Czech Republic

Last update: March, 2023

There are initiatives in the CR that seek to promote participation in cultural life and different branches of Czech public administration (ministries, municipal authorities) support them in two ways: by establishing their own cultural organisations or through grant programmes.

The CR is an advanced country in terms of its cultural infrastructure. It has a dense network of public libraries, and it is among the countries with the largest number of museums and galleries per 1000 inhabitants and those numbers continue to grow. The number of monuments that can be accessed by the public are on the rise, as are the number of theatres, which may be different types of legal subjects. Non-profit organisations and the business sphere have become involved in building cultural infrastructure as well. An interesting fact is that 30% of theatres are self-sufficient, which is above the European average. The types of places that are part of the cultural infrastructure have also changed. Since 2000 former industrial spaces have begun to be used for cultural purposes and modern centres combining entertainment with culture, education, and production activities have emerged. These are multifunctional centres, where learning and educational activities form part of a multigenerational programme based on providing people with an experience. Cultural activities are also offered by community organisations established by churches or religious entities. Their programmes tend to be dominated by activities for citizens with social and health disabilities. Linking cultural services to tourism has become a strong trend. There is a long tradition of ensuring that disabled persons are able to access cultural sites and to this end support is given to the construction of barrier-free structures and sites and to creating accessibility maps of sites and making them available to the public. For example, the League for the Rights of People in Wheelchairs has been mapping the accessibility of sites for more than a decade, and it uses modern information and communication technologies to this end – for example, alongside websites and online catalogues public libraries are/should be also typically equipped with accessibility maps for the disabled.

A priority is to focus on children and young people and foster in them a lasting relationship to the arts and culture. This has given rise to such projects as the library-based ‘A Night with Andersen’ and an initiative prepared by artists called ‘The Whole Czech Land Reads to Children’ and ‘Let’s Have Fun with Monuments’.

Since the early 1990s there has been a programme (earlier known as Museum Gates Open) that seeks to change the traditional way of seeing museums as scientific institutions focused on their collections. This has led to the development of modern interactive exhibits, the Museum Night project (museum tours unusually offered during the late evening hours), theatrical tours of sites (where guides in costumes try to share not just information with visitors but give them an unexpected encounter with the past). Every museum has a museum pedagogue (a specific university-level field of study) who works mainly with child visitors using creative games and activities.

Cultural institutions also try to attract visitors by offering family tickets and discount admission for certain age groups (children) and social categories (seniors, unemployed) and by offering special activities (e.g. Opera Night at Pilsen Theatre). Visitor rates also receive a boost from activities organised in connection with international initiatives. An example is Theatre Night (organised in the CR since 2013), Dance Day or Music Day, when dance and music performances take place all over the country. Heritage Days and Monument Doors Open Days are also traditionally organised where the public is granted access to places usually closed to them with an accompanying cultural programme for children and adults, and admission is usually free.

The Ministry of Culture (MC) has also become involved and in 2009 it launched a new sub-programme called ‘Mobility for All’, which conforms with the goals of the government plan for financing the National Development Programme of Mobility for All. The sub-programme provides funding for making cultural facilities and buildings accessible to people with disabilities.

In 2013 ‘RE:PUBLIKUM: Audience Development Opportunities in the 21^st Century’ was held (organised by the Arts and Theatre Institute, the Czech Office of the Culture Programme, MEDIA Desk CR, and Archa Theatre) on the subject of examples of audience development projects. The conference presented examples of interesting and well-functioning audience development projects in the CR and abroad. To accompany the conference, print and electronic versions of the publication RE: Publikum: Audience Development Opportunities in the 21st Century were published. In 2016 another RE:PUBLIKUM international conference was organised on the same topic. Focus On: Audiences is an event that has been organised every year since 2014 and brings together representatives of cultural organisations that present current inspiring examples of work with the public in different areas of culture. In 2018, to coincide with the European Year of Cultural Heritage, the event turned its attention to the parties involved in cultural heritage – Focus On: The Audience for Cultural Heritage.

There are several examples of strategies combine participation in cultural life with the wider issue of civic participation and the development of civil society.

One of the main objectives of the State Cultural Policy 2021-2025+ is to increase the availability and accessibility of culture. The Ministry of Culture considers this task a priority. It wants to achieve this through effective cooperation with key regional cultural actors, the sustainable development of cultural infrastructure throughout the country, the introduction of free admission to the permanent exhibitions of the most important state organisations, the further digitisation of cultural content and the removal of various barriers to access to culture.

In the Strategic Framework of Sustainable Development in the CR till 2030 culture is viewed as essential to the socio-economic development of the Czech Republic as it has a decisive influence on the human and social capital of society and its value orientations. Its aim is investment into life-long education and into the quality and accessibility of public cultural services, especially those focused on the development of leisure-time activities for children and young people in particular.

Last update: March, 2023

Currently local authorities are very active in conducting surveys on cultural activities and participation in culture. They use the information obtained from the surveys to develop local cultural policies. Another example are studies connected to specific cultural events on the local level, such as ‘Research on the Informedness, Attitudes, and Participation of the Residents of the City of Pilsen in the Project “Pilsen – European Culture Capital”’ (2015-2016, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen), which focused on cultural consumption in relation to Pilsen as a European Culture Capital in 2015.

There are also studies that are conducted on the national and international levels.

As part of a national project called ‘Keys for Life’, in 2012 a study titled ‘Children in the Ring of Today’s World – Value Orientations of Children Aged 6 to 15’ was published. The study looks at four areas of children’s lives: family, school, leisure time, and values. It points to current trends in how children spend their leisure time, including interest in arts activities in relation to age and gender. In 2015-2017 the study ‘Methodology for Segmenting the Population of the CR in Relation to the Consumption of Cultural Goods’ was conducted at the University of Economics in Prague that looked at the segmentation of visitors attending cultural activities, questions of satisfaction, visitor loyalty, and examining the main reasons for attending cultural activities.

The results of studies devoted to culture and cultural preferences and consumption are also regularly published by the Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences – such as Cultural Consumption and Social Distinction in the CR (Šafr, 2014) or Leisure Time, Society, Culture: Czechia – Slovakia (Chorvát, Eds., 2019).

According to the Czech Statistical Office, the number of visitors to cultural events fell by almost 55% in 2020 (the latest available data) compared to 2019. This was particularly true for historic sites, libraries, cinemas, exhibition and concert halls, festivals and theatres. Despite this, cultural establishments in the CR recorded almost 45 million visits, an average of 4 visits per capita.

Visitor arrivals in the CR in 2020 were affected not only by government restrictions against the spread of the COVID-19 disease on Czech territory, but also by the global reduction in tourism as a result of the pandemic.

New investigations have emerged in the context of changes during and after COVID-19. For example, the research  Reading in the Time of the Coronavirus Pandemic (National Library of the CR et all., 2021), was conducted in 2021 by the National Library of the Czech Republic in cooperation with the Institute for Czech Literature and Nielsen Admosphere. In 2021, the National Library of the Czech Republic and Nielsen Admosphere also conducted a repeated nationally representative survey of children focusing on book reading, reading behaviour, usual ways of spending leisure time, and the influence of family and school environment on children's relationship to books and reading in general (previous surveys were conducted in 2013/2014 and 2017). The timing of the survey Czech Children as Readers in a Time of Pandemic (National Library of the CR & Nielsen Admosphere, 2021), i.e. April to June 2021, allowed for a strong focus on the changes in children's reading and media behaviour in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic.

The following table contains data from NIPOS and Czech Statistical Office surveys, but also from surveys of other professional associations and cultural organisations.

Table 6: People who participated in or attended a certain cultural activity during the last 12 months in the Czech Republic (in % of the population, over 2005, 2015, 2019 and 2020)

Source(s): Data from the statistical research of NIPOS; Statistical survey of the Czech Statistical Office: Use of information and communication technologies in households and among individuals (2015, 2019, 2020); Results of the survey on the readership of the population of the Czech Republic (2007, 2016, 2018 a 2021), National Library in Prague; Union of Film Distributors (cinemas);

[1] Data for book readership is not available for selected years, only for 2007, 2016, 2018 and 2021.

Last update: March, 2023

Household spending on culture in 2020 (last available data) amounted to almost CZK 52.1 billion and decreased by 9.3% compared to 2019. Their weight in the total financial resources for culture fell by one percentage point year-on-year to 19.9%.

Household expenditure was mainly directed towards media and print (e.g. television, radio, cinema, books and press, video games), amounting to CZK 38.4 billion, which represents a 74% share of total household expenditure on culture (it was 3.3 percentage points lower in 2019). Much less was spent by households on cultural heritage, live arts (performing and visual arts) and arts education (together CZK 11.4 billion, down CZK 3.6 billion year-on-year). Household expenditure on culture mostly takes the form of admission fees, purchases of souvenirs, handicrafts, concession fees, other service charges (e.g. fees for watching pay-per-view programmes via the internet), tuition fees for arts education or purchases of cultural goods (books, magazines, paintings, antiques, etc.).

The share of households' spending on culture in their total consumption expenditure fell to 2.05% in 2020 (from 2.15% in the previous year).

Table 7: Household cultural expenditure by expenditure purpose, 2018 and 2020 (in millions of EUR^[1])

Source:  Results of the Culture Account for 2018, ČSÚ, NIPOS, Prague 2020. Results of the Culture Account for 2020, ČSÚ, NIPOS, Prague 2022.

[1] The exchange rate for 1 EUR in 2018 was 25.68 CZK and in 2020 it was 26.50 CZK.

Last update: March, 2023

In the CR, there was a period in the late 19th and early 20th century when club life bloomed and during that time various kinds of clubs were founded – national houses, community clubs, and sporting associations (Sokol) etc., where people went not just for entertainment but also to get together. They evolved naturally, embedded in community life, until the Communist regime seized power. The regime severed these links, nationalised property, quashed civil society, and seized control of entertainment. The old buildings used for these activities fell into decline; some were refurbished, but usually suffered from insensitive structural modifications. They were replaced by the mass construction of megalomaniacal ‘cultural houses’, which the political authorities also used for their own visibility. After 1989 some municipalities tried to get rid of these buildings by selling them, because they were expensive to operate and to maintain. But even in the 1990s municipal representatives already began to realise that without cultural houses and centres quality local community life would suffer, and there was a return to a naturally evolving process. Cultural houses and centres are run by various subjects: municipalities, municipal districts, and even associations and public benefit companies, joint-stock and limited-liability companies, and private subjects; none, however, are run by the state. The activities they offer can be divided into basic groups: artistic, non-artistic and educational activities, and other cultural services. 

Through its contributory organisation NIPOS, the MC has begun to conduct statistical data collection (done for the first time for 2007) on the activities of cultural institutions such as cultural houses, municipal cultural centres, extracurricular centres, and so on. Statistical surveys are conducted on a sample of (selected) organisations.

Civic activities (associations, charitable trusts) have primarily surfaced in the area of public cultural services. Their activities relate mainly to arts and education. These include centres mediating access to the contemporary arts. One example is MeetFactory in Prague, which is based in a former industrial space. The centre offers cultural education, productions, studio space and arts residencies and features exhibitions, a video library, a bookstore, a café, and a dance club. It also rents out 5000 m² space made up of multifunctional studios and halls. This charitable trust is a self-declared non-profit international contemporary arts centre, the mission of which is to initiate dialogue between different arts genres and mediate for the public the latest developments in the contemporary arts scene. In addition to a theatre and music programme and exhibitions in three galleries, it also hosts an international arts residency programme. MeetFactory was founded in 2001 by well-known artist David Černý.

Another example is provided by the clubs and cafés run by associations and alternative cultural-education centres that combine a cultural programme with meditation and courses in dance and singing. The Sokol Community is another civic initiative and its individual units manage individual Sokol Centres, which are places that often also serve as local community centres for the wider community. This is the case in the Central Bohemian spa town Toušeň, not far from Prague, where the local theatre association that has been re-established also organises concerts, exhibitions, dances, and theatre shows at the local Sokol Centre. Based on a contract with the municipality, various associations put together the cultural programme of Sokol Centres, which do not have their own professional employees.

Another version of this form of arrangement is the work of Johan, an association in Pilsen, which secured funding for the reconstruction of a former train station building that functions as a multicultural and production centre. These examples are evidence of the principle of cooperation between the public and private sectors at work, which is something that is called for in key government concepts.

There are a great number of centres of theatre education that operate entirely as civic initiatives. For example, in Olomouc one basic school of the arts was initially set up as a project and has since functioned as an autonomous association called Association D, which offers courses in drama for schools and also provides training to teachers and heads of children’s theatre companies. Currently these centres are working to obtain a permanent education licence.

An important characteristic of civic initiatives (many of which emerge for this purpose) is that they are a response to what is currently going on in society in the field of culture. Over the years various civic initiatives have emerged spontaneously in the sphere of culture and temporarily established themselves as platforms that promote the interests of culture either at the level of the state or at the level of the given municipality. One example of this is “ZaČeskoKulturní/For a Cultural Czech Republic”, which operates on the state level; others include “4 Points for Culture” or “For a Cultural Prague”, directed against the lack of conceptuality at Prague City Hall. One initiative of current relevance in connection with the COVID-19 is a platform called Zaživouhudbu/ForLiveMusic, the goal of which is to promote measures designed to help save the music sector.

The non-professional (amateur) arts have a very strong tradition in the CR, one that stretches back several centuries. Given the country’s demographic picture (settlements with populations up to 5000 predominate) local culture plays an essential role and positively influences the quality of life and is part of the image of places and regions. Some branches of the arts have no or only a marginal professional segment (e.g. vocal music, brass music, folk dance). Non-professional arts groups act as important representatives of the CR abroad and have been praised for their artistic quality (e.g. children’s choirs, amateur theatre). Every level of public administration is involved in supporting the presentation of amateur groups. Such arts activities are practised as leisure-time activities and are not the primary livelihood for those who participate in them. They can take the form of an individual pursuit or a collective activity practised in groups and clubs. Current cultural anthropology recognises the important role the arts play in the development of the individual in terms of contributing to a person’s cultural capital.

The non-professional arts are currently enjoying a surge, in part owing to tradition and intergenerational transfer, and in part owing to the rising standard of living and to the existing system of assistance by the state, regions and local areas. The state and the regions support a unique system of what are called ‘competitive talent shows”. Most arts fields have a nationwide talent show that is built on regional (rounds of) talent shows, and if a company or individual wishes to take part in the national talent show in their field they must first take part in one of these regional shows. The national show is made up of nominations or recommendations from regional juries appointed by the programme council. This system has been gradually built up since the 1920s and after 1990 amateurs had to decide whether it should continue. At that time the network of cultural education facilities (district and regional cultural centres) that had overseen the system ceased to exist. Given that the grant system of public administration was still only emerging, amateurs in individual fields of the arts had to decide whether they wanted this system to continue and whether they knew how to make it work. Their decision in favour of continuing this system means that it reflects a publicly declared cultural need.  

Non-professional arts shows (the number of which increased significantly after 1990 as municipalities sought to revive or establish such a tradition) are organised by cultural facilities, leisure-time facilities for children and young people, associations and charitable trusts, physical persons and businesses. They use multiple-source funding based on public grants. As well as the newly established shows there are also festivals that have a continuous history dating back many years (Jirásek’s Hronov amateur theatre festival founded in 1931, Chrudim puppetry festival established in 1951, the Festival of International Choral Art in Jihlava, established in 1957, Strážnice International Folklore Festival, established in 1957).

Unlike other European countries that were not part of the communist bloc, where the main non-professional arts organisations are non-state, non-profit organisations that operate nationwide (their activities receive material support from the relevant state body (e.g. Germany, France, Belgium, Austria), there are no majority nationwide associations (that represent individual fields of the arts) in the CR. In some fields there are no associations at all (e.g. stage dance, recitation), in others there are several associations (e.g. amateur theatre, non-professional film), and in others there are associations striving to represent of the majority (e.g. the Union of Czech Photographers, the Union of Czech Choirs). This situation is the result of a break in tradition that was caused by the communist period, when such associations were not allowed to exist, and by the ongoing aversion people have to being grouped in associations. Associations that do not have the resources to hire professional employees and must rely on volunteers will have difficulty functioning. On the other hand, a state service centre has existed since 1925 (Masaryk Institute of Public Education). Today this agenda is taken up by two state budgetary organisations: the National Information and Consulting Centre for Culture based in Prague (NIPOS) (which covers most fields and oversees the talent show system) and the National Institute of Folk Culture in Strážnice (overseeing traditional folk culture including folk dance and music). It works with all umbrella organisations on a conceptual and organisational level and respected experts and artists sit on its advisory boards.

In terms of tradition, it is not surprising to find that the largest fields are amateur theatres with approximately 3000 companies and choirs with approximately 1700 groups. Each year 200 children’s choirs with a total of around 6000 singers take part in the talent shows. Approximately 300 dance groups and a total of 2500 children take part in the talent shows in dance. A new field is children’s filmmaking, for which a national show has been organised in Blansko since 2015. New technologies also influence the experimental work of adult filmmakers and photographers. Complete information on some fields is provided on national websites. For example, Amatérské divadlo is a website that has been developing since the mid-1990s (with the financial support of EEA/Norway) and it offers more than 180 000 items of data stored in five database categories (location, companies, people, shows, literature). The website is administered by NIPOS. There is also the national register of non-professional film FILMDAT (a voluntary association initiative) etc.