Like the Tower of Babel – students from 35 countries take part in Summer School












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            * Like the Tower of Babel – students from 35 countries take part in Summer School
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            Charles University recently hosted its annual summer school, where, over the course of fou

            interested in Czech studies gathered in the lecture rooms of the CU Faculty of Arts, went 
            trips, and took part in discussions in order to learn more about the basics, or to refine 
            advanced knowledge, of Czech language and culture.

            Students’ efforts culminated on Thursday 22 August, when they received certificates for su
            completion of the Summer School of Slavonic Studies from their teachers.
            The closing ceremony of the 57th edition of the Summer School of Slavonic Studies, organis

            Institute of Czech Studies of the Faculty of Arts, was attended by the Prorector of Charle
            Professor PhDr. Ivan Jakubec, CSc., and the Dean of the CU Faculty of Arts, docent PhDr. M

            PhD. The summer school took place under the auspices of the Rector of Charles University, 
            Hampl.
            As in previous years, participants in the summer school came from a very diverse range of 

            greatest number of students came from Germany (27), Russia (11) and Japan (10), with stude
            their way to Prague from Australia, China, Colombia, Mexico and Taiwan; there were even th
            North Korea. A total of 35 countries were represented at this year’s summer school.

            “The management of the Faculty of Arts considers it an honour to welcome representatives o
            Czech studies to its grounds every year. I would like to express my sincere wish and hope 
            meet many of today’s audience again in years to come. Charles University and its Faculty o

            to its best traditions, wishes, in this way, to continue contributing to the development o
            scientific cooperation, thus helping to spread interest in the Czech language and Czech li
            and history,” said Michal Stehlík, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, in his speech during the c

            The Summer School of Slavonic Studies has traditionally been oriented primarily towards th
            Slavonic academic community outside the Czech Republic; the organisers do not, however, wi
            those from other fields who are also interested in studying Czech language and culture. As

            the summer school, PhDr. Jiří Hasil, Ph.D., mentioned in his speech, the Institute of Czec
            its programme on a broad range of lectures and complex activities for an integrated teachi
            cultural programme, accessible to all participants, as well as the quality of teaching by 

            perfect running of the Summer School.
            “It is only in this way that we can guarantee the high quality of the Prague Summer School
            this way that we can award participants with the appropriate number of European credits, g

            the month that they spend at the Summer School will be equivalent to a semester’s worth of
            Czech language at a university abroad. We neither want to, nor shall we, deviate from this
            under the pressures of economics,” declared Dr. Hasil.

            The final word following the presentation of certificates for successful completion of the
            usually belongs to the students themselves. This year, two regular attendees took their pl
            podium. The first speaker was Adrien Stozicky from France, whose ancestors lived in Bohemi

            the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. “I, however, even after many years of studying Czech, still
            the letter ‘ř’ properly. And whenever I try to pronounce it, I often wonder why my ancesto
            come from, say, Italy or Spain, like most of the immigrants to France. For French people, 

            learn Spanish or Italian, while Czech is a bit of a challenge. And that’s why I like it,” 
            became interested in the Czech Republic because of his surname, an uncommon one in France.
            The very end of the ceremony belonged to the Russian student, Maria Smetanina, who express

            that she wasn’t able to take part in a real graduation and pledge loyalty to Charles Unive
            hope that each one of us will, in their heart, stay loyal to the Czech language, Czech cul
            friendships that were created at the summer school.”