Ibsen C200 Initiative

Ibsen C200 is a Czech–Norwegian cultural, educational and research initiative being prepared to mark the 200th anniversary of Henrik Ibsen’s birth in 2027 and 2028 in the Czech Republic. The Czech Ibsen programme will be coordinated by the National Institute for Culture (NIK) and developed in cooperation with Czech and Norwegian cultural and academic institutions.

The initiative aims to place Ibsen’s work in dialogue with contemporary European cultural and social debates and to explore how his plays continue to engage with questions of ideology, power, democracy, religion and the public sphere. Its central activity will be the international interdisciplinary symposium Enemies of the People: Questioning Ideology, Power and Authority in Ibsen’s Dramas and Their Stagings, bringing together research and artistic practice and taking place in autumn 2027 in Prague. The symposium will examine how Ibsen’s plays and their contemporary stagings expose the “architecture of ideologies” and engage with current European tensions, including political and gender polarization, the crisis of liberal democracy, transformations of religiosity, changing relations between expertise and the public sphere, and the fragmentation of communication in the digital age.

The programme also includes the Ibsen in Data specialist seminar on theatre databases and digital humanities, educational workshops for schools, a touring exhibition by the National Library of Norway to be presented in Prague and Brno, public programmes in cooperation with Scandinavian House, and a publication of new Czech translations of three Ibsen plays. The Czech coordinator will also promote new productions of Ibsen’s plays and help bring them to the attention of Czech audiences, as well as support the staging of Jon Fosse’s Suzannah, extending the project’s focus to contemporary Norwegian drama. The project is planned as two years programme: beginning in 2027 and culminating in 2028.

Contact Information

Karolína Stehlíková, National Institute for Culture (NIK)
Email: karolina.stehlikova@nipk.cz