Bohemians

“ The Bohemians are, indeed, singularly cut off from the rest of the earth. Their language is exclusively their own—not understood beyond the boundary. Except to visit Prague, and one or two of their Baths, no strangers enter their country. From what I can gather, they bear the marks of a conquered people, adhering to the customs and practices of their forefathers, forgotten everywhere else—satisfied with themselves—averse to improvement, which, indeed, has no avenue by which to reach them—they remember that they were once free, though they have forgotten that they were Protestants. ”

“ The proclamation which the Russian Generalissimo addressed to the Poles may be said to apply with equal force to the Bohemians: “The hour has sounded when the sacred dream of your fathers may be realized.... Bohemia will be born again, free in her religion, her language, and autonomous.... The dawn of a new life begins for you.... ”

“ As to their history in the old world, the Bohemians have had such a stormy national struggle, and the bitterness of it has so entered into their lives, that it is impossible rightly to judge them apart from it. ”

“ Bohemians who borrow, Say they'll pay tomorrow, But tomorrow never comes, So you may sit and twirl your thumbs, While waiting for those little sums, The friends who gaily toast you, Turn around and roast you! Soon as you are out of view, There no-one's ever jealous, So the novels tell us, But I havn't found it true, Oh that Bohemia, is just a trap it is not on the map. [Refrain]
Oh it's a very jolly place, if you can stand the pace, Bohemia Bohemia While you have a lot of money you have lots of fun, You can have a lot of fun! ”

“ Kaspar. Dealing with the last first, the Bohemians are a reading people, and at present there is an unusual number of able writers—historical, poetical, and fictional—supplying them with literary food, and the tone of all the more distinguished authors is truly national. The history of Bohemia, if told at all, is a history of Protestantism. ”

“ Antonio Bonifini, an Italian who lived several years at the court of Matthias, gives the following account of the character of the Bohemians:
“The Čechs excel other nations in well-developed physique, strength of body, beauty and profusion of locks, and an agreeable demeanor. They pay a great deal of attention to their dress, arraying themselves with much elegance and taste, as though they were born to nothing but war and luxury. They are exceedingly amiable, and possess the ability of winning the friendship of others.” ”

“ Intoxicated by their brilliant success, they determined to march home across Bohemia, without even asking permission of the ruler of that country. Very probably, they counted upon the favor of the fourteen lords who had been baptized in Ratisbon, for this was before the baptism of the Bohemian prince. The Bohemians, highly indignant that a hostile army dared cross their territory, hastily collected a large army, fell upon the Germans, and defeated them so that they fled, leaving rich spoils in the hands of the victors. ”

“ According to all laws of God, nature and the propriety of things, Bohemians in the kingdom of Bohemia should be foremost in all offices even as the French are in the French kingdom and the Germans in German lands. ”

“ They, more than any other event, have brought Bohemia into prominence in European history; and it was chiefly as fighters that the Bohemians were known to the surrounding nations at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, early traditions, whether legendary or historical, never entirely lose their influence on the character of a nation.
The gentle figure of Libus̆a presiding over a peaceable community is a marked contrast to the figures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table ”

“ IT remains to call attention to the place of Bohemia in letters, art, music, education, social and religious reform. In this connection it may be pointed out that the civilization of the Bohemians is distinctly older than that of the German-Austrians, and that it developed wholly independent of the Teutonic art movements in Germany and Austria.
In the matter of literature, Bohemia occupies a place of distinction and priority. ”

“ Bohemians have been leaders in the development of the great city in which they they found homes. Men and women of Bohemian birth have found their way into places of distinction in all of the varied activities of the city. ”

“ SOCIAL CONDITION AND CIVILIZATION IN BOHEMIA IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
As early as the thirteenth century the people began to be divided into two nations, the Germans and Bohemians. Nationality.The Bohemian language was used at first by the native nobility, the clergy, and the common people; the German, in the royal cities and villages settled by German immigrants. The German settlers brought with them their own customs and habits, which differed considerably from those of the natives ”

“ One feels drawn towards the Bohemians for their idealistic point of view. They are perfectly familiar with the economic wrongs and the exactions which their country has suffered at the hands of the Austrians, but always subordinate these injuries to the threatened loss of the language and the nationality which they hold so dear. Again, one is struck by the enthusiastic loyalty of all Bohemians in this country to America and to American ideals. ”

“ Generally speaking, the Bohemians inhabited the flat lands of the interior, while the Germans overflowed the border line on the south, west, and north, forming an almost uninterrupted chain of settlements. ”

“ Yet this love of their own traditions is no barrier, apparently, to forming strong attachments to American institutions. The Bohemians are active in politics, and in the cities where they congregate they see that they have their share of the public offices. There are more highly skilled workmen among them than are to be found in any other Slavic group; and the second generation of Bohemians in America has produced many brilliant professional men and successful business men. ”

“ The same lady will comprehend in the term the middle-aged civil servant who haunts studios of an evening, wears pale tweeds, but is otherwise a pearl of inartistic chivalry, and the scaramouch of a painter, whom she calls "charming" because he is clever, and whose absorption in art has entirely ruined him as a social being. I propose another question. Why are Bohemians so called? The answer seems easy—because they live in Bohemia. And Bohemia? Again the label produces a difficulty. ”

“ The Bohemians know everything and go everywhere, according as they have patent leather pumps or burst boots. They are to be met one day leaning against the mantel-shelf in a fashionable drawing room, and the next seated in the arbor of some suburban dancing place. ”

“ The true Bohemians, he says, are known upon the literary and artistic market-place, where their wares are saleable, but at moderate prices; "their existence each day is a work of genius"—"preceded by a pack of ruses, poaching in all the industries connected with the arts, they hunt from morn till eve that ferocious animal which is called the five-franc piece." ”

“ And prove indeed ye are Bohemians born!
So shall th’ ancestral glories re-appear,
Your own lov’d land in splendour to adorn!
↑ The expression of the Emperor Charles IV. ↑ The Lion with two tails is the emblem of Bohemia.
⁂ Cz in Czech (which is the Polish, not the Bohemian orthography, it being impossible for want of types to employ the marked letters, as the Bohemians do) should be pronounced like our ch in church. The ch at the end of the word is the only guttural sound in the Bohemian language. ”

“ The Bohemians were upon their own territory, fighting for their homes, their country, and their religion, It often happened that their wives and children were in the camp with them, so that defeat meant death to those they held most dear, and, generally, suffering and insults worse than death. ”

“ Having previously visited all sections of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovak-land, and having already acquainted myself with the conditions prevailing amongst the Bohemians in such American centres as New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and the farming regions of the central west, it was intensely interesting by way of comparison and of completion of my knowledge of the Bohemian people, to observe the conditions of life prevailing amongst the Bohemian population of 100,000 in our great Lone-Star state. ”

“ The Bohemians are among the most literate of our immigrants. Taking the data for 1900, which I happen to have worked out, we find that of immigrants of all nationalities of fourteen years and over, those not able to both read and write were 24.2 per cent. ”

“ HUMANISTS AND THEOLOGIANS
The comparative tranquillity in Bohemia which was the consequence of the battle of Lipan (1434) , and of the agreement between the Bohemians and the Church of Rome which is known as the "compact," naturally had a favourable influence on the intellectual development of the country. The period which, beginning with the last years of the fifteenth century, ends with the downfall of Bohemia in 1620, is the one in which the Bohemian language obtained its greatest extension. ”

“ The common estimate is that onehalf of the Bohemians in the country are living in country places, occupicd either with farming or with some one of the various employments incident to rural life, from shoemaking to keeping store or acting as notary public. ”

“ The Bohemians, the most musical nation in the world, are still a singing people; but many of their ditties are evidently borrowed from the German; in others, invented by themselves, they exhibit a spirit entirely different from that of their ancestors. These modern songs are mostly rhymed. The following specimen of songs still current among the peasantry of Bohemia, will show well the harmless, playful, roguish spirit that pervades them.
THE FORSAKEN MAIDEN.
Little star with gloomy shine,
If thou couldst but cry! ”

“ Registration again brought home to the Bohemians their awkward position as members of a race whose homeland is subject to Austria. Young men born in Bohemia were urged through Bohemian newspapers to insist at registration that their na tive country was not Austria, but Bohemia. ”

“ There was a sprinkling of real Bohemians present who came for a change because they were tired of the real Bohemia, and a smart shower of the men who originate the bright sayings of Congressmen and the little nephew of the well-known general passenger agent of the Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad Company.
Here is a bon mot that was manufactured at ’Tonio’s:
“A dinner at ’Tonio’s,” said a Bohemian, “always amounts to twice the price that is asked for it.” ”

“ This antagonism has frequently contributed to the failure of the attempts of the Bohemians to recover their autonomy.”
There is a great difference in an individual or a people that has been accustomed to accomplishment. The attitude in Bohemia has been that of pessimistic resignation. Their devotion to certain ideals and causes is magnificent, but the inability to organize unanimously is indicated by the eleven political parties, most of which are nationalistic and none of which has the active co-operation of the masses. ”

“ Well, then we again affirm, there exist in the heart of unknown Bohemia, similar beings whose poverty excites a sympathetic pity which common sense obliges you to go back on, for if you quietly remark to them that we live in the nineteenth century, that the five-franc piece is the empress of humanity, and that boots do not drop already blacked from heaven, they turn their backs on you and call you a tradesman. ”

“ And yet the few last years have developed in Bohemia an individuality and nationality beyond comparison in history—beyond comparison, because along with, or rather causative of, the political strivings of the people, a literature has also sprung into existence, bearing unmistakeable marks of originality, and bidding fair to assume no inconsiderable position, and to exert no inconsiderable influence in Europe. ”

“ These facts, which are probably new to many, will prepare our readers to hear that the Bohemian literature of the fourteenth century—although almost destroyed by the Jesuits, who, for 150 years, hunted for, and burned Bohemian books; and, until thirty years ago, almost lost out of sight, even in Bohemia is as rich, if not the richest of all, produced in that century, by any country of Europe. ”

“ While in the upper strata of the Germanized Society the sense for the old Bohemian Culture was being lost, the Bohemian and Slovak people lived in their reminiscences, dressed in characteristic national dress, decorated their homes with exquisite embroidery, surrounded themselves with furniture of the original, national style, painted Easter Eggs, made original toys for their children, doves, dolls and roosters, steeped their whole lives in poesy, which had its source in their pure souls. ”

“ Nowhere are the three dominant factors of modern life-religion, nationality, and economics—more strongly marked than in the history of Bohemia. At such a time as the present there can be no desire to give an aggressive turn to such an anniversary, or to exploit it in a way that might offend those of different religious views; but we cannot, surely, be blamed for using the occasion for the expression of our admiration and reverence. ”

“ It is to me a subject of great satisfaction that a new edition of my Bohemia: An Historical Sketch—first published in 1896—should be required. The study of Bohemian history is very important, as that history is closely connected with the present political situation of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and with the demand for autonomy raised by the Bohemian people at the present time. ”

“ Kings and warriors, who had done much to extend the prestige and power of Bohemia, are remembered mainly for their cruelty and oppression; while saints, who may in some degree have weakened the sense of Bohemian independence, are not merely honoured, but are even put forward as the symbols of distinctive national life. ”