8th Sokol Festival Prague 1926: Pageant on the Vltava River

8th Sokol Festival Prague 1926: Pageant on the Vltava River
Colour lithograph, 1925

The Sokol was first founded in Prague in 1862 as a gymnastic organisation to promote Czech nationalism through physical and moral training. It grew to become an influential movement, and the Sokol Festivals provided a forum for the spread of mass-based political ideology through massive gymnastic events combined with theatrical performances. Mucha was a keen supporter of the Sokol movement, and he produced two posters for the organisation: the 6th Sokol Festival of 1912 and this one for a theatrical performance planned to coincide with the 8th Sokol Festival of 1926. Here Mucha synthesises the real world in the foreground—the two Sokol youths behind the Bohemian flag—with the spiritual world in the background, where the mythical Slavia, the personification of Slavic unity, gives them her blessing.