censorship. A famous modern example of this spirit—something of a classic story by now—is the incident of the pink tank: as a protest against the oppressive Communist regime and its close affiliations with the Soviet Union, in 1991 Prague artist David Černý painted a prominent public memorial to the liberation of Prague by the Red Army—Tank 23—bubble gum pink and placed a large finger sticking upright from it (at the time Soviet troops were still stationed in Czechslovakia). The artist was arrested and the tank repainted green, but then some members of the parliament, in protest against the arrest, re-painted the tank pink. The government released Černý and removed the tank (the story is told in more detail in Humphreys 164). The spirit of Schweikism, incidentally, is still very much alive and well, at least on the Internet (see the following link Jaroslav Hasek).
Parenthetically, we might briefly note here one of the problems this relationship between the artist and the quest for a Czech nation has created—the issue of the expatriate. For understandable reasons, a number of Czech artists have sought fame and fortune outside the Czech territory (or else have had to leave) and have thus, in the eyes of many of their compatriots, abandoned their important national responsibilities. When such artists become very famous internationally, as in the case, for example, of Alfons Mucha or Milan Kundera, their reputation and reception at home (as we shall see) have sometimes suffered because of an alleged lack of patriotism or engagement in matters of importance to the Czech nation. Kundera, who lives in Paris and has become something of a "darling" of Western intellectuals and critics, is a significant modern case because he has given up writing in Czech and now publishes his novels in French in order to gain a wider audience.
At any rate, the decision to anchor our course of study loosely on the emergence of the modern Czech nation has enabled us to make some important curricular decisions, especially the one to resolve any awkward and difficult choices by favouring the work most closely associated with the modern story of the Czech-speaking people over other notable works by German-speaking or Jewish citizens (e.g., Rilke). For obvious reasons, we could not ignore Kafka and Mendel, but apart from the works of these two, the texts we read and the artists we consider all have, to a greater or lesser extent, some relationship with the political and cultural developments of the modern Czech identity.
Some Historical Background
In Prague, as in so many old European cities, one is surrounded by the past, and it is impossible to divorce from one’s responses to the urban culture the presence of a long and deeply ironic history extending back for about 1500 years (the dominating presence of the Castle makes such a presence all the stronger). This is surely one of the most important factors in fostering that curious but often noted ambivalent reaction to the city—a place of “magical” beauty and deservedly a World Heritage Site as well as an urban environment which produces a sense of dread, anxiety, even paranoia. We will not be exploring that history in any detail, but we need to keep in mind a few of its more important features in order to grasp some of the reasons why this history has a direct bearing on our experiences in the city and its culture.
[For a more detailed account of the major events of Prague’s history, you should consult The Rough Guide to Prague, pages 237 to 261, or for a very detailed study The Coasts of Bohemia. What follows below is a very condensed account—a minimal outline—mostly taken from these texts. For a very breezy and colloquial but fairly detailed account on-line try Czech History]
Early History
The Czech people are Slavs who, along with the closely related Slavic group of the Slovaks, moved from regions in the east into three adjacent territories in central Europe—Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia—in the fifth century AD, where they have remained ever since. These groups were at first dominated by another migrant group, the Avars, but eventually achieved their independence under the leadership of a Frank merchant named Samo in the seventh century. The establishment of the Great Moravian Empire (in the eighth century) created a political unit in which the Czechs and Slovaks were for a short time united under a common ruler (for the last time until 1918).
The terms Slavs, incidentally, refers to ethnically related groups with a common tribal origin on the fringe of the Eurasian steppes (although the origin is debated)—Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ruthenes (Ukrainians), Russians, Slovenians, Serbs, and (through later assimilation) the Bulgarians. The tribes ended up settling in what is, in effect, the buffer zone between the imperial powers of Western Europe and the numerous non-Slavic invaders from the Eastern plains (e.g., the Magyars, the founders of Hungary, and the Mongols), and this strategic location has been a decisive factor in the history of all the Slav people. That history has also been significantly affected by the later threat from the south, with the expansion of the Islamic Ottoman Empire across the Bosphorus into Europe (starting in the fourteenth century). Given their geographical position at the collision point between East and West and between Christians and Muslims, it’s not surprising that the Slavs have been intimately involved with all sorts of major European conflicts from the Thirty Years War, to World Wars I and II, up to the recent conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, and that all Slav areas have long been characterized by bitter ethnic and religious rivalries.
The Great Moravian Empire came to an end with the invasion from the east by the Magyars (Hungarians, who are not a Slavic people) in 896 AD, an event with catastrophic consequences for the union of the Czechs and Slovaks, because the Slovaks were for the next 1000 years subject to Hungarian political control (and often treated very badly indeed), while the Czechs allied themselves (often under compulsion) with the German cultures to the West under conditions very much more favourable than those faced by their Slovak relatives. This long separation of two peoples originally very similar and under a common rule created differences so significant that modern attempts to reunite the Czechs and the Slovaks have been unsuccessful (the Slovaks now have their own country Slovakia).
The presence of the Hungarians also cut Bohemia and Moravia off from the Byzantine Empire to the south and hence led to much closer cultural and political links with the Catholic Christian West (one reason why the Czechs do not use the Eastern alphabet of some other Slavic languages and are Western Christians rather than Eastern Orthodox). It has also meant that for much of their history, the most critical element for the Czech people of Bohemia and Moravia has been the relationship with the Holy Roman Empire, the confederation of numerous Catholic German-speaking territories to the west and south and then later with the imperial power of Austria. By 1000 AD Bohemia was officially a part of the Holy Roman Empire and its leader one of those who elected the Emperor. Prague also had become a Catholic bishopric under the control of the archbishop of Mainz (a German-speaking city on the Rhine).
The First Czech Dynasties: The Přemyslids and Carolingians'
The first major Czech dynasty in Bohemia were the Přemyslids (starting in the ninth century AD), who, according to legend, originated with someone named Přemysl (meaning ploughman), who was chosen by Princess Libuše (a grand-daughter of Čech, the original leader of the wandering Slavs) to lead her people (see Humphreys 237). They at once began developing three areas which are now part of urban Prague: the castle and the church of St. Vitus, the right bank of the Vltava River near a ford on the river (present day Old Town), and the fortified area of Vyšehrad, an elevated area slightly south of the castle on the other side of the river (in Czech mythology it was here that Princess Libuše prophesied a glorious future for Prague). Shortly after that, the Jewish quarter, Josefov, developed north of the Old Town, where the river makes a bend to the east. In the next three centuries the Přemyslids increasingly fortified sections of Prague, enclosing within walls the area below the castle, now called Malá Strana, and a region around the castle, Hradčany (see Švácha, Chapter 1, for a more detailed account of these events).
The most famous Přemyslid king was Václav, who built the first church of St. Vitus. After he was murdered by his brother while taking part in mass (c. 929 AD), he was made the patron saint of Czech territories, and he later became the Good King Wenceslas, whom we all know about from the famous Christmas carol.
The Přemyslid rule of Bohemia ended early in the fourteenth century and was followed by the rule of the dynastic family of the Carolingians. The second Carolingian ruler, Charles (Karel) IV (1346–78) is the first great hero of Prague’s golden age, and his rule marks a high point in the Czech’s understanding of themselves. He freed the Czech church from domination by Mainz, founded a university, reinforced the importance of the Czech language, and, once he was elected Holy Roman Emperor, turned Prague into an imperial city. His presence continues in the city to this day, not only with the survival of some of the buildings and institutions he established, but in the city’s most famous landmark (after the castle)—the Charles Bridge across the Vltava. Given the disastrous historical developments which soon followed and the disappearance of the glory days of Czech culture under Charles IV, his age was for a long time a rallying point for those who wished to foster among the Czech-speaking people a stronger and more unified sense of themselves.
Jan Hus
The disintegration of Charles IV’s achievements in the years following his death is closely associated with the most famous name from Czech history, Jan Hus (1370-1415), a prominent Prague religious figure, rector of the university, and ardent religious reformer. Hus, in a very real sense, was attempting what Martin Luther worked for a century later—to promote urgent attention to some of the flagrant abuses within the Roman Catholic Church (especially the sale of indulgences, certificates which could “purchase” exemptions from certain purgatorial punishments after death). Hus was expelled from the university, became an itinerant preacher (in Czech), and was eventually summoned to a church council in Constance and burned at the stake (July 6, 1415) on charges of heresy (in spite of having a safe conduct from the Emperor). His ashes were thrown into the Rhine river.
Hus’ death launched a series of rebellions and the Hussite Wars (1419–1434) in which Hus’ reformist followers fought against Catholic landowners and invading armies from Catholic powers outside, as well as among themselves. A famous early event in these conflicts was the first defenestration of Prague (in 1419), when a Hussite mob stormed the New Town Hall in Prague and threw some city councillors and the mayor out of the windows. The Hussites armies (made up largely of peasants) prevailed against their Catholic opponents for a number of years, thanks to the military genius of the partially blind Jan Žižka, and a compromise was funally reached in 1434. Bohemia’s nobility then chose its first and last Hussite king, George (or Jiři) of Podébrad (1458–1471).
Ever since these conflicts, Jan Hus has been seen by many Czechs as a hero of Czech nationalism and the Hussites, rightly or wrongly, as heroic patriots defending “land and . . . liberty against the Crusader armies sent to crush it from the four corners of the earth” (Čapek 401) or, alternatively, as oppressed workers fighting their tyrannical aristocratic masters, something which explains why the Communist rulers of Czechoslovakia, for all their hostility to Czech nationalism and to religion, would restore Hus’ church and put pictures of Žižka and Hussite warriors on the bank notes. The anniversary of Hus’ death is a national holiday. In fact, however, as Sayer points out, the Hussite period was far from the glorious national celebration later re-interpretations have made of it, for the movement was split by serious divisions between radicals and
