The Czechs in a Nutshell

As one might expect in nationalism-ridden Central Europe, several Bohemian cities that were originally dominated by Germans were in 1918 given not only Czech-sounding names (Budweis became Budějovice), but were also equipped with the adjective Czech — as in Český Krumlov. Is this an attempt to falsify history? No, it’s a verbatim translation of the original German name — Böhmisch Krumau.

The interesting thing, though, is that Böhmisch in German only refers to geography, i.e. the city is located in Bohemia and not Bavaria, and does not say anything about the inhabitants’ ethnic origin. Similarly, the German term Böhme means simply a person who lives in Bohemia, and might ethnically be a Czech, a German or even a person who didn’t care about his nationality. However, Český and Čech, the equivalent terms, do not leave any room for a German element.

The German influence on Czech culture is expressed even more strongly by the nearly half million people with surnames like Müller, Bauer and Töpfer, or with Germanic surnames masked by Czech orthography (Šubrt). Peculiarly enough, Honza, the most Czech of all Czech Christian names, is actually German Hans. True, a German-sounding surname is not necessarily an airtight proof that a person has German ancestors. The priests who kept the church registry were often zealous servants of the Emperor in Vienna (see: Religion) or heavy boozers (see: Cimrman, Jára), and germanised names by whim or by mistake.

Still, human passion has always been stronger than language barriers and cultural differences. If the colonizers who settled in Bohemia and Moravia were only half as interested in Slavonic women as the hordes of Germans who nowadays visit Czech brothels (see: Sex), it’s fair to assume that a pretty slice of the Czech population is the product of a fleshy Slavonic-German clash that once took place.

Neither has the Czech language gone untouched. While spisovná čeština (the official, literary version of the language) has been so thoroughly cleansed of foreign elements that Czech can compete with modern Icelandic for the title of Europe’s most purified language, hovorová čeština (spoken Czech as you can hear it in the streets) bursts and bubbles with Germanic loan words. Indeed, some of the most frequent and expressive slang phrases in modern Czech (see: Cursing) are of German origin. (Just to name a few: Je mi šoufl — I feel sick, Jsem švorc — I’m broke, Ksicht — face, Fotr — father, Hajzl — bog.)

Paradoxically enough, Karel Hynek Mácha, author of the poem “May” and the most brilliant Czech poet who has ever lived, felt more confident when speaking German than Czech. Josef Dobrovský, the lather of the modern Czech language, wrote to himself in German, and his no less famous colleague Josef Jungmann even used a German dictionary as a model for his revolutionary Czech dictionary. In other words, Němčina se vybíjela němčinou — German was driven out by German.

Obviously, the Germans have also left numerous robust traces of (heir seven-century-long presence in Bohemia.

It’s hard to imagine a more loaded symbol of Czech statehood than Prague’s Charles Bridge and St. Vitus’ Cathedral, but both of them, and the St. Barbora Cathedral in Kutná Hora as well, were actually designed by the German builder Peter Parier (1332-1399). Several magnificent examples of Czech baroque, most notably St. Nicholas Cathedral at Prague’s Malá Strana, were built by the Bavarian architect Christopher Dientzenhofer (1655-1722) and his son Kilian (1689-1751) in the aftermath of the Battle of White Mountain. And the Charles Bridge would definitely look naked without the sculptures created by the German artist Ferdinand Brokoff (1688-1731).

Now, add hundreds of synagogues spread all over Bohemia and Moravia plus numerous functionalistic gems erected by ethnic German architects during the First Republic’s boom, and you’ll realize that a decent part of the elements that make Prague and other Bohemian cities extraordinary should actually be credited to German-speakers. In other words, Prague would never have become a “magic city”, to use a somewhat pathetic term introduced by the Italian literate Angelo Maria Ripellino, had it not been for the Czech-German-Jewish cultural symbiosis.

It wouldn’t, of course, be correct to present the Germans’ 700-year-long co-habitation with the Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia as a wholly harmonious affair. True, until 1939, they never waged war against one another, and mixed Czech-German marriages were not totally uncommon during the First Republic. But the sole fact that these two peoples lived side by side for seven centuries without becoming one people proves that the relations were perhaps peaceful, but rather distant.