts of it were dissolved entirely. In the performing arts this process affected state funding organisations, arts agencies, circuses, publishing houses, and copyright collection societies. As early as 1990 the most restrictive parts of the Theatre Act were annulled and, in connection with other legal regulations (the Trade Licensing Act), the running of theatres was opened up to the private sector (profit and non-profit).

Traditional circus, which traditionally belonged to circus families, has a long tradition in the CR. All circuses were nationalised after 1948 and they were administered by the Ministry of Culture as the state-owned company Czechoslovak Circuses, Varieties and Fun Fairs until 1989. There was also a circus school in the Czech Republic – the Circus and Variety Training School, which was dissolved after 1990.

After 1989 smaller circuses were restituted and gained independence. Traditional circuses, in particular, were not administered by the Ministry of Culture and were transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture (because of the animal breeding) and they have no definition as an art form.

New or contemporary circus started to take shape back in 1990, but it started to develop more intensively after 2009. Unlike traditional circus, contemporary circus is acknowledged as an art form in the CR, but it is not steadily anchored in any live arts disciplines, as it exists between theatre and dance as far as grant procedures of the state or municipalities are concerned. (Štefanová & Byček, 2018).

In the area of the performing arts the state administers through the MC the National Theatre and the intermediary organisation the Arts and Theatre Institute.

The National Theatre followed from the existence of the Interim Theatre that preceded it and opened, first, in 1881 and then, after a fire, again in 1883. The construction of the theatre was funded through a national collection and with donations from other contributing parties. The state assumed responsibility for the administration and management of the National Theatre in Prague on 1 January 1930. The National Theatre is currently made up of four ensembles – the drama company, the ballet company, the opera company, and Laterna Magika, which was originally a separate contributory organisation of the MC. There are four performance venues that are managed by the National Theatre as an organisation: the National Theatre itself, the State Opera, the Estates Theatre, and the New Stage.

The Arts and Theatre Institute is a research organisation that is primarily devoted to theatre and also promotes the Czech arts internationally. Since 1967 it has been organising the largest international exhibition of performance design and space – the Prague Quadrennial.

Through its grant programmes the MC also supports contributory organisations administered by the municipalities. This support is mainly provided through the Programme of State Support for Professional Theatres, Symphony Orchestras, and Vocal Ensembles.

To support the independent areas in the performing arts there are a number of grants programmes at the level of the MC and at lower levels of state administration that support the creation, production, and presentation of works of art as well as international cooperation. 

Last update: March, 2023

Up to 1989 a state monopoly existed in the visual arts that had to do, among other things, with the exercising of censorship. After 1990 the original cultural infrastructure in the visual arts was dismantled and gradually new infrastructure emerged in the form of new sales galleries, museums, agencies, and exhibition halls. 

At the initiative of artists themselves the old national unions of artists were disbanded and new professional organisations began to emerge in the visual arts in their place. They are, however, at present quite weak compared to other areas of the arts and only a small number of visual arts are part of these groups.

Public resources have been a long-term source of support for projects in the visual arts, which is provided in the form of scholarships/grants. Nevertheless, there is still no programme of state support for contemporary art and architecture in galleries and exhibition halls, which would among other things help to establish an acquisitions policy and financially support the purchase of works of art (see the Concept of Support for the Arts 2015-2020). 

The Concept recommended reintroducing support for the creation of works of art in public spaces. To this end it tries to get public architectural competitions to reserve a certain percentage of the commission for creating art works in public spaces; the professional organisation Spolek Skutek strives for this as well.

The visual arts sector also initiated the discussion on the Status of the Artist in the days before the pandemic.

The MC administers two galleries devoted to the visual arts: the National Gallery in Prague and the Moravian Gallery in Brno. One part of another contributory organisation, the Czech Philharmonic, is Rudolfinum Gallery, an exhibition space that is also funded by the MC.

Until 1989 there were a number of enterprises and cooperatives that employed artists proficient in the arts and crafts. The most prominent ones were the Central Office of the Arts and Crafts and the Central Office of Traditional Folk Arts (ÚLUV), an organisation that was established by Act No. 56/1957 Coll., on work in the arts and crafts and traditional folk arts. There also existed enterprises such as Theatre Technology, Exhibition Management, and Štuko – a cooperative focusing on various arts and crafts required for the restoration of monuments in Prague, and many others. Upon fulfilling prescribed criteria skilled craftspeople were granted the title of authorised worker in the traditional folk arts or authorised craftsperson, or master of traditional folk arts or master craftsperson (Machátová, 2013). 

In 1992 Act No. 56/1957 Col. was abolished, which meant the two main organisations administered by the MC were also dissolved and thereby the key employees in the arts and crafts were also disbanded. Most skilled craftspeople today are freelance workers with a trade licence.

Currently there are several associations in the field of the arts and crafts. The most prominent ones include Rudolfinea, which is a member of the Czech Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Blacksmiths, the Society for Education in the Arts and Crafts, the Bohemian-Moravian Tinkers Guild, and the Association of Creators and Producers of Traditional Handicrafts.

The MC is still the ministry responsible for the arts and crafts, especially with respect to cultural heritage. The MC also administers the National Institute of Folk Culture, the mission of which is to conduct research on cultural heritage in the field of traditional and folk culture, organise events devoted to folklore and education, and provide consultation and information services for all forms of folklore activities in the CR. As part of the Concept of More Effective Conservation of Traditional Folk Culture in the Czech Republic for 2016–2020, through a grant competition, the MC provides support for traditional folk arts and does so by awarding arts scholarships. 

In regard to the current situation of trades in the arts and crafts that are still being practised, many of these trades lack qualified professionals and some lack an entire new generation of qualified craftspeople. Information and a database relating to the folk arts and trades is provided on the portal Folk Arts and Crafts.