The Czechs in a Nutshell

Crisply speaking, this is a quite apt expression of how many Poles look at the Czech Republic and its inhabitants. While the Poles are convinced that their own nation has an almost messianic mission, crucified as it is between a “German and a Russian criminal”, the Czechs are perceived as a small and ungodly state, full of scared Pepiczeks who don’t care a bit about abstract values and moral questions when toadyism can earn them some instant benefits (see: Švejk, The Good Soldier).

The common Czech, on the other hand, doesn’t have a better opinion of his northern neighbours. True, they reacted bravely when attacked by Nazi Germany in 1939, but what other nation could have thought of launching its poorly equipped cavalry against the advancing tanks? And yes, millions of ordinary Poles eagerly supported the Solidarity trade union in its fight against the communist regime, while only some 1,800 Czechs, plus a few dozen Slovaks, signed the Charter 77 document (logically, many of them became avid Polophiles). But in Czechoslovakia at that time, meat was not rationed and anybody could buy shoes in the shops (see: Communism). That could hardly be said about Poland in the early 1980s...

If these stereotypes make you believe that the Czechs and Poles are not exactly on good terms, you’re only partly right. In fact, one might find a certain animosity as a natural reaction to communist propaganda, which exhorted both Czechs and Poles to love and admire their fellow socialist countries (all of whom, except Ceasescu’s Romania, helped the Russians in 1968 to invade Czechoslovakia). This, however, doesn’t mean that today’s relations are patently bad. They only seem, at least from the Czech point of view, to be more dominated by differences than the things that bind the two nations together.

So, what do the two nations have in common? Several kings, for instance. Admittedly, some time has passed since the Jagiellon dynasty in the fourteenth century ruled both the Poles and the Czechs, but it certainly represents a relatively bright period in the two nations’ bumpy histories.

The linguistic aspect is more significant. Bar Slovak and Lusatian (see: Czech Language) no Slavonic language is closer to Czech than Polish. People living along the two countries’ 762-kilometre common border usually understand each other without a problem (some 60,000 of the inhabitants of Silesia and northern Moravia are of Polish origin, representing one of the largest minorities in the Czech Republic). The Czechs very likely even got their name from their neighbours to the north-east: in old Polish, Czachy (dry) described the quality of the land between the two major Bohemian rivers, the Vltava (Moldau) and the Labe (Elbe).

Yet history’s course of events has driven a cultural wedge between the two Slav brother nations. The Reformation movement, which found broad support among the Czechs (see: Jan Hus) and led to the country’s devastating defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, never held any great appeal for the Poles. Symptomatically, the Catholic League’s most feared and violent troops at White Mountain were the Polish Black Battalions.

This split was further deepened in the eighteenth century. While the Czechs in the aftermath of White Mountain were ruled with a firm hand from Vienna and left to a violent Counter-Reformation (which, naturally, didn’t make the Catholic Church extremely popular), the once so mighty Polish Kingdom was gradually chopped up by its neighbours, until it ceased to exist in 1795. Exposed to strong suppression from Protestant Prussians in the west and Orthodox Russians to the east, the Poles embraced the Catholic Church — their nation’s only saviour — with even stronger fervour.

This religious schism is still very apparent. More than 95 percent of the Polish people regard themselves as practicing Catholics. The Church enjoys significant political influence (remember where Pope John Paul II was born!), which, among other measures, has led the country to adopt one of Europe’s strictest bans on abortion.

The Czechs, on the other hand, stand out as one of the continent’s most secularised nations (see: Religion), and are reputed for their liberal stance in moral matters. As a result, many Czechs view the Poles as a nation of bigoted Catholics and obscurants — not least when it comes to sex — while many pious Poles regard the Czech Republic as a European branch of Sodom and Gomorra, which, judged by the amount of brothels close to the Polish borders, seems welcomed by quite a lot of them.

Obviously, the different size of the two nations represents a further problem. Both in area and population, Poland is almost four times as big as the Czech Republic. The same goes, logically, for the country’s political ambitions.