The Queen and the Playwright: A Royal Visit at the Prague Castle

About the show

The photographs by Czech photographer Alan Pajer bring out the historic and intimate atmosphere of HM Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to the Czech Republic, which took place thirty years ago, in March 1996.
Her host was the then President of the young country, former dissident, prisoner of conscience, and playwright Václav Havel, and with him the whole Czech nation. Set in the optimistic scenery of the 1990s, in a country that was enjoying its first years of freedom after the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the Queen’s visit was a significant moment.
„In this century, my country actively supported the creation of the first Czechoslovak Republic under President Masaryk, which had such tragically short existence. The events that brought it to an end are the only shadow over our relationship, and I understand and sympathise with the feelings in this country over the Munich Agreement,“ the Queen said in Prague in 1996. Her visit is retrospectively seen as an important milestone in fulfilling the Czech ambition to join NATO and the EU. When it finally happened (in 1999 and 2004 respectively), it was widely understood as a full democratic recovery for the Czech Republic.
Outdoor exhibition on the fence of the Czech Embassy
26 - 30 Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8 4QY
Free access 24/7Organised by the Czech Centre in partnership with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in the UK.