Mendel Days 5.–6. 11. 2025
The Four Elements: Burning for Knowledge
Mendel Days 2025 will build on previous years, which focused on water and earth as part of the Four Elements series, and will once again commemorate Mendel in the full breadth of his interests.
The main theme of this year’s Mendel Days will be a lecture series titled Four Elements: Burning for Knowledge. The element of fire will be explored from the perspectives of geology, physics, botany, and visual arts, with lectures focusing on the significance and benefits of fire for the planet and humanity, for ecosystem protection, for the fascinating world of volcanoes, and for research in plasma nanotechnologies, and its role in modern Czech visual art.
The main guests on the first day of Mendel Days this year will be Pavel Hošek, a Czech theologian and scholar of religion, who will give a reflection on the motif of fire in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and P. Juan Ignacio Provecho López, an Augustinian priest, lecturer, and publicist of Spanish origin, who will focus on introducing the Augustinian order and its connection to the life and work of Gregor Johann Mendel. The first day will conclude with flute trio concert in dialogue with poetry.
The second day will feature further lectures by experts from Masaryk University, specifically from the Department of Geological Sciences, the Department of Plasma Physics and Technology, and the Department of Botany and Zoology.
The Mendel Days program is open to both students and to the general public.
Gregor Johann Mendel
Masaryk University and its Mendel Museum are committed to the legacy of Gregor Johann Mendel, a native of Hynčice, and commemorate this vital scientist every autumn during Mendel Days. In 1843, Johann Mendel entered the Augustinian Order in the monastery in Old Brno, which was at that time the center of Moravian education, and took the religious name Gregor. Mendel was educated in the natural sciences and learned the techniques of scientific work. His experiments and research led to the scientific conclusions now known as Mendel's Laws of Heredity. Mendel thus became the founding father of one of the most important disciplines of our time - genetics.