The Frank A. Belousek Lecture supports speakers engaged with Czech History in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Frank A. Belousek (1902-1982) was a native Czechoslovakian, naturalized American citizen, and University of Nebraska alumnus (1923). His generosity advances the study of the Czech heritage and perpetuates its legacy and contributions to the state of Nebraska and the region of the Great Plains. The Belousek Fund was established in October 1985 for the Department of History by the University of Nebraska Foundation.
Description of the Event
Author Anne Marie Kenny will share short extracts and related musical selections of her recently published memoir, A Song for Bohemia. She will be joined by pianist Dr. Šárka Stehnová and moderators James Le Sueur and Hana Waisserová.
Prague in the 1990s, an extraordinary place and time. The Cold War had ended. The Berlin Wall had fallen. Soviet-bloc countries like Czechoslovakia had just liberated themselves. The atmosphere was intoxicating, the future unmapped. And Anne Marie Kenny was there—a singer-turned-entrepreneur.
In the decade following the Velvet Revolution, the author lived and worked alongside Czechs discovering their place in a new democratic society while coming to terms with their past under totalitarian rule—a past they rarely spoke about. Likewise, Kenny kept secret the inner turmoil beneath her outer success. In her raw telling, these vices often threatened to destroy her, until the hand of music, artistry, and love extended a reprieve. She and those around her moved forward with Havel’s message as their driving force, building a civil society that is “humane, moral, intellectual, spiritual, and cultural.”
In today’s politically turbulent times, Anne Marie looks back at her Czech experience, seeking answers and finding encouragement in the moral leadership of Václav Havel and the resilience of the Czech people.
Book Signing
The author will sign books after the program. A limited number of hard and soft covers of A Song for Bohemia will be available for purchase at the event—cash, check, or Venmo — or can be found online through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Bio — Anne Marie Kenny
Anne Marie Kenny is an American singer, writer, and entrepreneur. She lived in France as a professional singer for 10 years before her 1990 performance at the famous Reduta nightclub in Prague at the invitation of Václav Havel. Anne Marie then moved to Czechoslovakia and started a staffing and training company that would be ranked #2 in the Czech market. She and her staff found jobs for thousands of people in the decade following the Velvet Revolution. Her memoir A Song for Bohemia — first published in the Czech-translated version « Moje píseň pro Čechy » — is dedicated “to the life and legacy of Václav Havel and the people of my ancestral homeland.”
Bio — Šárka Stehnová
Šárka Stehnová is a pianist, collaborator, and educator based in Lincoln, Nebraska, with roots in the Czech Republic and Vietnam. Her multicultural background and international training have deeply influenced her artistry. Šárka holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her earlier studies include an Artist Diploma from the Conservatory in Teplice (Czech Republic), a BMA from Northern State University in SD, and a Master of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Since 2022, she has been on faculty at Marble Music, where she maintains a thriving studio of 40 students. She collaborates regularly with faculty at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln as a sought-after collaborative pianist and frequently serves as a judge and clinician.
Past Belouseks
2025 (September)
About the Book
Echoes of Exile: A Family’s Odyssey through the Holocaust and Cold War is a sweeping exploration of survival, resilience, and the fate of one family amid Europe’s most turbulent century
“Echoes of Exile” reveals the seismic disruptions of twentieth-century European history through the intimate lens of one family’s struggle to survive. Setting out to record the life of her mother, Ruth, Daniela Spenser unearthed personal facts and stories that additionally illuminate the shared traumas and experiences of millions of Czech, Polish, and German Jews who died in the Holocaust, as well as the stories of those who survived and lived under Communism and the Cold War. Her resulting work is a fascinating hybrid that combines family letters and interviews with deeply researched political history spanning from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Spenser’s fascinating work reveals the difficult choices her mother and family faced, the tests to their loves and loyalties, and the lingering scars of exile. More than a family history, it weaves personal and historical narratives with mundane and momentous threads to create a fresh, distinctive fabric. Spenser recovers fragments of the past that contribute to a map of the present and possibilities for the future. An engrossing account of survival, resilience, and the enduring human spirit amid the maelstrom of Europe’s savage twentieth century, “Echoes of Exile” will interest readers who value firsthand accounts of significant events, appreciate diverse cultural perspectives, and seek to understand the complexities of survival, identity, and political change through intimate, lived experiences.
About the Author
Daniela Spenser is a fellow at CIESAS (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social) in Mexico City. She is author of “The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s” and “Stumbling Its Way Through Mexico: The Early Years of the Communist International.”
2018
Reluctant Warriors: How One Professor and 50,000 POWs Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe
On 2 October 2018, the Department of History presented the inaugural Frank A. Belousek Lecture in Czech History. The lecture was given by Kevin J. McNamara and centered on his book, Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe. The book is a lively yet comprehensive account of the highly dramatic events that led to the founding of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918. The story involves an ad hoc army of ex-POWs that inadvertently seized all of Siberia, global espionage, high-stakes diplomacy, and America’s own Czechs and Slovaks, who raised funds and pressured President Woodrow Wilson to grant their peoples independence.
A former journalist, bureau chief, and U.S. congressional aide, McNamara is an associate scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA, and a former contributing editor of Orbis, its quarterly journal of world affairs. More information about the author can be found on his website, www.kevinjmcnamara.com.
The recording of this event can be viewed at https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/10251 or via the Department of History’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbu78dMetJQ.
Prague Spring 50
In 2018, the Department hosted Prague Spring 50, a major international event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Prague Spring and the aftereffects of the Soviet-ordered Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.