The exhibition Sparks of Freedom ~ British Support of Brno Dissent Groups in the 1980s (in particular, the Jan Hus Educational Foundation) opened in the Marble Halls of the Moravian Museum  on Tuesday 14 October 2025.  It followed two years of hard work by the curator Petra Pichlová, her deputy Romana Dominika Hrbátová, and the museum staff. The opening was a great success, being attended by (I think) close on 200 people (those who came late simply had to stand outside), most of them from Brno, though some people came from Prague and further.

Among those who came from abroad were Wolfgang and Oriana Stock, founders of the German partner of the JHE,F the Academia Copernicana, and the Polish artist Mariusz Rynkiewicz and his wife, associated with the Drogerie Gallery. Also present was the former trustee of the JHEF Paul Flather, one of the former visiting lecturers Robert Grant, the Canadian journalist and wife of  W. H. Newton-Smith Nancy Durham, and Roger Scruton's son Sam and daughter Lucy. Among those who came from Prague were the former secretary of the JHEF Barbara Day, the leader of Unijazz (originally the Jazz Section) Jiří Exner, and Jan Bednář, once a student of the underground seminars. There is not enough space to mention all the distinguished names from Brno, but they include the composers Pavel Zemek Novák and Peter Graham, as well as Jana Fialová, wife of the current prime minister Petr Fiala, who was himself a member of the Brno underground seminar.  Most of the members of the Brno seminar were present; I'm sorry I cannot name them all, but they include Jiří Muller, Petr Oslzlý and Miroslav Pospíšil, all of whom were last year awarded the R.V. Scruton Medal for the defence of democracy by Masaryk University.

A publication with the title “Sparks of Freedom ~British Support of Brno Dissent Groups in the 1980s” was available in both Czech and English (150 crowns). This tells the story of the development of the Brno seminar in all its fields—humanities, arts, environment—and is richly illustrated with items from the archive. 

The opening had been preceded by a press conference in the morning, and one outcome of that was a feature broadcast by the English language service Radio Prague (author Vít Pohanka) already before the opening took place. You can read or listen to that here, plus another broadcast appeared at the weekend. The exhibition and its opening were further covered by two television stations—Czech Television as part of its South Moravian evening programme, and a longer recording by TV Brno 1. Also present was the team that is making the documentary Professors in the Underground: art director Vít Hájek, production director Jan Bodnár, and adviser  Jarmila Poláková, plus a cameraman, sound engineer and production manager. They will process the material filmed in the course of the day to make a demo tape which will be used both to advertise the exhibition and to raise funding for the documentary itself. At this very moment an application is being prepared for the State Audiovisual Fund (deadline 29 October—just to apply, the fee is 7000 crowns!). Meanwhile, concerning the documentary film "Professors in the Underground", Jan Bodnar delivered his application to the  Audio Visual Fund, and we will shortly have a meeting to discuss other possible donors. If you are able to suggest someone or  some organisation, we would be very grateful.

Above all, we are immensely grateful to Jiří Muller and to the Department of the History of Antitotalitarian Culture (ODKAZ) of the Moravian Museum for rescuing the JHEF archive from what would have been its fate in garden sheds and forgotten cupboards, and for making its work live again.