We are pleased to present a panel exhibition on Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, a writer and political activist with roots in Japan and a pioneer of the Pan-European movement.

【Period】Thursday, September 21, 2023~Friday, October 27, 2023

10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (Except Sundays and National holidays)

【Place】Building No.4 of University of the Sacred Heart/Sacred Global Plaza 1^st floor
Access: https://kyosei.u-sacred-heart.ac.jp/access/

Free Admission

Co-organized by CZECH CENTRE TOKYO,  Sacred Heart Institute for Sustainable Futures

Cooperation: Plzeň and Poběřovice in Czech Republic, Národní památkový ústav (the National Heritage Institute)

【Panel Translation】Professor Taku Shinohara (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894 – 1972) was born in Tokyo, Japan as the second son of Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian count and diplomat, and Japanese woman, Mitsu Aoyama.

He spent his adolescence on Bohemian family estates in Ronsperg, known today as Poběžovice. While spending most of his life outside the country, he had Czechoslovakian citizenship and had interacted with Tomáš Masaryk, the president of Czechoslovakia and Prime Minister, Edvard Beneš.

Coudenhove-Kalergi made history as a proponent of the Pan-European movement, the forerunner of modern European unification thought. His first book, Pan-Europa, was published in 1923.

Coudenhove-Kalergi who was born in Tokyo as a half-Japanese, received numerous honors in his later years in Japan, including an honorary doctorate from Nihon University, an honorary citizen of Hiroshima, the first Peace Prize from the Kajima International Peace Research Institute, and an audience with the Emperor Hirohito.