Prague: Anarchist Book Party
From Anarchistické federace
December 20, 2024
Report from a scaled-down winter version of the anarchist book festival
Last year, the Anarchist Book Festival collective , in addition to its flagship event in May, also organized a smaller meeting in early December . This was met with enormous interest and there was almost no movement in the then-closing Prostor39. Since the idea of a “winter bookfair” was so popular, the collective decided to repeat it in 2024 and organized an “Anarchist Book Party” on Saturday, December 7. It took place in Prague’s Holešovice in parallel at two locations that are only a few minutes’ walk away from each other, namely the Cross club and the 254 autonomous center.
The bookfair itself, i.e. the space with stands of publishing houses and various collectives, took place from two in the afternoon to seven in the evening in the basement hall of Cross. If the attendance had been like last year, people would probably have been constantly bumping into each other, but fortunately it was smaller and exactly matched the capacity of the space. We also presented ourselves here with our stand. We supplemented the older publications of the Anarchist Federation Publishing House with a new book by Colin Ward Anarchism: A Very Brief Introduction and the autumn issue of the anarchist review Existence on the topic of anarchist pedagogy . Anyone who wanted could take some of the older issues of Existence with their purchase for free . Also on offer were posters of the Belarusian Anarchist Black Cross or the book Life in Combat with collected texts by Dmitry Petrov, a Russian anarchist who fell at Bakhmut in the fight against Putin's invasion. There were also stands in the hall from The Anarchist Review of Books , Salé distra (with an amazing wall calendar The Riot Dogs for 2025), the Solidrones collective, K115 , Collectively Against Capital , Safe space bookstore , Utopia Libri publishing house (with the new releases Russian Colonialism: A Guide and There's Something to Live for on This Earth ), Nevim , Alarm and Rubato . If we forgot anyone, we apologize.
At the same time, a lecture program was also taking place in one of the rooms in Cross. However, one of the three points was canceled due to illness, so those interested could finally listen to the presentation of the book Dobré po málú or the presentation of the Anarchist Federation on anarchist strategy. Thanks to the shortened program, there was much more time for this, so a long and interesting debate in the audience could develop after it ended. The presentation itself, which returned to the topic of Existence No. 2/2022 , talked about the need for strategic thinking, about anarchist goals, about consideration for ourselves, about the traps of activism, about what a revolutionary organization can do in non-revolutionary times and what analysis is and is not, about one's own experiences, about the need for rethinking, and about what the conclusions of the earlier federation debate on the search for anarchist politics were.
The next part of the program took place in AC 254. Here the film Lobby USA was shown , followed by a discussion. In the next point, we again contributed from the federal reserves, namely by presenting Guy Debord's book The Society of the Spectacle from the Utopia libri publishing house. Every one of our relationships is mediated by spectacles, says Debord, and we literally see this "show business" (a world where images are shown for the purpose of accumulating profit, a world where images are commodities, and with it the fetishism associated with it) before our eyes. But appearances are deceiving, our grandmothers proclaimed (and sometimes baked delicious plum dumplings). And we do not want to be deceived. Events like this bookfair present a vision in which it is possible to meet directly (not through images à la social networks or market relations) and experience what it is like to be and not just have or seem to be . In our opinion, the lecture was successful and the interest showed that there is also an interest in theory among us.
The lecture was followed by a discussion in which we imagined further inspiration for further reading, which is part of books. A short break, an edit and the event begins. The musical highlight of the entire "Anarchist Book Party" was then an evening performance in AC 254. Bunkerer, Podještědský okultista and DJane Dark Spherez introduced themselves.
And we must not forget the favorite part of our reports dedicated to food. The AC 254 team took care of the material base for our insatiable tummies. In addition to several types of desserts, you could have a plate of vegetable ragout with soy noodles and rice, or just warm up with an excellent miso soup.
Although the organization of the party was decided at the last minute, the event was a success. We are glad that we were able to promptly respond to the organizers' inquiries and contribute with lectures. We also appreciate the opportunity to present our publications, meet together, greet familiar faces and chat with completely new ones. Bookfairs are one of the key anarchist events in the Czech Republic - places where we meet and where sparks are created that ignite metaphorical Molotov cocktails. Next year, the bottles will fall and the flames will engulf many a target - the Anarchist Federation will be 30 years old. But more on that next time.
