7 2 April 2016
A
flons Mucha’s Slav Epic enjoys glori
-
ous pride of place in the Czech
National Gallery in Prague. It is a
cycle of twenty large and porten
-
tous paintings completed between
1910 and 1928 recalling the history and myths
of a heterogenous people inhabiting territory
from the Asian steppe to the shores of the Medi-
terranean. The artist imposes his peculiar
predilections and aspirations in broad strokes
to produce imagery simultaneously troubling
and enthralling: a peaceable nature is empha-
sised but a belligerent Germanic ‘other’ is also
apparent.
The first painting has a contemporary reso-
nance. Mucha claimed his intention was to
depict the Origin, the Adam and Eve of the
Slavs. The English guide says: “He portrayed
them crouched down like defenceless refugees,
wearing expressions of fear”. On the hill behind
we see a hostile horde that has plundered and
set fire to their village. Implicit is recognition
that all peoples have at one time sought refuge
from invasion.
But that understanding is
sorely lacking in the Czech
Republic along with other coun-
tries across Central and Eastern
Europe today. Not since the US
invasion of Iraq have attitudes
differed so greatly between
what Donal Rumsfeld referred
to in 2003 as ‘Old’ and ‘New’
Europe.
Many in Western Europe are
exasperated by the attitudes of
their Central and Eastern Euro-
pean counterparts, regarding them as hypocrisy
considering the number of Central and Eastern
Europeans who have migrated west as both
workers and political refugees. Central and
Eastern Europeans appear to be from Mars and
Western Europeans from Venus; but there is
hardly a genetic basis for the intracontinental
differences.
Perhaps most surprising to Westerners are
attitudes in the Czech Republic - a state, geo-
graphically and to an extent culturally, Western
European: Prague’s architectural splendours
are further to the west than Berlin’s and revolu-
tions have been
pacific West-friendly
Velvet affairs.
The State of Czecho-
slovakia was the only
democracy in conti-
nental Europe apart
from France in 1939.
But successive opin
-
ion polls have shown Czechs to be
overwhelmingly opposed to receiving refugees
despite shocking scenes that have generated
strong feelings of empathy elsewhere.
Four factors ground this apparent
imperviousness to the suffering of others: the
first is the historical and current relationship
with minorities; the second is the enduring eco-
nomic fallout from the Communist era; the next
factor is the malign influence of the current
Czech President Miloš Zeman; finally, after a
twentieth century during which the Czech
people have been unwillingly controlled by
three empires – the Hapsburg, Nazi and Soviet,
there is a strong sense that the Czech people
should be allowed to control their own affairs.
The Czech Republic has produced statesmen
of international renown. Former playwright
President Vaclav Havel was one of the heroes
of the struggle against Communist dictator-
ship; although his equation of the extension of
US power with the expansion of liberty, culmi-
nating in support for the US invasion of Iraq in
2003, was naïve at best. Nonetheless his
emphasis on individual autonomy and artistic
expression was an antidote to the conformity of
the dark Communist years.
Polar Czechs
Czech national temperament fluctuates
between ancient national prejudices and
slavish foreign imitation
by Frank Armstrong
INTERNATIONAL
Czechs are
overwhelmingly
opposed to receiving
refugees
Mucha: after the battle of Grunwald
April 2016 7 3
Looking further into Czech history we find the
great Jan Masaryk the first president of Czecho-
slovakia whose liberal sentiments contrasted
with the hateful rhetoric that pervaded the lead-
erships in countries surrounding an embattled
state that was effectively handed over to the
Nazis by the British and French in 1938.
In a speech in 1928 marking the tenth anni-
versary of the foundation of the state he said:
“I repeat and emphasise what I have said
before, namely, that everything in the nature of
Chauvinism must be excluded from our political
life”.
Arguing for a pluralist civic nationalism he
said that: “the necessary State unity does not
mean uniformity”.
Although that state did not perfectly inte-
grate its broad composite of minorities his
benign leadership engendered tolerance, espe-
cially of religious difference. He said that
Czechoslovakia should only have an army as
long as other countries did.
One individual who grew up in inter-war
Prague recalls: “One of the pleasant aspect of
living in Czechoslovakia at the time was that
you never really knew what religion the other
person had, child or adult, and more impor-
tantly didn’t care”.
Masaryk also said that: “Politics is leader-
ship and democracy therefore has its constant
and urgent problem of leadership”.
The current President Milos Zamen is offering
leadership of a different character.
Zamen is part of a rising phenomenon, apoth-
eosised in Donald Trump.
He speaks in foul-mouthed terms about mar-
ginalised groups. He regularly departs from
political correctness, and appeals to fear and
xenophobia.
Thus in the wake of the New Year Cologne sex
attacks he typically claimed that, “it’s
practically impossible to integrate Muslims into
Western Europe”.
He has also previously stoked anti-German
feeling, referring to his opponent in the 2013
Presidential election, Karol Schwarzenberg, as
a Sudeten German and claiming that Sudeten
Germans had been done a favour by their forced
transfer to Germany, during which many thou-
sands died, after World War II.
The heavy-drinking President has also pur-
sued friendly relations with Vladimir Putin and
is roundly denigrated in liberal, relatively cos-
mopolitan Prague.
But his divisive views, so out of step with the
legacy of Masaryk, have proved a successful
political strategy and today he is the most
trusted politician in the country with a 56%
approval rating according to a recent survey.
A major reasons for this is the continuing dis-
content of the majority of the population with
their economic status. Thus, in a survey con-
ducted by the CVVM agency in October 2014,
55 percent of Czechs characterised the eco-
nomic system that existed in Czechoslovakia
before 1989 as “better” or “on the whole
better” than the current one.
This nostalgia for the Communist era may
come as a surprise but it reflects the two-tier
economy that has grown up. Prague now con-
tains a substantial population that has grown
wealthy in particular off the back of a booming
property sector that has attracted significant
foreign investment.
There is also a high level of corruption that
stalls development. This problem dates back to
the Communist period where it was said that
you weren’t looking after your family unless you
stole. The Czech Republic’s proximity to wealthy
European states and liberal laws have also
proved an enticing focus for organised crime
from around Eastern Europe, including from
Russia.
Moreover, in an era when wealth is flaunted
as never before through social media, con-
sumer desiderata from flash cars to the latest
technologies and foreign holidays float before
a population whose static income usually inhib-
its them from sharing the spoils. Excessive
alcohol consumption is perhaps one indicator
of a simmering resentment. The Czechs are
among the world’s biggest drinkers and a lot of
it is consumed in a manner distinctly
unfestive.
But perhaps the single biggest cause of
unsympathetic attitudes towards refugees
comes from a troubled relationship with minor-
ity groups.
As indicated, until the Second World the state
of Czechoslovakia was a diverse society, with
Czechs merely the largest minority among Slo-
vaks, Germans, Jews, Hungarians, Ukrainians
and Romany. It was external factors that
brought this arranged, but reasonably content,
marriage to an end although friction, especially
with the previously ascendant Germans, had
always been apparent.
In the wake of the Holocaust and the expul-
sions of the German minority Czechoslovakia
emerged as a more homogenous society in a
process completed by the Velvet Revolution
which saw it separate amicably with Slovakia
in 1993. In Prague today one sees few people of
55 percent of Czechs
characterised the pre-
1989 economic system
as “better” than the
current one
Miloš Zeman meets the master
7 4 April 2016
colour although there is a significant Vietnam-
ese minority that compliantly runs small shops
across the city. But there remains one signifi-
cant and vilified minority: the Romani.
The Romani (referred to inaccurately as Gyp-
sies – their origin is not Egypt – and the term is
regarded as a racial slur) are the descendants
of migrants from northern India who came to
Europe in the middle ages. Many were enslaved
until the nineteenth century. The Nazis sought
to eradicate them, killing up to a half million, an
event known as the Porajmos. Romanticised as
wandering musicians, their peripatetic mode of
existence is anathema to the settled industrial
societies that emerged in Europe in the nine-
teenth century.
Under Communism they were forced into set-
tled lives that stored resentment and bred
criminality. Attitudes have hardened in Czech
Republic and other nearby states despite the
miscegenation that is apparent in the saturnine
looks of many self-identifying ethnic Czechs.
Yet many apparently open-minded people
reveal what can only be described as racism
towards this minority that number up to a quar-
ter of a million in a country of ten million. The
anti-social conduct of some Romani in a gener-
ally law-abiding society is a particular affront,
and there is a widespread sense they receive
favourable treatment from state agencies.
The appearance of a wave of dark-featured
people at Europe’s gates is easily associated
with the resident minority. This is compounded
by the awful excesses of Political Islam that
have been broadcast around the world and the
challenge of integration in some European
countries. There are also perhaps lingering
memories of the Ottoman bogeyman, Atilla,
who laid siege to nearby Vienna as late as 1683.
In the nineteenth canvas of his Epic Alfons
Mucha reaches The Abolition of Serfdom in
Russia. In it we see a hesitant and confused
gathering in the snow before the Kremlin.
According to the guide this reflected Mucha’s
shock at the backwardness and ignorance of
many of the people he encountered in a study
trip in 1913.
The historical trajectory of the Czech people
has been quite different from that of their Rus-
sian counterparts and ultimately it is difficult to
reconcile Mucha’s pan-Slavonic vision with the
historical diversity of that broad linguistic
group. But the motif evokes a contemporary
parallel as, just as freed Russian serfs strug-
gled to reconcile themselves to the capitalist
society of the twentieth century, similarly citi-
zens of Eastern European countries including
the Czech Republic have struggled to recover
from first Nazi fascism and then Communist
totalitarianism.
Coming after centuries of Hapsburg rule there
is a firm belief that the Czech people should
control their own destiny. This is reflected in
the decision to opt out of the Euro. In under-
standing these attitudes the views of the
renowned literary critique Arné Novak (1880-
1939) are insightful. He wrote that:
“The Czech national temperament continu-
ally fluctuates between two poles: on the one
hand, a self-righteous over-estimation of eve-
rything native, with a stubborn clinging to
ancient prejudices; on the other hand, impa
-
tient curiosity about the latest foreign literary
fashions, and a readiness for slavish
imitation”.
If we are to accept this caustic assessment
and apply it to Czech politics the “stubborn
resistance” might be observed in antipathy to
being dictated to on the issue of refugees by the
European core, especially Germany. Mean-
while, a hint of “slavish imitation” maybe
discerned in uncritical deference to American
foreign policy.
Apart from contending with the the demands
of economies presupposing inequality, the
entrepreneurial spirit has been difficult to
ignite in an older generation worn down by rep-
etition and a lack of meritocracy. Further, the
pernicious presence of secret police informants
across society under Communism has left a
legacy of suspicion and a lack of openness to
strangers.
Unfortunately these resentments now mani-
fest themselves in antipathy towards those who
have sought refuge in Europe, and the irrespon-
sible statements of the Czech President have
inflamed the chauvinism leading to the “stub-
born resistance” that his great predecessor
Masaryk decried.
Czechs are among
the world’s biggest
drinkers
INTERNATIONAL
  ’ ,   littlemuseum.ie
Open 9.30am-5pm Monday-Sunday, late opening until 8pm on a  ursday. Guided tours hourly. Curator’s pre-dinner tour every  ursday at 7pm.
boring
museums
ar e
ancient history.
Visit the Little Museum today.
free entry for village readers Present this ad at the Little Museum to receive one free entry (save €7)
Visit the Little Museum today.
(photograph by the late Christopher Robson)
Medieval village of Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic
April 2016 7 5
  ’ ,   littlemuseum.ie
Open 9.30am-5pm Monday-Sunday, late opening until 8pm on a  ursday. Guided tours hourly. Curator’s pre-dinner tour every  ursday at 7pm.
boring
museums
ar e
ancient history.
Visit the Little Museum today.
free entry for village readers Present this ad at the Little Museum to receive one free entry (save €7)
Visit the Little Museum today.
(photograph by the late Christopher Robson)

Loading

© 2015 Village Magazine

Back to Top