Kateřina Andršová and Jan Bílek: The first graduates of the doctoral study program Music Theory and Pedagogy and Theory and History of Czech Literature
Author: Petra Kubařová
Every graduation ceremony is a festive event, but the Autumn graduation had a special twist to it. For the first time, a doctoral degree diploma was awarded to the graduated of the Department of Music and the Department of Czech Language and Literature of the Faculty of Education – to ethnomusicologist and teacher Mgr. Kateřina Andršová, Ph.D., and to literary historian Mgr. Jan Bílek, Ph.D.
Mgr. Kateřina Andršová, Ph.D. graduated from the doctoral study program Music Theory and Pedagogy. In her PhD thesis, she analysed the work of the musical scientist and teacher Dobroslav Orel. One of the first results of her research effort is the publication of the hitherto unpublished correspondence between Dobroslav Orel and the Lusation composer Bjarnat Krawc. In cooperation with the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Science, Dr. Andršová organised an exhibition at the Faculty of Education, UHK, devoted to Dobroslav Orel, in which she reserved a special panel for the correspondence between the two eminent figures.
The publication was just one of the outcomes of her broader research work in the cultural contribution of Dobroslav Orel and the relationship between Czechoslovakia and Lusatia. Last year, she received an annual student award from the Faculty of Education, UHK, for her extraordinary creative contribution to science and research.
Mgr. Jan Bílek, Ph.D. is the graduate of the doctoral study program Theory and History of Czech Literature at the Department of Czech Language and Literature of the Faculty of Education, UHK.
He has devoted his scientific efforts to a notable intersectional topic of Czech cultural, literary and political history – the work and the interactions of the Friday Men, a lose group of about 60 eminent interregnum Czech intellectuals, who attended their famous Friday meetings in the house of the eminent Czech journalist and writer Karel Čapek in the years 1924–1938.
Thanks to Dr Bílek, the topic has been resonating in the current social, cultural, public media and scientific discourse. He has published many studies on the topic, and lectured broadly both home and abroad (Пятничники Карела Чапека и президент Масарик, Славяноведение). Dr Bílek also managed to bring the topic to the public attention thanks to a miniseries recorded by Czech Television – Karel Čapek and the Friday Men, which was broadcast in prime time last Christmas.
Mgr. Jan Bílek, Ph.D. has also been a leading researcher and a researcher in four projects of the Czech Science Foundation, he is a member of several scientific institutions. Earlier this year, Dr Bílek received an award from the Rector of the University of Hradec Králové for his research and for his popularisation of science with respect to his continuous educational contribution at the Faculty of Education, where he also participated, among others, in the establishment and development of the scientific study of Literary Archival Science.
