By Muhammad Sohail
On Monday, September 15, 2025, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský will meet with Alenka Soukup to thank her for donating Jan Masaryk’s art collection. Her father, Lumír Soukup, was Masaryk’s personal secretary and managed to recover artworks that had previously belonged to the Czechoslovak foreign minister at auctions in the United Kingdom.
After Lumír Soukup emigrated, the Soukup family lived in the United Kingdom and then in France. On this occasion, Minister Lipavský will present Mrs. Soukup with a certificate of Czech citizenship. French Ambassador Stéphane Crouzat and British Ambassador Matt Field will also attend the reception.
This will be followed by the opening of Patrik Hábl’s exhibition “Imortales, očima času” (Immortals, Through the Eyes of Time), which will take place in the Stables of the Tuscan Palace. This unique project, under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, combines Hábl’s reinterpretation of historical works with portraits and symbolic paintings from the ministry’s collections.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will devote the entire week to a September program dedicated to the importance of the Masaryk family for the democracy of the country. The culmination of the joint work of several institutions will be Friday’s opening of the envelope containing T.G.M.’s last words dedicated to Jan Masaryk, which has been prepared by the Presidential Office in Lány.
