The Czechs in a Nutshell

In the early 1830s he finally found her. Eleonora “Lori” Schom was a succulent German-speaking girl who seemed to be as obsessed with life’s fleshly delights as Mácha himself was. Although hot-tempered and extremely jealous (to prevent Lori from even seeing other men, he strictly prohibited her to leave her house), Mácha undoubtedly got the inspiration to write Czech literature’s ultimate masterpiece from his fiancée.

Máj was published in 1836, in 600 modest copies, and even though his earlier short stories were highly praised by local critics, Mácha had to borrow money to finance the project. Formally, this grand lyrical poem consists of melodious sonnets that are grouped in four chapters and two intermezzos. Its main idea was, according to the author himself, “to cheer the beautiful spring and all the emotions connected to it”. Needless to say, a romantic of Mácha’s calibre interpreted these emotions as burning love, which he described through the intense and tragic affair between the poem’s main hero, Vilém, and the beautiful Jarmila.

In complete accordance with his romantic poetry, Mácha never lived to experience Máj’s unbelievable popularity, but came to a tragic end. Shortly after he was appointed assistant to the municipal judge in Litoměřice (he frequently walked the 70 kilometres to Prague to romp with Lori), he caught cholera and died a week before his 26th birthday from “suffocation and diarrhoea”. He was hastily buried on the same day that he and Lori had planned their wedding. Their son Ludvík, who was born a month before Mácha’s death, followed his father to the grave less than a year later.

Photo © Terje B. Englund

Measured in tragedy, the poet’s real life almost outdid that of his poetry. This fact, in addition to Máj's indisputable literary quality, unleashed a virtual Mácha cult among the Czechs. This cult, which still is alive and kicking, is built on two pillars — one nationalistic, and one romantic.

Mácha became a national symbol only days after he was buried in Litoměřice, and a requiem mass was held in the St. Ignatius Church at Prague’s Charles Square. More or less the entire cultural elite attended the mass, which consequently turned into a grand manifestation of Czech patriotism. During the following century Máj was published in more than 100 editions, and after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, his intimate diary, originally written in code, was also made available to the common reader.

Among the entries were laconic pearls such as “Today, only masturbation, damn and blast it!”

Mácha’s role as a national symbol was clearly demonstrated after the tragic Munich Agreement in September 1938, when Czechoslovakia was pressed to cede Litoměřice and the rest of the Sudeten areas to Nazi Germany. Only days before German tanks rolled in, the poet’s remains were hastily exhumed from the graveyard and then transported to Prague. The great poet’s second burial in “Czech soil”, at Prague’s Slavín cemetery (see: Horáková, Milada), turned out to be an even bigger manifestation of Czech patriotism than the requiem mass that had taken place more than a century earlier. Since then, Mácha’s remains have rested in peace, but three decades later, after the Russian invasion in 1968, the Bolsheviks were scared to death that another tragic hero — Jan Palach — would cause a similar cult.

The romantic part of Mácha’s legacy, however, is both more pleasant and relevant.

Every spring, in the evening of the first day in May, hordes of amorous couples march in the falling dusk up the steep path leading to Mácha’s statue on the blossoming Petřín Hill in Prague’s Malá Strana. There, they leave some flowers to commemorate the greatest poet in Czech history. And, indirectly, also to demonstrate that Mácha’s real message was not that of nationalism, but of love.

Masaryk, Tomáš Carrigue

Any foreigner who spends more than 15 minutes in the company of Czechs will discover that they are capable of making jokes about practically anything. The more morbid, cynical and taboo-breaking the jokes are, the louder the bursts of laughter.

There is, however, one inviolable exception: Tomáš G. Masaryk — Czechoslovakia’s first president. Only communists could have been suspected of ridiculing “TGM” or “President Liberator”, which are the canonized versions of his name, but as everybody knows, the Bolsheviks don’t have enough of a sense of humour even to make bad jokes.