Srdce Evropy - 2 CDmp3 (Čte Petra Bučková, Johanna Tesařová a Pavla Horáková)

When your heart beats to the rhythm of a waltz On the beautiful blue Danube... A remarkable dialogue between two narrative voices separated by more than a hundred years. From our present, we hear from teacher Anežka, who is trying to make sense of her own confusions in a chaotic time. At the same time, she reflects on the handwritten memories of Moravian peasant woman Kateřina, a quirky, self-assured woman who compensates for her lack of formal education with innate sharpness and sensitivity. Among the many themes that connect both layers of storytelling, one stands out: the fascination both women feel in the face of Vienna, this peculiar amalgam of cosmopolitanism and provincialism, hectic modernity and nostalgia for an irretrievably past era, the foreign and the intimately familiar—and once also the second largest Czech city. Kateřina stayed in Vienna in 1912, at a time when the glory of the proud imperial metropolis was at its peak. In 2020, Anežka follows in her footsteps to learn more about her predecessor. In the process, she discovers how tightly intertwined the histories of the Czech lands and Austria are, uncovers facts that are not often discussed in our country, or even deemed inappropriate to mention, while also navigating her love life, and seemingly inadvertently comes to realize who she actually is—and who she would…