Prague and Germany

The nation of the Czechs reaches farthest to the West of any of the Slavs. Their capital, Prague, is quite close to several major German cities: 91.2 miles from Dresden according to Google Maps, a drive of 1 hour and 55 minutes. Leipzig is a 158 mile drive, Munich is 238 miles away, Berlin 217 miles, Vienna -- the usual capital of the Holy roman Empire since the 15th century -- 207 miles. Other major Slavic cities are considerably farther: Prague to Warsaw is 396 miles, Dubrovnik 794 miles, 556 miles, Kiev 881 miles. 

The Slavic regions between Western Europe and Russia have been ruled by foreign powers for much of their history. Prague has the distinction of having been the capital of a foreign empire, in the 14th century under the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, and then again from 1576 to 1612 under the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.

 

The Czechs were, and are, situated between Protestant and Catholic Germany: most of Germany north of Prague was, and is, majority Ptotestant. Most to the south was, and is, majority Catholic. From the time of Jan Hus onward -- he was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415 -- Protestantism among the Czechs tended to go with anegative view of the German Empire, and those Czechs who worked for the Empire tended to convert to Cathollicism. 

When the Prague defenestration is mentioned, most people think of the incident in 1618, but there have actually been three defenestrations in Prague, in 1419, 1483 and 1618. In German, the 1618 defenestration is called the Fensterstuerz, with the result that people actually know what is meant. Defenestration means being thrown out of a window. In all three Prague defenstrations, Protestants, followers of Hus, threw representatives of the Catholic Imperial occupation out of high windows, killing all of them in 1419 and 1483.

In 1618, surprisingly, the Emperor's representatives survived the 70-foot fall from a window in the Hradcany, the Prague Castle. However, the incident marked the beginning of the Thirty Year's War, in which millions died all over central Europe.

Prominent authors who lived in the Czech region and wrote in German range chronologically from Johannes von Tepl, who published der ackerman aus boehmen around 1400, to a remarkable amount of the very best German literature which was written in Prague in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by authors such as Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Max Brod, Franz Werfel, Rudolph Fuchs, Egon Erwin Kusch and many others.

The Nazis led up to their invasion of Poland and the beginning of WWII with a series of smaller-scales crimes including the occupation of Czechia in 1938 and 1939.

In 1989, Czechoslovakia opened its borders, and ten of thousands of East Germans per day went through Czechoslovakia into West Germany, one of the major factors which forced the end of East Germany and German reunification.

Misunderstandings, Controversies, Versions of History

In 1415, the Czech priest and and professor John Huss was tried, condemned and executed, burned at the stake, at the Council of Constance.

A little over a century later, in 1521, Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, appeared before the young Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms. Luther reminded some people of Huss. Luther himself said that he agreed with some aspects of Huss' teachings. Some people assumed that Luther would be condemned and executed as Huss had been, and were surprised when, after Luther has stood trial before him, Charles allowed Luther to leave the council under the same safe conduct which had protected him on his way there.

 

And ever since, people have wondered why Charles let Luther go. Perhaps Charles, and/or his advisors, were thinking of the situation in Prague and the surrounding Czech territory: Huss had been executed, but the Hussite church was very much alive. Perhaps Charles wondered whether Huss might have had less influence if he had been tolerated, ignored, treated as a well-meaning simpleton. 

I don't know why Luther was let go. Already in 1521 he was very popular, and the Lutheran church kept growing at an enormous pace. And, it seems to me, Luther was misunderstood from the start and is still misunderstood. For example, German peasants revolted in 1524 and 1525, and even a few nobles joined them. And these people in revolt called themselves Lutherans. As have many others to this day, they seem to have equated existing orders, and conservatism, with the Catholic Church, and Lutherism with all and any sort of protest or resistance to existing orders.  "Protest --" it makes up the first two syllables of the word "Protestant."

Luther did not sympathize with the revolts. He wrote and published a tract in which he advised the nobles to crush the rebellion thoroughly, to torture and kill the rebels. And indeed, they did exactly that. 

Would the powers that were have treated the rebels any differently if Luther had not said or written a word about the rebellion? I don't know. I tend to doubt it. I tend to doubt that this was one of Luther's most widely-read published works. Because people have not ceased to associate Catholicism with conservatism and Lutheranism with rebellion. Especially in Germany. Those who live in other parts of the world, and may be familiar with conservative Lutherans and Leftist Catholics, might be astonished, for example, to read, as I did, Schiller's history of the Dutch Revolution, where every imaginable sort of tyranny is associated with Catholicism, and every noble spirit of freedom with Protestantism, which in Germany meant Lutheranism. Except in painting and sculpture, where, Schiller said, it was all exactly reversed.

Schiller was an ignorant dingbat.

After the Diet of Worms, religious wars between Catholics and Protestants began, and did not cease for centuries. Luther condemned Lutheran peasants and championed Lutheran rulers, kings and dukes and counts. 

Decades after Luther had passed away, in 1576, a 24-year-old Habsburg king and archduke became the Emperor Rudolf II, and ruled until 1612. I wonder what Luther would've thought of Rudolph. Like every other Habsburg ruler before and after him, Rudolph was Catholic. Unlike many other Habsburgs, Rudolf did not dislike, distrust or disapprove of non-Catholics. His court in Prague became a center of artistic and intellectual activity. He valued individuals according to the abilities, their talents; if he cared at all about their religious beliefs, he gave little sign of it. 

A widespread belief about Rudolph at the time was that he was insane, and a very weak ruler, who did little to halt the gathering storm of religious conflict which exploded six years after his death at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. This view also tended to dominate among historians, until just a few decades ago. Now, it seems, an entirely different view of Rudolph is the mainstream, that of a wise and tolerant ruler far ahead of his time, who did nothing at all to fan flames of war, and whom many of his contemporaries feared simply because he was far ahead of his time in his habits and thought. Not a lunatic, but an enlightened monarch a couple of centuries before the Enlightenment. 

Who's right about Rudolph? Who's wrong? Or is everyone perhaps partly right and partly wrong? I don't know. 

Around 1600, Ferdinand's court, widely thought of at the time as a madhouse, was visited by an orphaned teenage Czech noble who would also go on to divide opinion -- Albrecht von Wallenstein. Raised a Hussite, Wallenstein converted to Catholicism and served the Habsburgs as a military leader,  and later also as a financier, until his death in 1634. 

Or did he? This is the most controversial point. The conventional view, challenged by Golo Mann's biography of Wallenstein published in 1971, is that, in the last couple of years of his life, he began to conspire against the Emperor, while pretending to still be his loyal Generalissimo. Having been born a baron and risen, through his extraordinary talent as a military leader and statesman, to count, then marquise, then duke, he was accused of wanting to rise, at the Emperor's expense, still higher -- and the only ranks in 17th-century Europe higher than duke were king and -- Emperor.

Mann and others maintain that there simply is no serious evidence that Wallenstein was unloyal to the Habsburgs, and that his rising power was inconvenient to certain thoroughly dishonest and ruthless politicians, who turned the mind of the Emperor Ferdinand II (1619-1637) against one of his best helpers. 

Who's right? I don't know.

I Guess I'm A Little Stressed

I feel very tired all day long. There's an intermittant pain in my lower right back. It's new to me, it's been coming and going for several days now. I don't know how much of that might be due to psychological stress. I try to come up with ideas for blog posts, but, to be perfectly honest, most of what's going through my head is kitty talk:

"You are a very nice little kitty. I will get you, you little kitty. And when I get you -- I will rub you! Kitties are very nice. That is just my opinion. I love you, you little kitty!"

And so forth, on and on and on. And I don't even have a cat. I'm just talking to myself that way. Does that make me crazier or less crazy than a crazy cat man?

And what about reading 15th-century theological works like De gracia et peccato, by Stanislaus de Zynoma? The small hardcover volume in the series fontes latini bohemorum, published by OIKOYMENH in Prague, feels very well-made, very solid. I know I keep saying how much I dislike theology, but this volume is really very well-made. I like well-made books. Okay, so made I've actually spent more time rocking back and forth with the book in my hands talking to imaginary cats than I have reading it. That's not really so bad, is it? It's not a crime. I've been reading it somewhat. And thinking about what else I might need to read in order to really wrap my head around what Hussitism was and is. Hus was put to death for heresy in 1415, more than a century before Luther put the 95 theses up for discussion. By that time, as many as 90% of all Czechs may have been Hussites. Apparently John Wycliffe (dies 1384) was a huge influence on the Hussites. I don't know. Apart from the theology, the history interests me. I would like to figure out how much of the historical influence of Wycliffe and Hus and Luther and Calvin actually had to do with their theology. It seems to me that a lot of their historical impact has to do with people completely misunderstanding them, people who knew nothing about their theology. But I don't really know.

Been looking at pictures by Fra Filippo Lippi, also 15th-century. He was left at a monastery when he was eight years old, they taught him how to paint. ("Fra" means "Brother.") Apparently his life was somewhat uproarious, although I can't really tell how much was real uproar, and how much is just the romantic legend of a rogue who never was, who went around stealing great sums of money and spending them and seducing many women in between making beautiful paintings. (The paintings really are beautiful, that much is definitely true.)

Wish I had something brilliant to tell you. I like kitties very much.

Holier Than Me

In the Cambridge Medieval History; Vol. VIII: The Close of the Middle Ages,published in 1936, ch II, "John Hus," pp 45-64, Dr Kamil Krofta, then Professor of Bohemian History in Prague and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Czechoslovakia, laments (p 45) some conditions in the later 14th century in Catholic Europe generally and in Bohemia specifically: "the almost limitless wealth and power of the Church of Rome, two factors which resulted in extravagance and immorality among the priesthood," as well as a "general relaxation of morals." Throughout the chapter, Dr Krofta gets no more specific than "extravagance," "immorality," "relaxation of morals" or "moral degeneration," leading the reader to wonder just exactly what he could be talking about -- sexual promiscuity? pagan folk festivals? athletic competitions, with gambling? or without ganbling? or gambling without athletic competitions? mass murder and rape? drunkenness? theatre? the study of ancient literature? Your guess, gentle reader, is at least as good as mine.

But perhaps Dr Krofta himself doesn't know very specifically just what sort of sin it is which he is deploring here. He reminds me more than a bit of Hazel Motes, the protagonist of Flannery O'Conner's novel Wise Blood,and I feel sort of like the man who tells Hazel that talking about sin is best left to those who have some experience with it.

But I'm jumping to conclusions here. Whatever it actually was which, five and a half centuries later, aroused Krofta's indignation so, it bothered some people at the time, too, and aroused "the zealous and extraordinary activity of a few chosen spirits," (p 45) including the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV -- the same Charles who appears as a figure of fun in Burckhardt's Kultur der Renaissance in Italien,being led around by the nose by Italian noblemen -- extravagant and degenerate Italian noblemen, presumably, with relaxed morals -- and selling off Imperial privileges to them at bargain-basement prices. (pp 25-26 in Burckhardt, Frankfurt aM: Insel, 1997) The same Charles whose Autobiography,even by medieval literary standards, so drips with wince-making piety.

To be sure, this is also the same Charles IV who founded the first university in Central Europe, in Prague in 1348. But if we judge this university by Charles, and by Hus, its most famous alumnus, and by Krofta, its Professor of Bohemian History in 1936, how stimulating a place could it ever have been? No. Until we know more, we must not judge it so.

To return to Krofta's narrative -- besides the Emperor Charles IV, another "chosen spirit" who fought the rigorously unspecified bad morals of the time was, of course, John Hus. Krofta gets no more specific about moral things than his mention (p 46) of three "vanities" Hus gave up upon entering the priesthood: fine clothing, fine food and chess. Krofta remarks that although Hus had earlier indulged in all of these, "he was certainly at all times far removed from any debauchery or immorality." So it could have been worse: Krofta seems to be implying that playing chess, getting proper nutrition and not wearing hair shirts won't necessarily send you to Hell, and praising Hus, if I'm reading between the lines properly, for never having had a girlfriend and/or gotten drunk and/or used a cussword.

P 47: Early on in Hus' career -- he was ordained in 1400 or 1401 -- "Queen Sophia herself was so attracted by him that she made him her chaplain or perhaps even her confessor." I've heard of several instances, in bygone Christian centuries, from St Jerome to Franz von Dietrichstein in Bohemia two centuries after Hus, of noble ladies being powerfully drawn to passionate young priests. And I have wondered whether their relationships might have been like those between ancient Roman ladies and leading gladiators -- with the difference of secrecy of course, because of Christianity generally frowning upon sex. But perhaps these suspicions of mine are merely projections of my own preferences and fantasies. Maybe what Jerome and Hus and Dietrichstein and their many lady friends were doing was much more like "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys." Or maybe Andy Warhol captured the essence of such relstionships with his opinion, "The most exciting thing is not doing it." Actual ascetic ecstasy? Okay, Andy, whatever you say.

P 48: "It is possible[...]that Hus[...]found a divergence between the teaching of Christ and that of the oldest Fathers of the Church on the one hand and doctrines which the Church of his day asked its adherents to believe on the other, that he was dissatisfied with the manner in which the scholasticism of his day settled the fundamental questions of the Christian faith." Quelle horreur! Over the course of a thousand years, some things had diverged! Holier than thou, more Christian than thou, just like Luther -- assuming Krofta is correct.

Krofta sums up his laudatio, (p 63) "Hus assumed for himself and thus for every believer the right to be his own judge in matters of faith. Although he himself placed limits to the freedom of this right of judgment, desiring that the Holy Writ should be acknowledged as a law from which there should be no departure soever[...]"

If Krofta is at all aware of the monstrous irony here, he gives no sign of it: Hus fought and died for the "freedom" of every person to decide just exactly how the Bible was the absolute authority.

Hus, Savonarola, Luther: every now and then a wild-eyed fanatic with a heart full of fear comes along, dreaming of vengeance, taking all of this stuff seriously.