Café Slavia

Slavia occupies the ground floor of the monumental Neo-Renaissance Lažanský Palace, the former representative residence of Count Lažanský of Buková, built in 1863 by the architect Vojtěch Ignác Ullmann in the style of Viennese Neo-Renaissance buildings. One of the last palaces to be built in Prague, it was conceived as a representative noble residence, an apartment building and administrative premises all in one. The composer Bedřich Smetana lived and worked here between 1863 and 1869. The National Theatre, which opened in 1881, had a major influence on the history of the palace and the café.

Café Slavia has been remodelled several times throughout its history. The most important reconstruction – in the Art Deco style – was undertaken in the 1930s by Václav Fišer and František Štěrba. The renovated Slavia, with its marble and wood casing on the walls and its large mirrors and round marble tables, became the pride of Prague. Its large windows provided a magnificent view of the Vltava River and the Prague Castle and connected its guests with life in the street outside. The famous cloakroom lifts, the efficient mechanical ventilation and the modern toilets were all hallmarks of the café, whose premises were eventually expanded to include today´s Parnas restaurant.

Slavia is one of the oldest and most famous artistic cafés in the world – an iconic meeting place of people from Prague and visitors from around the globe. The Nová Slavia café opened its doors in 1982 for the first time, its name having been inspired by the Czech national awakening and pan-Slavism. Slavia, the mother of all Slavic people, painted by Viktor Oliva, appeared on a large canvas on one of the walls of the establishment. Today, Viktor Oliva´s another painting, The Absinthe Drinker, now hangs in its place.

The café soon became famous for its visitors, mainly actors, dancers, opera singers and directors from the National Theatre. The composer Antonín Dvořák was a regular guest. From 30 August 1884 onwards the café was run under the name of Café Slavia.

Slavia became the epicentre of Czech culture and the second home of cultural figures. The writers Karel and Josef Čapek and Arnošt Lustig, the art theorists Karel Teige and Václav Černý, the poets Vítězslav Nezval and Jaroslav Seifert and the painters Jan Zrzavý and Václav Špála all met here. Other guests included Jaroslav Kvapil, Karel Hašler, Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich as well as a long line of outstanding actors, such as Ladislav Pešek, Rudolf Hrušínský, Jana Hlaváčová and Dana Medřická, to name but a few.

In the 1920s, the famous Russian poet Marina Tsvetayeva liked to frequent the café. She would often stop here on her way from the editorial office of The Russian Will journal, accompanied by other Russian writers and poets like Arkadiy Timofeyevich Averchenko, Jevgeniy Nikolaevich Chiirikov, Alexey Michaylovich Remizov or Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov.[1]

. The long German occupation of the Second World War extinguished social life in Prague and the café in the former Lažanský Palace stagnated. The Masaryk Embankment was renamed the Heydrich Embankment (after the German Deputy Reich Protector) and the National Avenue to Viktoriastrasse. Café Slavia became “Kaffee Viktoria u. Konditorei”.

After the liberation in 1945, the café resumed operating under the name “Slavia”. In 1948, it was nationalized under the new Communist government. However, Prague’s vibrant social and cultural life of the city continued. In the late 1940s and during the 1960s, Prague served as a refuge and meeting place for left-wing writers from all over the world. Jorge Amado, Pablo Neruda, Nazim Hikmet, Roque Dalton, Nicolas Guillén, Alfredo Varela, Muhammad Mahdi Al-Jawahiri and Gabriel García Márquez met with their Czech counterparts in the city. Many of those meetings took place in Café Slavia. The artists Jiří Kolář, Kamil Lhoták, as well as the film directors Miloš Forman, Jiří Menzel, Věra Chytilová or Emil Kusturica, visited the café at different times. Ai Qing, accompanied by the Sinologist Jaroslav Průšek, came to Café Slavia during his short visit to Prague in 1949.

Since the 1960s, the Film and Television Faculty (FAMU) of the Academy of Performing Arts has been located in the premises of the palace, above the café.

During the 1950s and the period of “normalization“ that followed the Prague Spring of 1968, Café Slavia became a meeting place for Czechoslovak dissident intelligentsia. Václav Havel, who later became president of the country, Luděk Vaculík, Bohumil Hrabal and Josef Škvorecký all frequented the café. Both Charter 77 and the petition titled “A Few Sentences” were often signed here. It was known for its associations with Prague's dissident community,[2] hosting people such as Václav Havel, who would later become his country's president, and poet Jiří Kolář during the normalization period.[3] It was also known as a place for writers, poets and other intellectuals to meet and discuss their ideas.[4] The café was closed in 1992 due to a legal dispute but re-opened in 1997.[5] Café Slavia has been described as Prague's "best-known café".[3]

In 1959, Nazim Hikmet wrote a cycle of poems Staying in Prague, which also includes the poem Tale with a friend, the poet Taufer, in the Slavia cafe.

In 1967, Jaroslav Seifert refers to the Slavia cafe in his book Halley's Comet. The poet also dedicated the poem Kavárna Slavie to the cafe.

In 1985, the writer Ota Filip called one of his novels Kavárna Slavia.

In 1989, skits by Miloslav Šimek and Jiří Krampol were released on a gramophone record by the Supraphon publishing house under the title Stylistic exercises from the Café Slavia.

In 1989, Michal Ajvaz's book Murder at the Intercontinental Hotel was published, which also includes the poem Kavárna Slavia.

In 2012, a book by the former ambassador of Argentina to the Czech Republic, Abel Posse, Che Guevara's Prague story was published with a photo of a table in the Slavia café on the title page of the book. In the book, Che Guevara describes his morning meditation over a cup of tea in the Slavia cafe.

In 2021, Miloš Schmiedberger's book Timeless Stories Written in the Slavia Cafe was published.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Café Slavia.

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