Vladimír Michálek (born November 2, 1956, Mladá Boleslav)^[1] is a Czech film director and screenwriter.

Life[link]

Michálek graduated from Czech film Academy FAMU, Prague, in 1992. Starting during his academic study he was filming documentaries. He joined the Barrandov Studios as assistant director, where he worked with Andrew Birkin (Burning Secret), Reinhard Hauff, Ted Kotcheff (The Shooter), Margarethe von Trotta and Bernhard Wicky.^[2] He is married and has three children.^[3]

Work[link]

1994 was the year of the release of his first feature film, Amerika, a free adaptation of the Kafka novel.^[4] In 1996 Forgotten Light followed, a film adaption of the Jakub Deml novel. The film ran on the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, as did this next movie, Sekal Has to Die, two years later.^[5] The latter won ten Czech Lion awards, including Best Direction, and succeeded Forgotten Light as the Czech Oscar-nominee.^[6] As with America, he wrote the screenplay for his film Angel Exit 2000. The film won the 2002 Daring Digital Award on the Jeonju International Film Festival.^[6]

Autumn Spring (2001), starring Vlastimil Brodský in his last role, received favorable reviews, including in The New York Times and The Washington Post.^[7] It won a number of prizes, such as the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2003 The Comedy Festival, as well as the Audience Awards of each the 2002 Cleveland International Film Festival, the 2002 St. Louis International Film Festival and the 2003 Sedona Film Festival.

He is also working for TV productions such as the 2003 series Záchranári. He directed the music videos for the song Černí andělé (Black Angels) by the band Lucie,^[8] and Chinaski's Podléhám.^[9]

Filmography[link]

Documentary Films[link]

• In the Temple of Nature (1987)
• The Painful Silence (1990)
• Oh Mr. Anderson (1992)

Feature Films[link]

• Amerika (also screenplay, 1994)
• Forgotten Light (Zapomenuté světlo, 1996)
• Sekal Has to Die (Je třeba zabít Sekala, 1998)
• Prague Stories (compilation contribution, also screenplay, 1999)
• Angel Exit (screenplay written with Jáchym Topol,^[8] Anděl Exit, 2000)
• Autumn Spring (Babí léto 2001)
• Of Parents and Children (also screenplay, O rodičích a dětech, 2008)
• City of Birds (Město ptáků, upcoming)^[10]

TV Films[link]

• Jistota (1999)
• Lovec a datel (2004)
• Pískovna (2004)

External links[link]

• Vladimír Michálek at the Internet Movie Database

References[link]

Karel Schwarzenberg (Karl zu Schwarzenberg) Prince of Schwarzenberg
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 13 July 2010
Prime Minister	Petr Nečas
Preceded by	Jan Kohout
In office 9 January 2007 – 8 May 2009
Prime Minister	Mirek Topolánek
Preceded by	Alexandr Vondra
Succeeded by	Jan Kohout
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office May 2010
Senator from 6th District of Prague
In office November 2004 – May 2010
Head of House of Schwarzenberg
Incumbent
Assumed office 1979
Preceded by	Joseph III
Personal details
Born	(1937-12-10) 10 December 1937 (age 74) Prague, Czechoslovakia
Political party	TOP 09
Other political affiliations	Austrian People's Party US-DEU (senator) ODA (defunct)
Spouse(s)	Therese Hardegg
Children	Johannes Anna Karl
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature

Karel Schwarzenberg (Czech pronunciation: [ˈkarɛl ˈʃvartsn̩bɛrk]) or Karel, Prince of Schwarzenberg (born Karl Johannes Nepomuk Joseph Norbert Friedrich Antonius Wratislaw Menas), 12. Fürst zu Schwarzenberg (First Majorat) and 7. Fürst zu Schwarzenberg (Second Majorat), Herzog von Krummau^[1] on 10 December 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia), is a politician of the Czech Republic, the leader of TOP 09 party and the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country. He took office as Foreign Minister in July 2010, and also occupied the position from 2007 to 2009. Prince Schwarzenberg is a member of the high nobility of Bohemia and also the current head of the House of Schwarzenberg since 1979.^[2]

He is a former Senator from Prague. In May 2010, he was elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies, gaining the largest number of Preference votes.

Background, education and personal life[link]

Karel Schwarzenberg is the eldest son of Prince Karl VI of Schwarzenberg of the junior line (Second Majorat of the House of Schwarzenberg), and Princess Antonie von Fürstenberg. He is also the 1,322nd Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece of Austria.^[3] He is first cousin of Ira and Egon von Fürstenberg and second cousin of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco.

Born in Prague, his family fled the country after the Communist coup d'état in 1948 and he grew up in Austria. In the 1960s, he was active in Austrian politics, and he became a leading voice against the communist rule of his native Bohemia after the Prague Spring. He chaired the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights 1984–1991.

The House of Schwarzenberg originates in Franconia, where the family still owns substantial property^{[citation needed]}, but made Bohemia their primary seat in the 17th century, also maintaining residences in Vienna. The family had possessed fiefdoms in Bohemia already in the Middle Ages. It was one of the richest noble families of Bohemia and Austria-Hungary, and one of the largest land owners of Bohemia. Karel Schwarzenberg and his parents had to leave the country after the Communist coup of 1948, and emigrated to Austria, with Swiss citizenship. He studied law and forestry at the universities of Vienna, Munich and Graz.^[4] He has two sisters, Marie Eleonore von Bredow (born 1936) and Anna Maria Freifrau von Haxthausen (born 1946), and one brother, Dr. rer. oec. Friedrich Prinz von und zu Schwarzenberg (born 1940).

On 22 April 1967, Schwarzenberg married Countess Therese zu Hardegg auf Glatz und im Machlande (b. Vienna, 17 February 1940) in Seefeld, Lower Austria. The marriage ended in divorce in 1988. The couple married for the second time on 25 July 2008.^[5][6] The marriage bore three children:^[1]

• Johannes Nepomucenus Andreas Heinrich Joseph Karl Ferdinand Johannes Evangelist die Heiligen Drei Könige Achaz Michael Maria, Hereditary Prince of Schwarzenberg (b. Vienna, 13 December 1967), married on 20 March 2010 Diana Orgovanyi-Hanstein, granddaughter of Baroness Maximiliane von Berg and second cousin once removed of Francesca von Habsburg-Lothringen.

• Princess Anna Carolina Antoinette Elisabeth Theresia Olga Adelheid Maria of Schwarzenberg (b. Vienna, 16 December 1968), married civilly in London on 28 July 1997 and religiously at Murau on 6 September 1997 Peter Morgan (b. Wimbledon, London, 10 April 1963), son of Arthur Morgan and wife Inga.

• Prince Karl Philipp Ernst Ferdinand Alwig Kilian of Schwarzenberg (b. Vienna, 12 May 1979). Adopted by Austrian industrialist and politician Thomas Prinzhorn (who is, according to some sources, his natural father) by agreement 25 November 1987 and registered in Vienna 16 May 1988. On 20 March 1990 began using surname "Prinzhorn".^[7][8][9] Married at Altaussee on 3 October 2009 Countess Anna Elisabeth Aline Henriette Maria Benedikta Stephanie Johanna Lidvine Walpurga Thekla von und zu Eltz (b. Vienna, 25 June 1982).

After the fall of the communist regime, Karel Schwarzenberg returned to Prague in 1990, although he still occasionally visits Austria, where part of his family lives. He holds both Swiss citizenship and Czech citizenship.^[10]

Career[link]

Rice and Schwarzenberg at Prague, 8 July 2008

In the 1960s, Schwarzenberg was active in the conservative Austrian People's Party and contributed to reforming the party before the Austrian legislative election, 1966. Voices inside the party considered him a possible candidate for the position of Foreign Minister of Austria, the position he would occupy in the Czech Republic decades later.^[11]

He soon became active in the resistance against the communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia and became a prominent human rights advocate. From 1984 to 1991 he was chairman of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, and in 1986 he founded the Dokumentationszentrum zur Förderung der unabhängigen tschechoslowakischen Literatur in Scheinfeld, Germany. In 1989, he accepted the European Human Rights Prize on behalf of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.

Prince Schwarzenberg was a longtime friend of Václav Havel, and a member of the Forum 2000 foundation.

Between July 1990 and July 1992, Schwarzenberg was the Chancellor to Czechoslovak President Václav Havel.

In May 2005, he was expelled from Cuba (together with German MP Arnold Vaatz), where he was due to meet dissidents opposed to the Cuban President Fidel Castro.^[12]

Between 9 January 2007 and 9 May 2009, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic in Mirek Topolánek's second coalition government. His nomination by the Green Party caused a small controversy when President Václav Klaus stated that he had strong links to Austria and so would not be able to defend national interests.^[13][14] On 8 July 2008, he and the American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement on the United States's Missile shield program.^[15]

In the first half of 2009, Schwarzenberg was also the Council President (Responsible national minister) of the European Union. Also in 2009, he and coalition colleague Miroslav Kalousek formed a new Czech political party TOP 09, which they led to success in the general elections of 2010, gaining 16% of the vote and representation in the Czech Parliament.

In December 2010, Schwarzenberg, along with the foreign ministers of five other Central and Eastern European EU countries, called upon the European Commission to make "the approval, denial or belittling of communist crimes" an EU-wide criminal offence. Prince Schwarzenberg said that the denial of the crimes of communism is analogous to denying the crimes of Nazism, which in many EU countries is a criminal offense, arguing that "there is a fundamental concern here that totalitarian systems be measured by the same standard."^[16]

Titles, names and awards[link]

Titles and names[link]

A member of the high nobility of Bohemia, his full name is Karl Johannes Nepomuk Josef Norbert Friedrich Antonius Wratislaw Mena Fürst zu Schwarzenberg. He is generally known as Karl zu Schwarzenberg in German and uses the Czech form of his first name, Karel, in Czech.

Karel Schwarzenberg is the current 12th Prince of Schwarzenberg, through his adoption by Heinrich Schwarzenberg, the brother of Joseph Schwarzenberg, the 11th Prince and last male member of the major Schwarzenberg line (First Majorat).^[17] Although Heinrich died before his brother Joseph III. (the 11th Prince), the adoption allowed Karel Schwarzenberg to succeed to the major Schwarzenberg line. Thus, in his person the minor line (Second Majorat), of which he is part by origin, has been united with the major line.

His name and style would be:^[18]

• His Serene Highness The Prince of Schwarzenberg, Count of Sulz, Princely Landgrave in Klettgau, and Duke of Krumlov.^[2]

Awards[link]

• In 1989, he received together with Lech Wałęsa, later president of Poland, the Council of Europe Human Rights Prize.
• In 2003, he received the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk 3rd Class of the Czech Republic.
• He has also been a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Austrian branch) since 1991.
• In 2005, he received the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria in Silver with Sash.
• In 2008, he received the Grand Cross of the Federal Cross of Merit – Bundesverdienstkreuz – of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Schwarzenberg is also a regular attendant to the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg meetings.

Ancestry[link]

See also[link]

• Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg
• Palais Schwarzenberg
• Orlík nad Vltavou

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Karel Schwarzenberg

• (Czech) Official website
• Ancestors
• Princely House of Schwarzenberg
• Profile in European Voice, 19 July 2007

v t e Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Zieleniec · Šedivý · Kavan · Svoboda · Vondra · Schwarzenberg · Kohout · Schwarzenberg