Einstein in Bohemia

by Michael D. Gordin

  One prominent such moment was the publication of Josef Nesvadba’s story Einstein’s Brain (Einsteinův mozek) in 1960, a collection of science fiction tales that begins with a short story of that title. You might expect that it would have something to do with relativity, or quantum theory, or even perhaps the actual saga of Einstein’s brain, which had been purloined by a coroner and secreted in the trunk of his car against the physicist’s express wishes that he be cremated. (That last one, sadly nonfictional, is a great story, but it doesn’t have any connection with Prague.)30 Rather, Nesvadba’s tale is about a quest for an artificial biological brain that will be able to divine the meaning of life, something ever more powerful computers are not able to do. (It does and decides to starve itself to death.) There is nothing here about Einstein except for metaphor. If anything, the book that its title pays homage to, Jakub Arbes’s Newton’s Brain (Newtonův mozek)—published in 1877, it is often considered the first Czech science fiction work—is more like it. Arbes’s book imagines a con man, supposed to have died in the Battle of Königgrätz between Austria and Prussia in 1866, who receives a transplanted brain from Isaac Newton. Using his new powers of genius, he builds a spaceship that enables him to travel faster than the speed of light and therefore take photographs of the past. This was almost three decades before the formation of the theory of special relativity (and almost two before H. G. Wells’s Time Machine)! For Nesvadba, Einstein was a universal signifier of intelligence, not a Bohemian icon. The closest we get to the actual person is the epigraph Nesvadba chose: Einstein’s famous slogan “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”31

  You can still find traces of Einstein in the city of Prague if you know where to look.32 There are the memorial plaques inside his office building and outside his home from 1911–1912, erected during the centenary year of 1979. Those are tied to real places where the physicist once wandered. There is now a third plaque too, on Old Town Square, outside the home where Bertha Fanta once held her salon. It depicts a very aged Einstein, much too old to relate to the historical moment it describes, and the text narrates the connections Einstein made in this house with Franz Kafka. This, too, is not very faithful to the historical record. The plaque is also in English. The audience for this memorial, unlike the other two, is not the local population but the masses of tourists who stream through the beautiful city of Prague. For them, the city offers a new Einstein, one who is more human in appearance than Nesvadba’s, but no less fictional.

  These final Prague stories have less to do with Einstein himself than with his legacy, and that is only to be expected. Bohemia has long since vanished, at least from the real cartography of the world. It has moved instead to the land of myth. There you can also find Einstein. He still lives in that Bohemia—at least a part of him.

  Acknowledgments

  Although it seems as though I have been reading Einstein biographies for as long as I can remember, I first became fully aware that he had taught for three semesters in Prague sometime during my first three semesters of graduate school. Being interested in both Einstein (who isn’t?) and science in the Slavic world, I filed the notion away as an intriguing topic for a future article. One thing led to another, and after about 20 years of marinating, that article idea grew into the book you have before you. Since Einstein in Bohemia is an experiment in thinking historically, proper acknowledgment of everyone who has shaped how I approach these matters would require a separate book in itself. So let me start by thanking those of you I cannot mention here. You may find traces of yourself somewhere in these pages, and you can be sure that I am grateful for all the conversations that led to them.

  I conducted the vast majority of the research for this book in 2015–2016 while on a sabbatical fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, which was a captivating environment to think about both displacement and belonging. Rector Luca Giuliani, Secretary Thorsten Wilhelmy, and Academic Coordinator Daniel Schönpflug generated a welcoming scholarly environment that enabled a kind of concentrated focus that I had never before experienced and that I miss with regularity. (My fellow Fellows, one of whom has since become the current rector, had a lot to do with that as well.) I am especially grateful to Sonja Grund and her team at the library, who undertook absolutely heroic efforts to assemble materials I requested from across the continent. Upon my return to Princeton, the Interlibrary Loan Office at Firestone Library continued those good services. For the space, the time, and the content, many thanks.

  Several archives and libraries were very generous with offering me access to their holdings. I began my investigations by poring over the Albert Einstein Duplicate Archive in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections in Firestone Library at Princeton. The staff was uncommonly helpful in navigating that rather complex collection, as well as the papers of Hanna Fantova. Diana Buchwald, editor of the Einstein Papers Project, has been unfailingly supportive of this work, granting access to several specific documents from the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (Her masterful leadership of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein has shaped the book on almost every page, as the endnotes will attest.) Thomas Binder was kind enough to send me materials from the Nachlass Oskar Kraus at the Franz Brentano Archive in Graz, Austria, as was Valery Merlin from the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem. Jan Musil performed research about both Oskar Kraus and Arnošt Kolman in the archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences and of Charles University in Prague—this project would be much poorer without his efficient assistance. Finally, I would like to thank Tomáš Herrmann of Charles University, who not only put me in touch with Jan but offered encouragement at a very early stage of my thoughts about this work.

  Several friends and colleagues patiently read chapters and offered numerous suggestions that have improved the book both empirically and conceptually. Gary B. Cohen, Stanley Corngold, David Kaiser, Matthew Stanley, and a group of sharp scholars at the Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge read selected chapters, and Elizbeth Baker and Patrick McCray selflessly commented on the entire manuscript. I also presented early versions of parts of this project at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, the Works-in-Progress series at the Princeton History Department, the Princeton Society of Fellows, the Hamilton Colloquium Series in the Princeton Physics Department, Yale University, Queen’s University, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, the University of New Hampshire, Oregon State University, the University of Minnesota, and Central European University. I am especially grateful to Jan Maršálek, Jiří Podolský, and Jiří Bičák, for conversations about this material during a memorable visit to Prague. Last, but also most definitely first, Erika Lorraine Milam has endured countless ramblings about Einstein, Prague, and other topics for many years now, and despite that still read the whole manuscript when we both knew she didn’t really have the time to do so. I am always grateful, for everything.

  Penultimate thanks go to Princeton University Press, which has from the beginning been the most natural home for this book. Al Bertrand encouraged me when the concept was still embryonic, and Eric Crahan and Pamela Weidman expertly shepherded the manuscript to realization. Derek Sayer and Diana Buchwald served as the anonymous reviewers for Princeton University Press (thankfully anonymous no longer), and they provided generous and very helpful correctives to a number of factual points and (most gratifyingly) really understood and welcomed the enterprise. Mark Bellis was a superb production editor, and Sarah Vogelsong’s copyediting improved the manuscript in numerous places. My thanks to them all.

  My final debt is to Peter Galison, who was the first historian of science I ever met. Back in 1992, Peter was also the first person to make both relativity and Einstein real to me, and he has never ceased to surprise me by making those topics (and just about everything else he addresses) more new and more real. He has been a constant presence and inspiration in his person and his writings ever since. This book is dedicated
to him.

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION: A SPACETIME INTERVAL

  1. Leopold Infeld, Albert Einstein: His Work and Its Influence on Our World (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), 125.

  2. “Interlude”: Carl Seelig, Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography, tr. Mervyn Savill (London: Staples Press Limited, 1956), 119; “sojourn”: Anton Reiser [Rudolf Kayser], Albert Einstein: A Biographical Portrait (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1930), 87, and Ze’ev Rosenkranz, Einstein Before Israel: Zionist Icon or Iconoclast? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 33 and 254; “detour”: Albrecht Fölsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography, tr. and abridged Ewald Osers (New York: Penguin Books, 1997 [1993]), 322; “way station”: Jürgen Neffe, Einstein: A Biography, tr. Shelley Frisch (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 [2005]), 161; “intermezzo”: Giuseppe Castagnetti et al., Einstein in Berlin: Wissenschaft zwischen Grundlagenkrise und Politik (Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, [1994]), 10; Dieter Hoffmann, Einsteins Berlin: Auf den Spuren eines Genies (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2006), 2.

  3. Arnold Sommerfeld, “Zum Siebzigsten Geburtstag Albert Einsteins,” Deutsche Beiträge 2 (1949): 141–146, on 143; Lewis Pyenson, The Young Einstein: The Advent of Relativity (Bristol: Adam Hilger Ltd., 1985), 61 (although Einstein’s secretary Helen Dukas definitively rejected the idea on p. 64: he was “anything but ‘bohemian,’ ” from a letter of Dukas to Pyenson of 16 September 1974); Fölsing, Albert Einstein, 114; Jean Eisenstaedt, The Curious History of Relativity: How Einstein’s Theory of Gravity Was Lost and Found Again, tr. Arturo Sangalli (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006 [2003]), 112; Roger Highfield and Paul Carter, The Private Lives of Albert Einstein (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 133.

  4. See especially Richard Miller, Bohemia: The Protoculture Then and Now (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977); and Jiří Kořalka, Tschechen im Habsburgerreich und in Europa 1815–1914: Sozialgeschichtliche Zusammenhänge der neuzeitlichen Nationsbildung und der Nationalitätenfrage in den böhmischen Ländern (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1991), 62.

  5. Starting in the ninth century foreign sources began to refer to the region using a variety of names: Beheim, Bohemia, Beimi, Boemani, and Beheimare. The term is derived from the name of a Celtic tribe, the Boii, who were the last occupants of the region in the pre-Christian era, during the Roman Empire. They did not last long. At the end of the fifth century the Germanic Langobards moved in, followed in the sixth century by the Slavis (Sklavinoi in the west and Antoi in the east), the ancestors of the Slavs who presently dominate the area. Jiří Sláma, “Boiohaemum-Čechy,” in Mikuláš Teich, ed., Bohemia in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 23–38.

  6. Thun quoted in Stanley Z. Pech, The Czech Revolution of 1848 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), 30. For more on the adjectival distinction, see Tilman Berger, “Böhmisch oder Tschechisch?: Der Streit über die adequate Benennung der Landessprache der böhmischen Länder zu Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Marek Nekula, Ingrid Fleischmann, and Albrecht Greule, eds., Franz Kafka im sprachnationalen Kontext seiner Zeit: Sprache und nationale Identität in öffentlichen Institutionen der böhmischen Länder (Köln: Böhlau, 2007), 167–182.

  7. See, for a small selection: Anne Jamison, Kafka’s Other Prague: Writings from the Czechoslovak Republic (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018); Scott Spector, Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka’s Fin de Siècle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Pavel Eisner, Franz Kafka and Prague, tr. Lowry Nelson and René Wellek (New York: Golden Griffin Books, 1950); and Christoph Stölzl, Kafkas böses Böhmen: Zur Sozialgeschichte eines Prager Juden (Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, 1975).

  8. Reiner Stach, Kafka: Die frühen Jahre (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2014), 469; Margarita Pazi, “Franz Kafka, Max Brod und der ‘Prager Kreis,’ ” in Karl Erich Grözinger, Stéphane Mosès, and Hans Dieter Zimmermann, eds., Franz Kafka und das Judentum (Frankfurt am Main: Jüdischer Verlag bei Athenäum, 1987), 71–92, on 88; Hartmut Binder, “Der Prager Fanta-Kreis: Kafkas Interesse an Rudolf Steiner,” Sudetenland, no. 2 (1996): 106–150, on 136.

  9. Quoted in Binder, “Der Prager Fanta-Kreis,” 136. It is true that Kafka also did not mention in his letters, diaries, and notebooks individuals such as Friedrich Nietzsche whom we are certain he was engaged with, which has led some to hold out hope that an intellectual connection to Einsteinian physics persisted beneath the surface. Franz Kuna, “Rage for Verification: Kafka and Einstein,” in Franz Kuna, ed., On Kafka: Semi-Centenary Perspectives (London: Paul Elek, 1976), 83–111. Granted that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is hardly evidence of presence either.

  10. On the Berlin visits, see Hubert Goenner, Einstein in Berlin, 1914–1933 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2005), 211; John Forrester, “Die Geschichte zweier Ikonen: ‘The Jews All over the World Boast of My Name, Pairing Me with Einstein’ (Freud, 1926),” tr. Bettina Engels, in Michael Hagner, ed., Einstein on the Beach: Der Physiker als Phänomen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2005), 96–123, on 305n13. On “perversity,” see the description of the ostensible incident in R. W. Stallman, “A Hunger-Artist,” in Angel Flores and Homer Swander, eds., Franz Kafka Today (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1958), 61–70, on 61.

  11. Bergmann to Paul Amann, 28 April 1955, reproduced in Schmuel Hugo Bergman, Tagebücher & Briefe, 2 vols., ed. Miriam Sambursky (Königstein: Athenäum, 1985), 2:196. See also Hugo Bergman, “Personal Remembrances of Albert Einstein,” in Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky, eds., Logical and Epistemological Studies in Contemporary Physics (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1974), 388–394, on 390, where he repeats the claim.

  12. Franz Halla, “Anläßlich des Todes von Albert Einstein,” Mitteilungen aus der anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland 32 (June 1955): 74–75.

  13. On Steiner’s visits to Prague in this period, see Zdeněk Váňa, “Rudolf Steiner in Prag: Zur Geschichte der tschechischen anthroposophischen Bewegung,” Beiträge zur Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe, no. 109 (1992): 1–64; Binder, “Der Prager Fanta-Kreis,” 132; and idem, “Rudolf Steiners Prager Vortragsreise im Jahr 1911: Berichtigungen und Ergänzungen zu der Kritischen Ausgabe der Tagebücher Kafkas,” Editio 9 (1995): 214–233. It is conceivable that Einstein was dragged to Steiner’s later lectures in Prague on 28 and 30 April 1912, but those were on different topics and the scientist never mentioned it. Claims that Einstein was devoted to the teachings of the theosophist H. P. Blavatsky (Sylvia Cranston, HPB: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement [New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1993], xx, 434, and 557n11) are also scarcely credible once one chases down the sources.

  14. Franz Kafka, Tagebücher: Bd. 1: 1909–1912 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2008), 29–31. See also June O. Leavitt, The Mystical Life of Franz Kafka: Theosophy, Cabala, and the Modern Spiritual Revival (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

  15. Res Jost, “Einstein und Zürich, Zürich und Einstein,” Vierteljahrsschrift der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich 124 (1979): 7–23; Max Flückiger, Albert Einstein in Bern: Das Ringen um ein neues Weltbild (Bern: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1974); Paul Cohen and Brenda Cohen, “The Einstein House in Berne, Switzerland: Visiting the Home of One of the Century’s Great Minds,” Journal of College Science Teaching 25, no. 6 (May 1996): 440–441; Carl Seelig, Albert Einstein und die Schweiz (Zurich: Europa-Verlag, 1952); L. Kollros, “Albert Einstein en Suisse: Souvenirs,” Helvetica Physica Acta 29 (1956): 271–281; Michel Biezunski, Einstein à Paris: Le temps n’est plus … (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 1991); Thomas Levenson, Einstein in Berlin (New York: Bantam Books, 2003); Castagnetti et al., Einstein in Berlin; Goenner, Einstein in Berlin; Hoffmann, Einsteins Berlin; Christa Kirsten and Hans-Jürgen Treder, eds., Albert Einstein in Berlin, 1913–1933, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1979); Hans Eugen Specker, ed., Einstein und Ulm: Festakt, Schülerw
ettbewerb und Ausstellung zum 100. Geburtstag von Albert Einstein (Ulm: W. Kohlhammer, 1979). The list can be extended. It is surprising that there is no “Einstein in Princeton,” given that he lived in that town longer than he did anywhere else.

  16. Jiří Bičák, ed., Einstein a Praha: K stému výročí narození Alberta Einsteina (Prague: Jednota československých matematiků a fyziků, 1979). On Bičák’s distinguished contributions to his science, see Oldřich Semerák, “Preface,” in O. Semerák, J. Podolský, and M. Žofka, eds., Gravitation, Following the Prague Inspiration: A Volume in Celebration of the 60th Birthday of Jiří Bičák (River Edge, NJ: World Scientific, 2002), v–vii.

  17. Especially useful studies include József Illy, “Albert Einstein in Prague,” Isis 70 (1979): 76–84, in Czech translation as Illy, “Albert Einstein a Praha,” Dějiny věd a techniky 12, no. 2 (1979): 65–79; Martin Šolc, “Poznámky k pobytu Alberta Einsteina v Praze,” Bulletin Plus, no. 3 (2003), accessible at http://wwwold.nkp.cz/bp/bp2003_3/12.htm, last accessed on 7 April 2016; Miroslav Brdička, “Einstein a Praha: Česká einsteinovská pohlednice,” Československý časopis fyziky A29 (1979): 269–275; Rudolf Kolomý, “Albert Einstein v Praze,” Vesmír 53, no. 4 (1974): 112–115; Dieter Hoffmann, “Einstein in Prag,” Physik in unserer Zeit 35, no. 5 (2004): 244; and Eva Rozsívalová, “Albert Einstein v Praze,” Pokroky matematiky, fyziky a astronomie 4 (1959): 352–354. Less scholarly accounts, often with significant errors and mythologization, include Rudolf Kolomý, “Albert Einstein a jeho vztah v Praze,” Pokroky matematiky, fyziky a astronomie 17 (1972): 265–272; and the disappointing website “Albert Einstein’s Years in Prague, 1911–1912,” accessible at http://www.einstein-website.de/z_biography/prague.html, last accessed on 2 May 2016. Understandably, pre–World War II biographies of Einstein tended to place a lot more emphasis on Prague than those produced later, for the simple reason that Einstein’s life was at that point shorter and thus the Prague moment loomed larger: David Reichinstein, Albert Einstein: A Picture of His Life and His Conception of the World (Prague: Stella Publishing House, 1934), 23; H. Gordon Garbedian, Albert Einstein: Maker of Universes (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1939), 92–95, 98–103; and Dimitri Marianoff with Palma Wayne, Einstein: An Intimate Study of a Great Man (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1944), 49. They are, however, unreliable as to facts, being based mostly on impressionistic and partial interviews.