Prague Winter

by Madeleine Albright

  Crown of Saint Wenceslas

  Edu-art Prague/Andrej Šumbera

  In 1415, when Catholic leaders assembled in the German city of Constance, the fate of Jan Hus was on their agenda. Despite being given a promise of safe passage, the troublesome rector was confined in chains to a jail next to a cesspool. When confronted by his accusers, he refused to recant, prompting the Church delegates to condemn him. The prisoner was stripped of his vestments, shorn of his hair, crowned with a paper hat bearing three images of the devil, and burned at the stake. Not wanting to leave relics, his executioners took care to incinerate every part of his body and all articles of clothing. This scheme to erase memory, however, had precisely the opposite effect.

  The martyrdom of Jan Hus

  Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

  Within weeks of the martyr’s death, a Hussite movement was upending the religious and economic order in Prague. Prominent priests were ousted from their pulpits and replaced by advocates of the new way. Hussite peasants wanted lower rents, while nobles, eyeing the estates of their Catholic neighbors, wished to make “Satan’s dowry” their own. Meanwhile, the entrenched Church and its patrons struggled to retain their privileges. For half a decade, the rivalry between the two sides simmered; it boiled over when, in July 1420, Hussite warriors routed the Catholic forces assembled by the Holy Roman Emperor.

  The rebel commander, Jan Žižka, was a fierce and inventive fighter who had lost his right eye early in his career but remained, at the age of sixty, a brilliant military strategist. In this campaign he transformed an unlikely array of farmers and peasants into an intimidating force that fashioned weapons out of farm implements, turned wagons into mobile fortresses, and triumphed over heavily armed cavalry. Military victories, especially against high odds, provide a firm foundation for national mythology, and Žižka, despite his eventual death from bubonic plague, has enjoyed a long career as a Czech hero. He was the standard-bearer who fought back and won against foreign enemies, a leader who chose the sword over acquiescence or martyrdom.*

  Žižka’s uprising helped set the battle lines that would bedevil Europe for the next two hundred years. His prowess enabled the Czech aristocracy to seize vast landholdings from the Catholics, while also fostering the development of the national language and a populist culture noted for its devotion to universal literacy. “This wicked people,” admitted Pope Pius II in the fifteenth century, “has one good quality—it is fond of learning. Even their women have a better knowledge of scripture than Italian bishops.”

  In the years that followed, the religious rivalry quieted and the Hussite (or Protestant) nobility was content to accept Habsburg rule, based in Vienna and led by German-speaking Catholics. This arrangement was based on the understanding that their religious and property rights would be respected. For a time all was well; but then, in 1618, Protestant leaders submitted a list of grievances to the Habsburg crown, demanding a fuller measure of self-government. The response was dismissive. Angered, the Protestants marched to the castle, where on May 23 they confronted the king’s representatives. The interview went poorly and, to vent their dissatisfaction, the intruders propelled two of the royal counselors and a scribe out the window—several stories up. The bureaucrats survived the experience, a miracle attributed by the Catholics to divine intervention and by the Protestants to the victims’ landing on a dunghill.

  Jan Žižka

  CTK PHOTO

  For almost two centuries, Bohemian aristocrats of different faiths had lived and prospered together; now they allowed irritations to fester into anger and violence. The Battle of White Mountain, fought on the foggy forenoon of November 8, 1620, is remembered by Czechs as a day of national infamy. However, the two sides that clashed on that date were separated not by ethnicity but religion. Ferdinand, the new Habsburg emperor, had recruited a coalition of Catholics from Spain, Italy, Bavaria, and Poland. The opposing alliance included Protestant sympathizers from throughout Europe and was led by the young Prince Friedrich of Germany. Because the wealthy of neither faith wished to give rifles to peasants, popular passions were not engaged and most of the soldiers were hired mercenaries.

  On the day of battle, the Protestants, though outnumbered, controlled the approach to the mountain, which was actually a hill on the outskirts of Prague. In ninety minutes of hard fighting, more than two thousand men were killed. The Catholics appeared to hold the upper hand, but the Protestants remained in a position to defend the city. At that moment of crisis, they turned for leadership to Friedrich, their chosen prince, only to find that he had fled. Deserted and betrayed, they promptly surrendered, allowing the imperial army to march into the capital.

  To Protestant Bohemia, White Mountain felt like the end of history. Defeated nobles were executed or banished, their religion prohibited, and their estates parceled out among the emperor’s Spanish and Austrian allies. The Czech people survived but as a nation of peasants without an upper or middle class. For a time, Prague experienced a building boom as Catholic nobles commissioned grandiose projects that contributed much to the capital’s architectural glory but deepened the alienation of most Czechs. Their language, replaced by German, was no longer spoken in administrative offices or princely courts. Amid the dazzle of the Age of Royalty, the Bohemian people, if thought of at all, were dismissed as backward and of little account.

  IN THEIR STUDIES of Czech history, my father and his colleagues discerned two opposing dimensions: the fighters, such as Žižka, and the scholars. Foremost among the latter was Jan Ámos Komenský, best remembered for his writings while in exile. The bishop of the Hus-inspired Unity of Czech Brethren, Komenský was among those forced to flee in the aftermath of the Battle of White Mountain. He survived by eating nuts and escaped his pursuers by hiding in the trunk of a linden tree.

  With no choice but to begin a new life, Komenský soon proved himself to be an educator of astonishing humanity and vision. In keeping with his Bohemian ideals, he stressed universal literacy and access to free schools for girls and boys alike. He pioneered role playing in contrast to rote teaching methods, invented the illustrated children’s book, and wrote an essay on language that was used by Native American students at Harvard. Having seen his laboriously compiled Czech-language dictionary burned by Habsburg soldiers, he advocated the creation of a universal tongue that would help bring humankind together; he did not think civilized people should allow mere language to divide them. In Amsterdam for the last years of his life, he lamented his inability to return to Bohemia: “My whole life is merely the visit of a guest.” Although religious martyrs and warrior generals have places in my personal pantheon, Komenský is the early thinker whom I most admire.

  TO THE EAST of the Czech lands is Slovakia, the home of fellow Slavs whose history is mingled with that of the Bohemians. The two peoples were united under the Great Moravian Empire, which had, in the ninth century, exercised a loose sovereignty over much of Central Europe. The empire’s downfall after eighty years stemmed from an invasion by the Magyar alliance, a dynasty that founded the kingdom of Hungary and ruled the Slovaks for most of the next millennium. Despite the political separation, Czechs and Slovaks continued to travel back and forth for purposes of evangelism, commerce, and study.

  Slovakia’s principal city, Bratislava, sits astride the Danube River, a 250-mile journey from Prague. The mountainous land features gorgeous peaks and dense forests, lakes formed during the Ice Age, and mineral-rich soil. The picturesque scenery has served as a backdrop for thousands of folk songs, native dances, tall tales, and a true-to-life story centered on an eighteenth-century adventurer, Juro Jánošík, who deserted the imperial army and formed a band of thieves. Jánošík’s highwaymen made their home in a forest, befriended a local priest, stole only from the wealthy, and shared their booty with the poor. This Slovak Robin Hood’s passion for economic justice was a hint of events to come, for Central Europe had reached the threshold of far-reachin
g social change.

  EMPEROR JOSEPH II, who reigned from 1780 to 1790, thought of himself as a modern man, and a good one. He issued grants of food and medicine to the indigent, founded hospitals, asylums, and orphanages, and opened public parks and gardens. By his decree, “No man shall be compelled in future to profess the religion of the state.” This “tolerance patent” meant that, after 150 years, Czechs were once again free to practice the Protestant and Christian Orthodox faiths. Joseph also endeavored to integrate Bohemia’s Jewish community—at the time the largest in the world—by lifting restrictions on employment, eliminating special taxes, and requiring the use of German in education. Those changes, which greatly accelerated the exposure of Jews to German language and culture, were resisted by some but welcomed by others as a way to expand their participation in society.

  In that preindustrial era, the majority of Czechs still pursued a rural life, tilling the soil, tending livestock, sewing clothes, and working as millers, gamekeepers, blacksmiths, cabinetmakers, and shepherds. Most lay down at night in huts decorated with religious icons. Medicinal needs were addressed by collecting herbs or by purchasing the special balms that itinerant peddlers promised would soothe tired muscles and aching teeth. Men generally had mustaches, wore baggy trousers, carried snuffboxes, and smoked pipes; the women in their aprons labored at baking, washing, and food gathering; the children were kept in line with tales about an old crone who stuffed bad girls and boys into her shoulder bag and carried them away. Before the Christmas holidays, entire villages gathered to devour sweets, have poultry-plucking parties, and swap stories about water sprites and ghosts. People believed what they had been brought up to believe: a mixture of scriptural tenets, pagan myth, and good manners. A sleeping child was best roused by a tap on the forehead, causing the soul to awaken first. For reasons both physical and spiritual, bread—the gift of God—was treated with reverence. To step on so much as a crumb was to make the souls in purgatory shed tears. Friends and strangers alike were greeted with a slice from a brown or black loaf smeared with grease and sprinkled with salt.

  In such an environment, everyone knew everybody else and each knew his place; the division of the population into social classes was a given. Joseph II enlarged the freedom of his subjects, but his goal was to preserve an empire, not build a democracy. Ever mindful of defense needs, he wanted to create an army that would love its emperor and speak a single tongue. To guard against the incursion of enemies from the north, he built an eight-sided military fortress that he named in honor of his mother, Empress Maria Theresa; the garrison was called Theresienstadt—or, in Czech, Terezín.

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  The Competition

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story—“A Scandal in Bohemia”—begins with a knock on the door of 221B Baker Street. The identity of the mysterious stranger is quickly deduced by the great detective, who recognizes the hereditary king of Bohemia by his German accent. It is a story designed to make Czech nationalists grind their teeth.

  But by 1891, the time of Doyle’s writing, the cultural balance was already shifting. Any assumption that a gentleman of Bohemia must be a German speaker was increasingly precarious. The Enlightenment, the French and American revolutions, and industrialization had prompted a political awakening across Europe. Workers and peasants began to believe that their lives could be freer and more varied than those of their ancestors, causing the feudal system that had enriched the German and Magyar nobility to break apart. Social activists churned out pamphlets advocating autonomy and equal treatment for Czechs within the Austrian Empire. Slovaks transmitted similar requests to the leaders of Hungary. These reformers were not so bold as to seek national independence but instead petitioned for prerogatives within the empire, such as the right to form political parties, elect representatives to parliament, exercise more control over local government, and operate their own schools.

  After many false starts and some bloodshed, the agitation had an impact, albeit an uneven one. In 1867, the court in Vienna recognized its cousin in Budapest as an equal partner, thus giving birth to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, a dual monarchy meant that there were two systems of government. In Hungary, all who lived within the borders were considered Hungarian; there were no minorities and hence, for Slovaks, no minority protections. In Austria, the new constitution acknowledged the right of each national group to preserve its language and culture.

  The revival of national identification in the Czech lands was spurred by intellectual theories concerning the role of the nation in history and the centrality of language in forging a people. If such ideas had arisen in an earlier era, they would not have spread far; but the nineteenth century was a time of broadening horizons as newspapers and political journals multiplied and books other than the Bible found their way into homes. Especially for people migrating from country to city, the idea of the nation served as a star by which to navigate in a world where the old signposts of religion and social class were losing authority.

  Austria-Hungary, including Czech lands, 1867

  Laura Lee

  Even though many of the early Czech nationalists wrote in German, they urged the development of Bohemian literature and cheered the inauguration of Czech opera, most notably Bedřich Smetana’s Libuše and The Bartered Bride. They also championed the national theater, the philharmonic orchestra, the Sokol gymnastics organization, an academy of arts and sciences, and, in 1882, the division of Charles University into separate German and Czech branches. They began pondering, as well, what it meant to be Czech.

  According to the era’s leading journalist, Karel Havlíček, “A Czech does not rely on others [but] . . . sets out to do his work and will overcome everything.” Havlíček suggested that the destruction of Bohemian nobility had given to the Czech people a uniquely democratic character: unpretentious, practical, and steeped in humanitarian values. Whereas others were divided between a rich minority and the poor majority, the Czechs were egalitarian, rejecting fancy titles and addressing their countrymen as brothers and sisters. In his view, the people’s commitment to decency and fair play was an asset to all of Europe and a welcome departure from the backbiting so characteristic of neighboring nationalities. Of course, Bohemians also admitted to a tendency to drag down anyone who rose too high. “When a Czech owns a goat,” so went the saying, “his neighbor does not yearn for a goat of his own; he wants the neighbor’s goat to die.” There were, in addition, more ominous assessments of the local character. The German historian and Nobel Laureate Theodor Mommsen commented darkly, “The Czech skull is impervious to reason, but is susceptible to blows.”

  Throughout the nineteenth century, Czech and German nationalists competed with one another, seeming not to notice that in attempting to prove how different their peoples were, they expressed similar aspirations and lay claim to comparable virtues. In unison and with equal vehemence, they demanded that parents raise their young as patriots. Božena Nĕmcová could have spoken for either side when, in “To the Bohemian Women,” she urged that:

  With the first tender, flattering word,

  With the first sweet kiss

  Let’s pour the Czech sound into their souls

  With burning love of country.

  Czech women, Czech Mothers!

  We have but one Joy:

  Raising our children

  For the glorious, dear country.

  Such bromides were not for everyone. Many inhabitants of the region cared little about national distinctions, which were, in any event, difficult to discern. The original Slav and Teutonic tribes had long since passed into history, and their descendants had shared the same land for centuries, during which intermarriage had been commonplace. Czech and German names were scrambled up, as were physical characteristics, and many people were bilingual. This meant that purity of blood was more often than not an illusion, albeit a seductive one.

  Ironically, the burgeo
ning rivalry between Czechs and Germans was reinforced by the Austrian Empire’s commitment to minority rights. To honor that pledge, authorities had to know who belonged to which nationality. This imposed upon a fluid and imprecise social reality one of the most rigid of human inventions—bureaucracy. Agents of the empire arrived in every town and village with forms to be filled out. Citizens were to choose one label or another. The larger the group, the more schools it could have, the more votes it would be entitled to in parliament, and the more local officials its members could elect. Hence a declaration of nationality, once a personal and voluntary option, became both a legal mandate and a political act.

  For many families, the choice was based on well-established ethnic and linguistic affinity, but for others the designation was more a question of what was practical. If there were not enough Czechs in a town to merit their own school, it was convenient for a family to be German. If a town were largely Czech, it was prudent for a German shopkeeper to transact business in that tongue. Impoverished parents were tempted by offers of free lunches and school supplies in return for sending their children to the “right” school or athletic club. The mix-and-match nature of the process reflected the fact that many families had relatives on both sides of the divide. My paternal grandfather, Arnošt Körbel, settled in the Czech-speaking heart of the country; some of his siblings did so in German areas. Earlier generations had, most probably, lived neither in Germany nor Bohemia but in what is now part of Poland.