Ian Courtenay Johnston

“ In fact, the most salient point about the development of the modern history of the Czech lands is the emergence at last of an independent and democratic Czech-speaking state relatively free of the traditional internal divisions and hostile external pressures, after hundreds of years of subservience to German-Austrian culture and political control, major internal conflicts, and a series of short-lived and often unhappy experiments (to use the mildest word available) with different political systems. ”

“ 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. ”

“ World War I got rid of the Austrians, the Nazis got rid of the Jews, the aftermath of World War II got rid of the Germans and Hungarians, and the Velvet divorce in 1998 got rid of the Slovaks. And so now, for the first time in centuries, the Czech people have a country, the Czech Republic, where people of the same ethnic origins make up about 98 percent of the population, and there is one official and uncontested language and a flourishing national culture (a reminder of the ethnic divisiveness of earlier times remains, however, in the Romany minority of about 250,000 gypsies) . ”

“ Hence, in modern Czech intellectual and artistic life for most of the past century and a half political issues have been deeply involved in a way we do not witness nearly as much in the modern West (how often, for example, has the funeral of an artist here been an occasional of national political significance or even an expression of popular political sentiments or national identity?) ”

“ 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. ”

“ The central coordinating theme for Liberal Studies courses up to this point has been the deliberately ambiguous phrase Issues in Western Culture, and while this has never meant or led to the exclusion of anything from elsewhere, it has meant that, for the most part, our attention is focused on works obviously relevant to the history and development of what we call Western Culture, loosely defied. ”

“ Making Prague and the Czech Republic the focus of a cluster of courses is something of an exception to this tradition simply because until very modern times for most of the history of those countries we normally associate closely with Western Culture, the experience of people living in the Czech lands—and particularly the culture of the Czech-speaking part of that population—has been largely ignored, unknown, or misunderstood. ”

“ Havel was a champion of maintaining a united federation of the two parts of the country, but his efforts were unsuccessful. Many Slovaks were fed up with the economic, political, and cultural domination of Prague, and many Czechs were not particularly enthusiastic about supporting the economically depressed region of Slovakia. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia officially and peacefully split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia (the Velvet Divorce) . Since that time, the Czech Republic has increasingly opened itself up to and sought economic ties with Western Europe. ”

“ In addition to this apparent loss of participation in the democratic process, there is a sense, too, that many Czechs, like those in other Eastern bloc countries, are wondering (and worrying) about just what the rapid shift in the country's history to an economy dominated by corporate capitalism and free trade now means for those living in a land which has had more than its share of dislocating transformations. ”

“ What complicates these questions even more in the case of the culture of the Czech lands is the ethnically diverse traditions of that culture. For almost all of its history, Czech territory—especially Prague itself—has been an arena for competing cultures—Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and others. ”

“ Given that the forces of market capitalism are the great dissolver of national identities and old traditions (except where the appearance of these can be maintained for commercial purposes) and frequently tend to bring rich local identities down to an international lowest common denominator, it remains to be seen where the long struggle for a distinctively Czech nation will lead next. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fact that the culture of the Czech lands was long isolated, even sealed off, from the West creates some problems for anyone organizing a curriculum for Liberal Studies students. How is one to answer the question: What should one study about Prague? What is there in Prague which might serve as the theme for a coordinated Liberal Studies curriculum based on a visit to the city? ”

“ The invasion of 1968 and the continuing interference in Czech affairs of the Warsaw pact (culminating in the the issue of placing nuclear weapons in Czechoslovakia in 1983) dramatically increased the disillusionment of the young with their government (Holy) .
The Velvet Revolution and the Velvet Divorce
Once Russia, under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, introduced major reforms in the Communist rule in Russia (perestroika) and adopted a more open stance toward the West (glasnost) , the Prague hard-liners came under increasing pressure to reform their rule in Czechoslovakia. ”

“ Prague’s population halved. . . . All forms of Protestantism were outlawed, the education system was handed over to the Jesuits and, in 1651 alone, more than two hundred “witches” were burned at the stake in Bohemia. (Humphreys 244)
The century following the Thirty Years’ War almost witnessed the extermination of Czech culture entirely. German-speaking Catholics (spearheaded by the Jesuits) under the direction of Vienna and Rome took over religious and educational centres and brought in waves of German immigrants. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Nazis operated quickly to stifle Czech nationalism or any focus for resistance. They closed the universities, gutted the libraries, and re-imposed the German language on the country, at the same time insisting on celebrating German power by re-naming streets and important state institutions and redecorating public spaces. ”

“ The National Revival also made a concerted attempt to create interest in traditional Bohemian and Moravian folk culture as central to the Czech identity (the survival of the language had owed a great deal to its continuing presence in the countryside) . Artists celebrated old folk costumes, and musicians deliberately emphasized traditional folk melodies in their operatic and symphonic compositions. ”

“ The Prague Spring, 1968 and Charter 77
Plagued with economic difficulties and the failure of the government's attempts at economic reform, the Czech people grew increasingly restless during the 1960's. The situation prompted debates within the ruling party itself. In 1968 Alexander Dubček became First Secretary of the Party and introduced some modest reforms (the most important of which was a relaxation of censorship laws) . ”

“ In such a climate, so the analysis runs, the artists and intellectuals carry a special responsibility to maintain a spirit of Czech defiance in the face of oppressive political realities and the absence of organized and effective political resistance, if necessary by an effort of underground self-publishing (samizdat) in defiance of official censorship. ”

“ That will enable us perhaps to get some sense of how the Czech people are still in the process of defining who they are exactly, given that they have had control of their own destiny for such a short period of time and are still faced with the competing claims of more dominant cultures. It may also help to explain some of the major contradictions and ironies we will encounter in our reading and some of the paradoxes we experience in our responses to Prague itself. ”

“ 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 . . . ”

“ Such questions hardly arise in connection with, say, an educational visit to Florence, Rome, Athens, or London, since the immediate influence of the culture of those places is obvious enough. The major problem with such places is often which particular cultural period to choose—once that choice is made the curriculum virtually organizes itself. ”