Read an Excerpt

Xenophobe's Guide to the Czechs

Xenophobe's Guides

Nationalism & Identity

A land with no name

The Czechs have no one-word term to denote their homeland.

Within the territory of the Czech basin – which is essentially a hilly countryside surrounded by marginally higher mountains – an important feudal domain evolved. It was called the Czech Kingdom. Not long ago, Czechs lived in a joint state with the Slovaks. That state was known as Czechoslovakia. Today, a democratic system is to be found here. Its name is the Czech Republic. The Czechs, therefore, can express their homeland using either an adjective, 'Czech', or in compounds; the noun is simply missing.

There is in existence the name 'Cechy' (sometimes translated as Bohemia), but that refers only to the western part of the country, while the eastern part is called Moravia. Czech journalists have a tendency to use the neologism Czechia (Cesko), but barring nothing short of a linguistic miracle, the Czechs will forever have to be content with merely an adjective for their nation. It must simply be good enough for them to live in a Republic, which is Czech.

National pride

National pride is generally only demonstrated in sport because the one time Czechs sing their national anthem is after winning a match. People rarely react when it is played on the radio or television, they just go about their business. What is sung was not even composed as an official anthem. It was originally a 19th-century song from a comedy about a shoemaker's holiday, entitled 'Where is my home?'

In the 16th century, Copernicus pointed out that the Sun, not the Earth, is the centre of the solar system, a fact that seems to have passed way over the heads of the Czechs. They appear to believe to this day that the Earth is at the centre of the Universe. And that, if the Earth is the centre of the Universe, Europe is the centre of the Earth and Czechia is at the centre of Europe.

The Czech Republic does in fact lie roughly at the centre of this Continent; all it takes is a look at the map, bearing in mind that the eastern borders of Europe are not formed by the suburbs of Munich but by the Urals at the borders of Siberia. It follows then, that Czechia is indeed the absolute centre of the Universe.

Hardly a year passes without some village or other claiming, on the basis of computing with the aid of a school atlas, a ruler and a cheap calculator bought for one Euro at the stationery shop, that it, and it alone, is in the exact geometrical centre of Czechia, and consequently the centre of the Universe. A small flaw in these claims is the sheer number of them: there are roughly 80, and the number is growing.

How they see themselves

A Czech sees himself as the hero of a novel. Not, however, a psychologically torn, post-modern hero from the novels of the Czech author Milan Kundera. Not even the hero warrior from old Czech legends. But a goodhearted, easy-going figure, rotund, talkative – garrulous even – who indulges in beer and pickled sausages (a local delicacy nicknamed 'utopence', which translates as 'sinkers' or 'drowned people') from a novel by humorist and satirist Jaroslav Hašek. This hero is the good old soldier Švejk.

Švejk, though a soldier, is essentially anti-militarist. All the same, he is drafted into the First World War and there he proves to be so idiotic and incompetent as to become a totally useless cog in the war machine. Although he is absolved from military service on an evaluation of his IQ, totally stupid he is not. In Czech pubs and in lecture theatres alike, even 80 or more years after the publication of the book, a lively discussion about whether Švejk is a real idiot or successfully pretending to be one, rages on. In any case, he proves himself to be more sensible than all the blood-thirsty warmongers around him.

Švejk is an inconspicuous Czech fellow. With a ready smile and silver tongue, he slips with almost proverbial luck from any scrimmage. He is a permanent outsider, but he knows how to live life to the full. He cannot be sad for long. While other national opuses trumpet the idea of love (truth, honour, etc.) being stronger than death, Švejk claims that virtue also lies in a jolly mind, endless tall tales, a certain degree of shallowness and limitless determination not to get involved in any situation. Švejk is not a participant in history, he is its saboteur. For his ability to sail through life the term 'švejking' has been coined.

Every Czech is a bit like Švejk. A Czech who reads Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War is looking in the mirror. And he looks with satisfaction, like a prima donna trying on a new necklace before the ball.

Švejking carries within itself one great frustration. The inability to be a driving force of history and inseminator of ideas to redeem mankind becomes some form of general sociological retardation. In short the Czechs suffer from the classic inferiority complex of a small nation.

There are 10 million Czechs, and other similarly large (a Czech will say small) nations would refer to themselves as medium sized. If Hungarians, Portuguese or Swedes are small, what would Luxemburgers be? Or the inhabitants of San Marino? But the Czechs consider themselves to be small. They rate their own character as dove-like. In history the Czechs were always the innocent invaded ones – here from the west, there from the east – while all they ever wanted to do was to invent, write poetry and just be themselves. The invaders stole the drawings and plans, exploited them and from then on passed them off as their own. Thus, very few inventions managed to get smuggled all the way to the patent office by Czech chaps. For example, the Veverka cousins undoubtedly invented something called the 'ruchadlo' – an obscure improvement to the common plough. The world was supposed to sit up in awe.

This story is a part of the nation's primary school curriculum and every small child knows it by heart. It's a wonder that the birthdates of the learned cousins have not yet been proclaimed a national holiday. (To be sure it would be a very popular one, for in this case it would have to be two days.)

The Czechs are extremely proud of their ruchadlo. The fact that nobody really knows exactly what a ruchadlo is, and what it's good for, does not change anything one iota.

The Czechs feel they would easily excel over other nations, if only first Vienna, then Berlin and Moscow and now Brussels would not hinder them. So they stand somewhat pushed aside and they wonder why the CNN news service does not offer a regular daily rubric: Good News from Czechia. It is clearly an injustice and a shameful omission, but the Czechs – the Švejks – are taking it bravely.

Despite all this, the Czechs consider they have among them the biggest personality of all mankind, Jára Cimrman, the most colossally intelligent multi-inventor and mega-creator. This fictional character of non-existent genius was born a few years ago in one of Prague's theatres. His persona, however, recently stepped down from stage and entered the real, almost political, world, when in a national TV poll Jára Cimrman was voted with a landslide majority as the greatest ever Czech. The organizers were reluctant to announce a non-existent figure as the overall winner of a poll in which in Britain, for example, Winston Churchill took the lead. For this reason they had the poor Cimrman disqualified and the declared winner was the medieval monarch, King Charles IV. The Czechs simply 'švejked' the poll; they wouldn't have it any other way.

How they feel about their neighbours

The Czechs were twice occupied in the 20th century, the first time by the Germans (1938–1945) and the second time by the Soviets (1968–1990). After the Second World War, the Czechs had the three-million-strong German population removed from Czech lands (what the Germans called the Sudetenland), or rather from Czechia, actually the then Czechoslovakia ... you see the confusion caused by a missing noun, and still to this day they harbour the delusion of being the victors in this age-old neighbourly dispute. They look therefore at German tourists with a mixture of condescension and envy. They are fully aware of the economic potential of their western neighbour – a potential which they hope to find a small part of in the visitors' wallets.

To be a German is not a crime inn the Czech Republic anymore. However a citizen of that nation must reckon with being viewed, regardless of his true character, as an unsympathetic, coarse and bigheaded creature, devoid of even the most elementary sense of humour.

All traditional German virtues – a sense of comradeship, orderliness, dutifulness, obedience and so forth – are to Czechs almost a complete list of human depravities.

Surprisingly, Germans are not the victims of Czech jokes all that often. When Czechs are poking fun at someone, it's usually the super-powers such as the Americans, the Russians or the Martians. Only these are worthy of comparison.

The Czech term for Germans originated from the adjective 'dumb'. The ancient Czechs simply could not understand the ancient Germans and thus, with perfectly sound logic, concluded that Germans can't talk. To be dumb is a time-honoured and well-proven formula for the safe survival of a German in Czechia. The Czechs are much more, in fact really very much more, tolerant towards the dumb.

The Czechs have a complex about the Germans because they seem to be more successful at almost everything, and more and more German companies are arriving in their midst. Many people worry that their country will be sold out to the Germans and what Germany didn't achieve with their army they will do with their money. The Czechs are only able to beat the Germans at three things:

1) beer drinking,

2) ice hockey, and

3) being on the right side during world wars.

Czechs don't find German women attractive; they feel (along with Jára Cimrman) that it's 'Better to have a warm Czech beer than a cold German woman'.

To the south of the Czech border lies Austria whose inhabitants have the indisputably bad luck to be German-speaking too. They are pardoned though, mainly thanks to the fact of being less numerous than Germans and therefore attracting fewer reservations. But Austrians did not endear themselves to many Czechs when, after the lifting of the Iron Curtain, they put up in their shops insulting notices: 'Czechs, don't steal!' One half of the nation felt insulted by this wild accusation, while the other half mused over how the Austrians could have found out.

Historically, the Poles were always viewed as horse-traders, pedlars and thieves, the Hungarians were primitive vegetable farmers and probably thieves, the Romanians, Bulgarians and Yugoslavs were child snatchers, smugglers and definitely thieves. The Russians and Ukrainians were unmentionables. This distorted image sticks and has a lot to do with the still bitter memory of some of these countries having taken a part in the Soviet-led invasion that put a brutal end to the so-called 'Prague Spring', the Czechs' noble and naive attempt at reforms. (It tends to be forgotten that Romania refused to send soldiers to assist the Soviets, and Yugoslavia even offered the Czechs and Slovaks military aid.)

As for the Byelorussians and Moldavians who work in his country, to a Czech they all blend into one post-Soviet stew. He is quite sure about one thing, that their work for next-to-nothing on building sites is only a sham. In reality they are all mafia.

Today, as the zloty climbs upwards, Czechs claim all Poles to be black-market racketeers. This criticism, however, does not prevent the cheap street markets of Polish border towns from being chock-a-block every weekend with eager Czech shoppers.

On the other hand the Vietnamese, who have lived in the country since the communist regime as part of a brotherly socialistic barter trade (to Vietnam flowed Czech arms and machinery, back to Europe as a reward travelled Vietnamese students, though how this could have been profitable nobody understands even today), have established themselves and proved to be excellent businessmen and traders. By and large they peddle total rubbish which really should have been banned by the authorities. The Czechs know what they are talking about: a Vietnamese digital watch or a colourful set of plastic plates is to be found in every Czech household.

Special relationships

Positive:

The most amicably accepted nationals are the Slovaks. The Czechs have even pardoned them for disaffiliating themselves from the Czechs after decades of co-existence. With the patronising attitude of an older brother, the Czechs tell the Slovaks – whose economy is much more progressive than that of Czechia – how to do things, and are offended when the Slovaks do things differently. But they always forgive them. Czechs and Slovaks really do seem to be brothers. Their languages are so similar that members of both nations easily understand each other. To the Czechs, who don't really master any foreign language, it gives the elated feeling of true worldliness.

The question then is why, when they are so alike, were they not able to continue to live together within the one state of Czechoslovakia? Most people would tell you it was a political and economic decision made by Parliament, or that two nations should live in two states. The country was divided without a referendum at a time when most Czechs and Slovaks didn't actually want it. They were happy together in Czechoslovakia and they are happy separated in two states. No wonder then that Czech and Slovak experts were invited to Belgium and Canada to advise them about a contingent separation.

If you need a divorce of this sort and you don't know how it should be done, the logical thing is to consult the Czechs and Slovaks. And then hope your wife or husband will be as easy-going about it as they were.

Special relationships

Negative:

There is one other nation, a nation within the nation, right on the doorstep of nearly every Czech town or village – the Romanies. There is an unknown number of them, and political correctness dictates that nobody does the count. It is also unacceptable to use the word 'gypsy' – the only exception being a popular traditional type of sausage called 'the gypsy'. The Czechs would rather have a German than a 'Roma' for a neighbour. Romanies are considered lazy (even more than Poles), loud (even more than Germans) and crafty (even more than Czechs) – a really toxic combination.

The butt-end of Czech jokes used to be the Russians, the communist police and the Slovaks. With the demise of communism, and the Slovaks now independent, this type of humour has lost its lustre and it's the Czech gypsies with their numerous children, their 'light fingers', and their milking of the social system that have taken their place. For instance:

An unemployed gypsy pays a reluctant visit to the employment office and says 'I want work, I want a job.' The clerk looks at him in astonishment and offers him a super executive position with a huge salary, his own office, a company limousine and a dishy secretary. The shocked gypsy shouts angrily 'Are you taking the mickey!?' 'Yes I am,' says the clerk, 'but you started it.'

How others see them

The Czechs know only too well how others see them for hardly a week goes by without the results of yet another research project among tourists being published. To be obsessed with your own image is typical not only of adolescent teenagers, but of young nations too.

For the Germans, Czechs have always been part of their expansion towards the east. The Charles University in Prague is considered by many Germans to be the oldest German university. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries most of the Czechs spoke only German. According to the Germans, Czechs were the labourers in the Czech Kingdom and the Germans the lords. And they still believe it to be the case nowadays that Czechs should work in the factories built after the end of communism by German companies.

The Germans believe that Czechs are very skilled, but in need of management. With good (in other words German) management the country will flourish. In Germany the expression 'a Czech village' means a dirty, disorganised place. They think that's how the Czechs would end up without the Germans.

A lot of Russians come to Prague and to the spa town Karlovy Vary. They find Czechs narrow-minded; they say Prague is a beautiful city, but small. They think Becherovka (a Czech tipple) is interesting, but unfortunately not as strong as their vodka.

The Austrians feel they have a special relationship with the Czechs. For more than three centuries the Czech Kingdom was part of the Habsburg Empire with its capital in Vienna. At the end of the 19th century there were more Czechs living in Vienna than in Prague, and the Austrians say that every Viennese person has at least one Czech grandmother.

But deep down, Austrians and Czechs cannot stand each other; they consider one another's nation to be the worst in the world. Never admit to either of them that you think they are similar as they would be deeply insulted. When they look at one another, it is like looking into a mirror and seeing all their own mistakes.

---

Excerpted from Xenophobe's Guide to the Czechs by Petr Berka, Ale? Pálan, Catriona Tulloch Scott. Copyright © 2011 Oval Projects. Excerpted by permission of Xenophobe's Guides.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---