Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (56 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
BOOK: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City
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The Jesuits left in 1773—by papal rule, reversed only in 1814—and others, by edict of the emperor, followed in the early and mid-1770s: the silent and mystical Carmelites, both shod and barefoot, the learned Augustinians of all branches, the Poor Clares for whom St. Anežka had fought so hard, the venerable Benedictines, the Ursulines, in spite of their devotion to good teaching, the Cyriaks (long forgotten), the Irish Hibernians, the ascetic Capuchins, the Trinitarians, the Servites, the Barnabites … and on March 20, 1782, a court edict was read to the thirty-seven Benedictine sisters resident at St. George, near Hrad
any Castle, the most ancient of all Bohemian cloisters, established by the Pr
myslid princess Mlada in 973. The nuns received a gift of money and went home (the last of them, Maria Fiedler, died in northern Bohemia in 1841), and their invaluable manuscripts and books were transferred to the university library; in decades to follow, the buildings served as army barracks, as a home for old priests, and, after the revolution of 1848, as a prison for hapless liberals and radicals sentenced by military tribunal. On November 11, 1785, it was the turn of the Karlov Augustinians, whom Charles IV had originally invited from France in 1350 in memory of Emperor Charlemagne. A last mass was celebrated, attended by many people of the New
Town, and the last abbot found refuge first in the Old Town and later with his Bohemian family. The trust fund did not know at first what to do with the splendid buildings; the bells were sold at public auction, the army used the empty spaces to store supplies and provisions, but it was ultimately decided four years later that in the old monastery a hospice for the incurably ill and mentally disturbed should be established (ironically, the church to serve the hospice had to be reconsecrated). Prague topography changed: churches and chapels were torn down, among them the Chapel of the Body and Blood of Christ, established in 1382 in the New Town, the Bethlehem chapel—on the emptied space, building materials were stored—and St. Martin in the Wall, established in 1187; refectories and halls were handed over to military schools, state offices, occasional tenants, factories, stables, theaters, printing presses (for storing paper reserves, as happened at St. Michael in the Old Town, where conservative and radical Hussites had fought again and again). A statistical document of 1884 notes that in that year, Prague had seventy-one churches and chapels again, as well as twenty-six residences or houses of older and new religious orders. We do not yet have a historical report on the changes brought about by the Stalinist years.
any Castle, the most ancient of all Bohemian cloisters, established by the Prmyslid princess Mlada in 973. The nuns received a gift of money and went home (the last of them, Maria Fiedler, died in northern Bohemia in 1841), and their invaluable manuscripts and books were transferred to the university library; in decades to follow, the buildings served as army barracks, as a home for old priests, and, after the revolution of 1848, as a prison for hapless liberals and radicals sentenced by military tribunal. On November 11, 1785, it was the turn of the Karlov Augustinians, whom Charles IV had originally invited from France in 1350 in memory of Emperor Charlemagne. A last mass was celebrated, attended by many people of the NewTown, and the last abbot found refuge first in the Old Town and later with his Bohemian family. The trust fund did not know at first what to do with the splendid buildings; the bells were sold at public auction, the army used the empty spaces to store supplies and provisions, but it was ultimately decided four years later that in the old monastery a hospice for the incurably ill and mentally disturbed should be established (ironically, the church to serve the hospice had to be reconsecrated). Prague topography changed: churches and chapels were torn down, among them the Chapel of the Body and Blood of Christ, established in 1382 in the New Town, the Bethlehem chapel—on the emptied space, building materials were stored—and St. Martin in the Wall, established in 1187; refectories and halls were handed over to military schools, state offices, occasional tenants, factories, stables, theaters, printing presses (for storing paper reserves, as happened at St. Michael in the Old Town, where conservative and radical Hussites had fought again and again). A statistical document of 1884 notes that in that year, Prague had seventy-one churches and chapels again, as well as twenty-six residences or houses of older and new religious orders. We do not yet have a historical report on the changes brought about by the Stalinist years.
Joseph’s edicts concerning the Jews were part of his general reforms of 1781, signaled by his patents of tolerance and the abolition of ancient serfdom. They reflect both his filial opposition to his mother’s anti-Semitism and his surprising willingness to accept the late Baroque familial law of 1726, which limited the Jewish presence in Bohemia to 8,541 families (Prussia had 1,245) and that of Prague to 2,335 family “spots”; in each family, only the oldest son was allowed to marry and to vote in the community. (Conservatively estimated, Prague still had a Jewish population of 10,000, compared with 2,000 in Frankfurt and 3,000 in Vienna.) Joseph’s Jewish legislation commenced on October 19, 1781, and continued almost to the end of his life; though it has been argued that his reforms were of great advantage to the rich but not to the many poor Jews, it is also true that, ultimately, in all economic and social matters, the future of the entire community was involved for better or worse. Joseph’s order abolished all badges, signs, and special kinds of clothing earlier worn by Jews, male or female, allowed Jews to leave their houses on Sunday morning (when masses were celebrated), eat in taverns, and attend the theater and other public entertainments. He also did away with demeaning special taxes and made it possible for Jews to be trained in all trades and crafts (so far, a little more than half of Prague’s Jews had been active in commerce, and only 27.5 percent were artisans, who worked
mostly but not exclusively for Jewish customers). Jews were encouraged to establish factories, to rent land from the domains (not from peasants), and to work the soil if they employed Jewish help; those who could afford it were encouraged to attend institutions of higher learning, although not the faculties of theology. Joseph II certainly did not want to create a new generation of intellectuals—he closed five universities during his monarchy as useless—but he wanted army doctors and civil servants, and these hopes were fulfilled beyond expectation.
mostly but not exclusively for Jewish customers). Jews were encouraged to establish factories, to rent land from the domains (not from peasants), and to work the soil if they employed Jewish help; those who could afford it were encouraged to attend institutions of higher learning, although not the faculties of theology. Joseph II certainly did not want to create a new generation of intellectuals—he closed five universities during his monarchy as useless—but he wanted army doctors and civil servants, and these hopes were fulfilled beyond expectation.
Other demands in Joseph’s Jewish legislation were far less easy to accept, because they threatened the community’s traditional cohesion and autonomy. Maria Theresa had suggested that a
Normalinstitut
be established, offering instruction in German for Jewish children, but the Prague community elders refused to do this, claiming religious reasons; Joseph’s insistence split the community—the friends of Moses Mendelssohn’s enlightened views on Joseph’s side, the traditionalists on the other. Yet Ezekiel Landau, Prague’s revered chief rabbi, to everyone’s great surprise and in close cooperation with Ferdinand Kindermann, then Bohemia′s most outstanding pedagogue, opened a “normal” preparatory school with a secular curriculum taught in German on May 2, 1782 (fireworks in the evening); a corresponding girls’ school, with extra hours in home economics of course, was established three years later. The problem was that these schools lacked pupils for decades because well-to-do Jews, distrusting secular education, had their children educated by private tutors as they had before. Technical knowledge of German was to be of importance soon, however: in 1784, Joseph II issued an order that all legal and commercial documents and correspondence of the Jewish community were to be written in “the language of the land”—that is, German—and three years later required that all Jews accept German names (even the occasional Czech first name had to disappear). Given the historical context, these measures cast a long shadow; when, in the revolution of 1848, the question was asked whether Jews were on the Czech or the German side, the results of Josephine legislation created heavy burdens. Czech patriots and later nationalists believed that Jews, who they believed had originally spoken Czech, had switched allegiance under Joseph’s rule and sided collectively with Vienna to Germanize Prague. In the shuffle, the question of how the Prague Jews lost their ancient Yiddish was not asked.
Normalinstitut
be established, offering instruction in German for Jewish children, but the Prague community elders refused to do this, claiming religious reasons; Joseph’s insistence split the community—the friends of Moses Mendelssohn’s enlightened views on Joseph’s side, the traditionalists on the other. Yet Ezekiel Landau, Prague’s revered chief rabbi, to everyone’s great surprise and in close cooperation with Ferdinand Kindermann, then Bohemia′s most outstanding pedagogue, opened a “normal” preparatory school with a secular curriculum taught in German on May 2, 1782 (fireworks in the evening); a corresponding girls’ school, with extra hours in home economics of course, was established three years later. The problem was that these schools lacked pupils for decades because well-to-do Jews, distrusting secular education, had their children educated by private tutors as they had before. Technical knowledge of German was to be of importance soon, however: in 1784, Joseph II issued an order that all legal and commercial documents and correspondence of the Jewish community were to be written in “the language of the land”—that is, German—and three years later required that all Jews accept German names (even the occasional Czech first name had to disappear). Given the historical context, these measures cast a long shadow; when, in the revolution of 1848, the question was asked whether Jews were on the Czech or the German side, the results of Josephine legislation created heavy burdens. Czech patriots and later nationalists believed that Jews, who they believed had originally spoken Czech, had switched allegiance under Joseph’s rule and sided collectively with Vienna to Germanize Prague. In the shuffle, the question of how the Prague Jews lost their ancient Yiddish was not asked.
For a long time Bohemian grandmothers told stories about the good emperor who made the life of the peasant more humane, who in disguise rode through the provinces (“you shall never know my name—I am the Emperor Joseph”) and certainly twice took a plow from the hands of a
Moravian peasant to till the soil himself, at least briefly. In later Czech historical consciousness, Joseph II survives as a Germanizing ruler, whatever else he may have done, and in the modern Prague memory, his language decrees are recalled more than what he did to eliminate church censorship and return a measure of dignity to the Czech peasants (whose sons and daughters, after all, created a modern, educated Czech nation).
Moravian peasant to till the soil himself, at least briefly. In later Czech historical consciousness, Joseph II survives as a Germanizing ruler, whatever else he may have done, and in the modern Prague memory, his language decrees are recalled more than what he did to eliminate church censorship and return a measure of dignity to the Czech peasants (whose sons and daughters, after all, created a modern, educated Czech nation).
Joseph’s mother, as was her habit, had wavered a good deal in the matter of national languages; in her earlier years, she had carefully recommended that Czech be taught in the schools, being the language of the Bohemian majority, but later, when Joseph was co-regent, she endorsed a school reform that, if fully realized, would have granted little space to Czech. Joseph II was concerned with the modernization of the state and, thinking of France and England, decided in the mid-1780s that the administrative language of written communications in the empire (with the exception of the Netherlands, the Italian regions, and Galicia) was to be German; when the Magyars, though not the Czechs, violently protested, he responded, totally oblivious to historical circumstance, that one language would create “a sense of fraternity.” He was, personally, far from being a rabid German
Kulturträger;
his spoken idiom was the Viennese dialect, he corresponded even with members of his own family in French, and he liked to speak Italian. But he wanted an efficient means of communication “
zur Führung der Geschäfte”
(to conduct business), and if Esperanto could have been used, he would have used it. He disregarded history and yet could not escape it; Joseph II’s famous equality before the law was rather fragmentary when the law spoke German and the defendant had to rely on Czech or other translations.
Kulturträger;
his spoken idiom was the Viennese dialect, he corresponded even with members of his own family in French, and he liked to speak Italian. But he wanted an efficient means of communication “
zur Führung der Geschäfte”
(to conduct business), and if Esperanto could have been used, he would have used it. He disregarded history and yet could not escape it; Joseph II’s famous equality before the law was rather fragmentary when the law spoke German and the defendant had to rely on Czech or other translations.
The responses of the Bohemian patriots to the challenges of Emperor Joseph’s reforms are not easy to describe, and they are certainly more intricate than later nationalists assume. A strong beginning of a new Czech intellectual renaissance would have been impossible without his abolition of censorship and his imperial preference, adverse to Baroque hierarchies, for rationality. There was much agreement with Joseph’s rationalist views but at the same time much opposition to his centralizing policies, which again triggered a rising interest in the history of Bohemia and a rediscovery of the privileges and riches of the Czech language (the first university chair of Czech was established in Vienna in 1775, and another one shortly after Joseph’s demise, at Prague University, in 1791). University professors were important: in Prague, above all, the Saxonborn Karl Heinrich Seibt, the first non-Jesuit professor of belles lettres, introduced young Germans, Czechs, and Jews to the most recent achievements
of German philosophy; he certainly prompted a few Czech intellectuals to believe it was nigh time to compete once again.
of German philosophy; he certainly prompted a few Czech intellectuals to believe it was nigh time to compete once again.
The aristocrats, troubled by restless peasants, increased taxes, and their loss of ceremonial positions, had particular reasons to push for Bohemian special privileges. Franz Joseph Count Kinsky wrote a lively defense of Czech and recent German writing, and the lord burgrave Franz Count Nostitz opened his Prague town palace to learned scholars of the Piarist order and to ex-Jesuits who were busy excavating forgotten documents of Bohemian history, publishing authentic editions of chronicles, and defining the nature of the Czech language. Many of the scholars were elective Czechs, who were born of German-speaking parents but learned Czech in the schools. Gelasius Dobner wanted to do away with the false and “ridiculous fables” of Bohemian history and published an essential edition of historical sources; Mikuláš Adaugt Voigt, an open enemy of Germanization, compiled portraits of exemplary Czech artists, scholars, and humanists; and František Martin Pelcl enthusiastically praised Rudolfine Czech as a perfect language that did not need any correction or addition. Abbé Josef Dobrovský, an ex-Jesuit and trained missionary (he was to go to India), was hired on Seibt’s recommendation as tutor to the Nostitz family. He was a scholar of genius who, turning from Oriental to Slavic studies, in his treatises, grammars, and histories established the foundation of Slavic philology, though mostly writing in Latin and German and never relinquishing his rational and skeptical views. Dobrovský was suspicious of the advancing romantic generation, who, after studying the German enthusiast Herder, considered only language “the true character and the community spirit of a nation”; though they may have been inspired by the most noble sentiments, they prepared the ground for ethnic belligerence, which was foreign to the circle of Bohemian nobles.
While patient patriotic scholars were discussing the etymology of the terms
ech
and
Slovan
, questions loaded with ideological preconceptions, many quarters of Prague lay desolate and in ruins after all the battles and sieges and the closing of churches and cloisters. Yet Praguers now for the first time enjoyed a few modern urban amenities. A special committee appointed by the emperor and charged with beautifying the disheveled city filled the moats between the decaying fortification walls of the Old and New Towns, planted decorative trees, and created the New Alley, or today’s Národní t
ída, an elegant boulevard of fashionable shops, traditional bookshops, and overpriced restaurants leading from the City Center to the National Theater and the Café Slavia. The university library, enriched
by books and manuscripts from the abolished monasteries, was opened to the general public, including Jewish readers, and a private postal service (later integrated with the state) operated in a frequent and orderly way. An enterprising lending library of 8,000 volumes opened its door to a new middle-class readership, and the first horse-drawn cabs, or Fiakers, according to Viennese lingo, were for hire. More importantly, publication of Czech newspapers was resumed—first by the Schönfeld family, who also owned a flourishing printing press, and later by Václav Mat
j Kramerius, a Czech patriotic publisher of note; his
eská Expedice, or Czech book distribution, was essential to readers and writers of the Czech eighteenth-century renaissance and functioned well into the 1820s.
echand
Slovan
, questions loaded with ideological preconceptions, many quarters of Prague lay desolate and in ruins after all the battles and sieges and the closing of churches and cloisters. Yet Praguers now for the first time enjoyed a few modern urban amenities. A special committee appointed by the emperor and charged with beautifying the disheveled city filled the moats between the decaying fortification walls of the Old and New Towns, planted decorative trees, and created the New Alley, or today’s Národní t
ída, an elegant boulevard of fashionable shops, traditional bookshops, and overpriced restaurants leading from the City Center to the National Theater and the Café Slavia. The university library, enrichedby books and manuscripts from the abolished monasteries, was opened to the general public, including Jewish readers, and a private postal service (later integrated with the state) operated in a frequent and orderly way. An enterprising lending library of 8,000 volumes opened its door to a new middle-class readership, and the first horse-drawn cabs, or Fiakers, according to Viennese lingo, were for hire. More importantly, publication of Czech newspapers was resumed—first by the Schönfeld family, who also owned a flourishing printing press, and later by Václav Mat
j Kramerius, a Czech patriotic publisher of note; hiseská Expedice, or Czech book distribution, was essential to readers and writers of the Czech eighteenth-century renaissance and functioned well into the 1820s.Other books
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