Day off - National Czech and Slovak Museum

We took a break from our paying jobs, cutting weeds and other responsibilities to spend some time in Cedar Rapids and at the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library along with the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. I'll share a few postings of each in the coming days.

The Czech & Slovak museum was informative and, in summary, has sparked an interest in learning more. My wife's grandparents came from what is now the Czech Republic while my family probably has some connection with the Slovak region (we came from nearly every other country in Europe.)

A list of exhibits are here but we were drawn to the permanent exhibit Faces of Freedom. With interests in history and literature, the small section of dissident writers has left me wanting to dig deeper and learn more. I'm ashamed to not know more of the history of these countries and their yearning for freedom. These countries have been ruled by the Holy Roman Empire, the Hapsburgs, Hungarians, Germans (again) and then the Soviets until the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

I'll leave this today with a couple of quotes found on the walls of the museum:

"Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses" - Václav Havel

 "Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress." - Milan Kundera

We were glad to visit and will return. I'll share more of our visit later.

It looks like I have some reading to discover.