Prague Journal

Friday, June 10, 2005.

My dear friend Paul is in Prague for his annual teaching stint at the US Business School. For the first time we are in Prague at the same time. Paul has been teaching here for ten years now, so he has seen a lot of changes in Prague over the years. We met—with Howard—for a light dinner at the café next door to the Spanish synagogue before services and, after services, went to U Kapra for dessert with Rick.
The newspaper Mlada fronta Dnes had a contest last fall, to name the top 10 greatest Czechs ever. Among the original ballots submitted were fictional characters and current hockey stars. The officials at the sponsoring TV station feared that Jará Cimrman, a beloved fictitious character created by Zdenĕk Svĕrák, would win. (see http://www.hradec.org/cimr.html for some of Zimrman's many accomplishments) The editors at the Prague Post, however, think that such recognition of the studious Cimrman, a Vienna-born traveler and musician who helped design the Eiffel Tower and rewrite a Checkhov novel, might have earned this small nation a little more respect. The final list of ten was announced on Czech Television earlier this spring, and after the final votes were tallied, the winner was revealed this evening. The winner is Charles IV, followed by (in order):
2. Tomas Garrigue Masaryk
3. Vaclav Havel
4. Jan Amos Komensky
5. Jan Zizka
6. Jan Weirich
7. Jan Hus
8. Antonin Dvorak
9. Karel Capek
10. Bozena Nemcova

Besides “The Greatest Ever Czech” Czech Television also encouraged people to vote for the greatest ever scoundrel. The “winner” of the poll is the first communist president of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, followed by the former Prime Minister Stanislav Gross who was recently forced to step down over controversies in his personal finances, and the third is the current Czech president, Vaclav Klaus.

posted by JWinn @ 10:44 PM