About the lecture
Doc. PhDr. Luboš Bělka, CSc., has studied Tibetan Buddhism for almost three decades, particularly in Buryatia around Lake Baikal, where the Buryats have practised Buddhism since 1717. More recently, he has researched the first contacts of Czech and Slovak travellers with Tibet and Mongolia. He teaches at the Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno.
Abstract: The lecture examines research materials concerning the distinctive period of the 1950s, when Czechoslovaks visited the People's Republic of China for work and documented their experiences in film and radio reports, feature films, travel books and magazine articles, all in the spirit of enthusiasm for building a friendly China. Such documentary material survives in various archives and has largely been studied and published. Even more interesting, however, are previously unpublished sources such as private travel diaries, unpublished photographs, correspondence and similar materials offering a more nuanced, less black-and-white picture of a period more than half a century ago.
The lecture focuses on the first Czechoslovak working visit to Tibet in 1954, undertaken by director Vladimír Sís (1925–2001) and cameraman Josef Vaniš (1927–2009). Neither was an ethnologist or a scholar of religion, but they gathered a wealth of film and photographic material documenting religious life in Tibet: monasteries in Kham, temples in Lhasa and the young Fourteenth Dalai Lama.
The lecture and discussion will be accompanied by numerous examples from the original material.
Lecture venue:
Cultural and Educational Centre, State Scientific Library in Košice, Pribinova 1, Košice
https://goo.gl/maps/UiU21w5RLz52
Lecture date and time: 25. 4. 2018 at 16:30 – 18:00
