Some Reflections on the Narrative of Czech History
To set down some easy connections between such a turbulent history and the works we will be studying is, no doubt, rash. But we can, I think, make a couple of observations. The most important of these is the most obvious: this history has been marked by a strong tradition of national idealism and heady new hopes which have been repeatedly broken by the brutal realities of history, a repetitive cycle which has contributed to a strong sense of paradox and absurdity. Hence, alongside the Slav idealism of Mucha, the fervent hopes for a humanitarian and democratic Czechoslovakia of Karel Čapek and Tomáš Masarak, and the idealistic socialist dreams of two generations of young people in the 1930s and 1940s, we also see the black comedy of Hasek, the extreme sense of alienation of Kafka, and the bitter ironies of Kundera. The latter are not, as so often in the West, merely a fashionable response to personal angst or a convenient protest against conformity, but earned insights into the realities of the world where the secret police can arrive in the middle of the night and arrest and even execute someone for something which was not only permitted but approved of a short while before, all in the name of some ideology announced in the latest "official" language.
The work of Havel is interesting in this respect. He made his name as a playwright inspired by Theatre of the Absurd (especially Ionesco), and some of his best known plays depict the absurdity of a world in which language itself is constantly invented and re-invented to serve some bewildering and oppressive bureaucracy. And yet Havel's political writings have also made him famous as a spokesperson for an enlightened international humanitarian understanding among all people. That idealistic tradition may be (like Havel's reputation) at present somewhat on the wane, and yet Havel remains, even out of office now, a reminder that, for all the absurdity, one has to keep going and hang onto one's faith in the challenge of taking responsibility for life.
There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance. Awareness of all the most dangerous kinds of vanity, both in others and in ourselves. A good mind. A modest certainty about the meaning of things. Gratitude for the gift of life and the courage to take responsibility for it. Vigilance of spirit." (Havel upon receiving the Open Society Prize awarded by the Central European University in 1999, trans. by Paul Wilson, quoted in Capp)
What advice like this amounts to in practice amid the new realities of the European Union remains to be seen. One suspects that the Czechs do not need any special urging to maintain a sense of irony, but as the age of international corporate capitalism sweeps through the country what happens to "vigilance of the spirit" may be quite another story.
Works Cited
Anyz, Daniel and Tomas Vrba. "The Unbearable Lightness of Best Sellers." Available on line at http://archive.tol.cz/transitions/tunbear1.html
Capp, Walter. "Interpreting Václav Havel." Available at http://www.crosscurrents.org/capps.htm.
Holy, Jiri. "Czech Literature since the 1980s." Available on line at http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/staff/Holy.html
Humphreys Rob. Prague. Rough Guides, 2002.
Hupchick, Dennis P. and Harold E. Cox. The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe. NY: Palgrave, 2001.
Mansbach, S. A. Modern Art in Eastern Europe: From the Baltic to the Balkans, ca. 1890–1939: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Parrott, Cecil. “Introduction.” The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War. By Jaroslav Hašek. (Penguin, 1974)
Sayer, Derek. The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Švácha, Rostislav. The Architecture of New Prague 1895–1945. Trans. By Alexandra Büchler. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995.
