The Czechs in a Nutshell

The communists didn’t smooth out the animosity, but they at least managed to suppress open demonstrations of it. Yet certain wounds have never healed. As a part of the settlement after the Second World War, more than 12,000 ethnic Hungarians were forcefully moved from Southern Slovakia to Bohemia, where they replaced Sudeten Germans that were kicked out. Even though most of them by now are fully assimilated into their Czech surroundings, they are still aware — and proud — of their Hungarian origin.

It’s fair to say that the relations between the Czechs and Hungarians took a large step towards improvement after Czechoslovakia split into two parts. While the Slovaks then had to cope with all of the unsolved bilateral problems (the Hungarian minority’s demand for cultural autonomy in Southern Slovakia, the ecological consequences of the hydroelectric power plant in Gabčíkovo on the Danube), the Czechs, who no longer had any common border with their former neighbours, could regard Hungary as just another country in the region.

Yet the old rivalry is still alive and kicking. Hungary started its economic transformation even before the communist regime fell, and has often been perceived as the most Western and progressive country in post-communist Europe. As expected, this view was not acceptable to Václav Klaus and the other protagonists of Prague’s short-lived "Reform Miracle”, who saw the Czech Republic as the unquestioned frontrunner. As a result of this rivalry, the attempt to coordinate the two countries’ integration into the EU — together with the Poles and Slovaks — in the so-called Visegrad Group utterly failed.

In the future, however, the Hungarians and Czechs seem destined for closer cooperation. NATO membership in March 1999 made them close military allies, which was strengthened further, after both countries acceded to the EU. Thus, it’s fair to assume that the two relatively small Central European countries will find far more pragmatic reasons for cooperating than petty-minded excuses for competing with each other.

Hus, Jan

Recently, Mladá fronta Dnes, the country’s leading daily, conducted a large-scale survey to find out who the Czechs consider to be their greatest national hero of all times. As expected, Tomáš G. Masaryk, Czechoslovakia’s "founder”, and king Charles IV, who doubled as Emperor of the entire Holy Roman Empire (see: Central Europe), topped the ranking list. More surprising, though, was that these two giants were closely trailed by a priest who only managed to produce a handful of books during his 44-year-long life: Jan Hus.

Yet the Czechs’ admiration of Hus is not that strange. In a European perspective, it’s even fair to say that his importance overshadows that of both Masaryk and King Charles.

One of the reasons for Hus’ popularity probably lies in his utterly unglamorous heritage. His mother was a country lass who lived in the village of Husinec near Prachatice in Southern Bohemia around 1371. Since his father was unknown, young Jan got his funny surname (husa means goose) after his birthplace. All that is known about his childhood is that he liked to play chess and that his mother wanted him to become a priest. After studies at Prague’s newly-established university, Jan fulfilled her wish in 1400, when he was ordained.

Only two years later, Hus’ career as a spiritual shepherd took a major leap upwards. The young country priest was appointed preacher in the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague’s Old Town. Contrary to most of his colleagues, Hus was deadly serious about his job. Like the English theologian John Wycliff, who in many ways was the role model to the young Czech priest, Hus was obsessed by the idea that the Church must get out of the moral mess in which it had landed because of its ostentatious greed. And the only way out, Hus argued, was to behave in greater accordance with the New Testament.

At a time when most Catholic clergymen behaved like the Chicago mafia in the 1930s (it was, for example, quite common for well-connected good-for-nothings to buy a lucrative priesthood and then employ a substitute to do the job), ordinary people welcomed the Bethlehem preacher’s sincerity with open arms. Besides preaching in the Czech language. Hus relentlessly thundered that the church would improve its shabby reputation only if it abandoned its sinful striving for worldly goods and, most importantly, did not allow the country’s rich and mighty to buy forgiveness for their sins!