Tuesday, May 31, 2005.
After a long morning’s work together on a case study project at Ebel’s Café in Old Town, Veena and I went to the Robert Guttmann Gallery at the back entrance of the Spanish Synagogue to see the exhibit of the 1942 transports of the Bohemian Protectorate Jews to the Baltic States, entitled “Since then I have believed in fate…” Having just returned from a Baltic state, and having just learned about the treatment of the Jews in Lithuania during this time, seeing this exhibit was particularly timely for me. This exhibit deals with the transport trains that were dispatched from the Terezín ghetto before October 26, 1942, when deportations to Auschwitz began. The first part of the exhibition is on the fate of Bohemian Jews who were transported between January 9 and October 22, 1942 to the Nazi-occupied Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia. There is a second part currently under preparation that will be on deportations to Belarus and eastern Poland. Both exhibits are based on Lukáš Přibyl’s long-term studies, his photography collection and his interviews with Shoah survivors, which will be presented in the spring of 2006 in a four-part documentary film. The exhibit contained some of the material brought together for this film.
The Latvian capital Riga was the destination for the first two transports – “O” and “P” – which left the Terezín ghetto on the 9th and 15th of January 1942. The prisoners from the first Czech transport, together with German Jews, replaced the original inhabitants of the Riga ghetto, most of whom had been shot during two extensive massacres in the nearby forests of Rumbula and Bikernieki. Dozens of fit young men from the Czech transports were taken away to work in the labor camp at Salaspils, where many of them perished due to the harsh winter and the barbaric conditions. Life in the ghetto was not any easier – male and female inmates were forced to do the hardest labor and all had to struggle to get a little extra to make up for the meager rations. In addition, there were occasional liquidation campaigns, directed mostly at the elderly, children and the sick. After the liquidation of the ghetto in the summer of 1943, the remaining Jews were relocated to the newly opened concentration camp of Kaiserwald. The vast majority were then sent via the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig to another slave labor camp in Germany, where they were liberated by the US and British forces, or to the area around Stutthof, where, after the Death Marches, they were found in the spring of 1945 by the Soviet army.
The transports “Bb” and “Be”, which were dispatched in the same year (on August 20 and September 1, 1942), were also directed to the Baltic states. Of the one thousand prisoners on transport “Bb,” not a single survivor was found after the war; it is most probably that they were all murdered immediately upon arrival. Transport “Be,” which was apparently originally destined for Riga, was sent on to Estonia, due to “overcrowding” at the Riga ghetto. It pulled into the small station of Raasiku, where a selection was carried out, after which most of the people were taken away in buses. At a sandbank called Kalevi Liiva, all the men, women and children who were “unfit for work” were forced to undress and to hand over all valuables. They were then shot and pushed into freshly dug mass graves. The only ones to survive the war were a few women who had been sent to Tallinn via the Jägala concentration camp at the end of 1942 and in the course of 1943, where they were put to work clearing up the ruins after air raids and laboring on construction sites, among other things. They were then sent to other concentration camps in Estonia, particularly in Ereda and Goldfields. After the evacuation of these camps at the end of the summer of 1944, the women were relocated to Stutthof, where they met with survivors from Latvia. The largest group of women was then transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp in Ochsenzoll, where they were put to work in the munitions factory. From there they were deported to Bergen-Belsen, although some of them were reclaimed by Ochsenzoll after a few days. Shortly before the end of the war, they left on a Red Cross transport via Denmark to Sweden. Having managed to survive the appalling conditions at Bergen-Belsen, these women were liberated by the British army on April 15, 1945.
This exhibition features hitherto little-known information not only on the ghettos and camps in this area, but also on the lives of the inmates who were forcibly dragged here. Filmclips of authentic testimony of those who survived the horrors, conveying their impressions and individual experiences, were extremely heart-rending. The photographs and quotes on display filled in the context of the conditions of the time. Despite the tiny size of the museum, we were there nearly two hours, taking in the filmed testimonials, written quotes and photographs.
Monday, May 30, 2005.
Just when I was thinking about how lazy I was for staying home today, we were greeted by a torrential rain and hailstorm, which lasted for only about 15 minutes. Usually Prague’s rain comes lightly; this was a downpour with 1/2-inch hailstones. Before and after the rain, the weather was bright and sunny. Fortunately, the rain has cooled things down a bit from this morning’s 84-degree temperature. Unfortunately, the storm wreaked havoc on vehicles and people in the city. By the time Rick left for his evening Czech class, it was a dry and comfortable 74-degrees. Even cooler temperatures are predicted for tomorrow.
Sunday, May 29, 2005.
A dear Czech friend and Denver math colleague, who is visiting Prague this week, has offered to take a suitcase back to Denver for us, so we met him at the airport at 10:30 with a heavy suitcase in tow. The airlines have tightened up baggage restrictions, not only limiting the number of carry-ons, but also limiting their weight to 12 kilos (8 if traveling within the EU), which means we cannot load our carry-ons with books as we had in the past. The weight limit for a checked bag to the US is 70 pounds or 32 kilos. Ours was 31.76 kilos. So it is with great relief that winter clothes and several books are on their way to Denver. We may still have too much volume and/or weight, but now it seems more reasonable to expect that we will be able to fit within the airline limits.
The big headlines today are about France’s rejection of the EU constitution, which was not unexpected. This vote is viewed as an attempt by the French voters to punish the leaders of France and of Europe after a bitter campaign that split the country in two. Turnout for the vote was estimated at more than 70%, which exceeded the turnout for other recent elections in France. The final figure was expected to surpass turnout in the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty 13 years ago that paved the way to the euro. The new constitution can only take effect if it is ratified by all 25 member states. Nine countries had ratified it before the French went to the polls, and France was the first in the EU to decide via a binding referendum. The no vote makes France, a founding member of the European Union and one of its most influential, the first country to reject the charter. It is a personal defeat for Chirac, who campaigned vigorously in favor of the constitution. It also sets back European integration by blocking a treaty that aims to streamline decision-making in an expanded union.
The new constitution has been criticized because it is so long and detailed: it has 448 articles. But it is mostly an attempt to reconcile old treaties and clean up confusing language. Advocates of the charter said it would make the EU more democratic by giving the European Parliament more power and by setting up the positions of president and foreign minister for the bloc. As a result, they said, Europe would become a more credible player in world affairs. Opponents countered that the treaty would sap the sovereignty of member states and open the door to unrestrained capitalism, putting at risk France’s generous welfare system. The biggest concerns are probably not so related to the actual constitution, but about outsourcing and the arrival of lower-paid workers from new EU member countries. (There was much public discussion of a mythical Polish plumber who would, in the event the constitution passed, allegedly be able and willing to work in France for far less than a Frenchman would find acceptable.) The rejection of the constitution undermined French President Jacques Chirac and will result in a reshuffling of the French government in the next few days. The Netherlands will vote on Wednesday, and analysts are predicting that the French result is likely to increase the chances of a firm rejection there. Polls have already registered 60% of the public in opposition to the constitution in the Netherlands.
Back in Prague, we had intended to go to a chamber music concert this evening, but opted to spend a quiet evening at home and avoid getting dressed up and trotting downtown in the heat (it is in the mid-80s today). We are in the final week of the Prague Spring Music Festival, and we have yet to go to any of the concerts this year. The festival originated in 1946 in the optimistic post-war atmosphere, as a celebration of classical music. While in the first year, all the orchestral concerts were played by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra which was celebrating its 50th birthday, later many other ensembles and musicians, including many international stars, performed at the festival. The Prague Spring has gradually become one of the most important showcases for outstanding performing artists, orchestras and chamber ensembles in Europe. Sadly for those of us here, tickets have become very expensive, even by US standards. The final concert is on June 4th, performed by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, but we have weekend plans so we may have foregone our only chance at a Prague Spring concert this year.
Saturday, May 28, 2005.
Marketa planned an excursion for us today, so Howard rented a car and the four of us headed west. Our first top was Kouřim, an ancient town situated exactly at the intersection of the 50th parallel and the 15th meridian, 40 km east of Prague on the route to Kutna Hora, the famous Silver Mining Town. The Old Kouřim settlement dates from the 3rd century, and gained importance in the 9th century at the time of Slav settlements when the settlement of the powerful Zlič tribe was a center of power and trade, which competed for a privileged position with Prague. The town was prosperous under King Wenceslas I from the middle of the 13th century until the Hussite revolution, which lasted until 1620. The town then suffered a decline from which it never recovered, although preserved traces of its former significance remain. We walked through the small town square, to the Church of St. Stephan, one of the most valuable early-Gothic buildings in Central Europe. The church was open, and we were fortunate to find a friendly young docent who was quite knowledgeable about the history and architecture of the church, a rare combination of Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture and design. The Renaissance-style belfry still has two of the original five bells, curiously suspended with their clappers up. The small Chapel of Virgin Mary Helping was built in 1727 by J.B. Santini, the most famous Baroque architect of central Europe. The chapel has five sides as a symbol of five monks who were burnt to death by the Hussites.
Most of the morning was spent walking along the town fortification, which was built from the 13th -16th centuries. Kouřim boasts some of the best preserved fortifications of medieval Czech towns. They surrounded the historical heart of the town, a full 1240 meters in length. A part of the fortifications is the “Prague Gate,” which is the town’s only remaining entrance gate.
Outside Kouřim, the way led through sylvan forests, by a bucolic farmyard, and then along a musical creek. Because the day was quite hot, we turned back short of our objective, the town of Zasmuky, and drove there instead after grabbing a bite to eat in Kouřim. In 1694 Zasmuky, was the head of the family of Count Adolph Vratislav Sternberg, the Highest Burgrve in the Kingdom of Bohemia. The Sternbergs played a role in both the cultural and political history of Bohemia. Legend has it that Jaroslav of Sternberg led the defense of the town of Olomouc against the Tartar Khan Batu, Chingiz-Khan’s son in 1241 and thus stopped the invasion of all of Europe by the Tartar horde. Twelve years later, in 1253, Zdeslav of Sternberg led the victorious battle against the Hungarian Kumans, and the King awarded him with large territories in Moravia. In the 14th century, the Sternbergs became related by marriage to the Luxembourgs. Albert of Sternberg was adviser as well as friend to Emperor Charles the IV, who was a Luxembourg. Albert Sternberg, a cleric, established several monasteries in Bohemia and eventually became Archbishop of Magdeburg, the Primate of all of Germany. In the 15th century, Zdenek of Sternberg led the Catholics in the religious wars against the Hussite King Jiři of Poděbrad, even though his sister, Kunhuta Sternberg, was the first wife of Jiři of Poděbrad. Today, the castle and surrounding buildings at Zasmuky are in disrepair, apparently undergoing renovations. We drove to Kolín, the birthplace of many significant personalities in the fields of culture, politics, economics, and Jewish life. Its Jewish community is one of the oldest in the country. A number of Jews were living here in the fourteenth century, and they had their own synagogue. A stone inscription from a former synagogue, preserved in the present synagogue, bears the date 1642. When King Ferdinand I. expelled the Jews from Bohemia in 1541, the Jews of Kolín went with their movable goods to Poland. At Braunau the emigrants encountered thieves, who robbed them of 20,000 Bohemian schock. In 1551 the Bohemian Jews were permitted to return; but the Jews of Kolín could find no rest in their city. For unknown reasons, King Ferdinand granted them safe-conduct in 1557, enabling them to remain for one year in the country to collect their debts, after which period they were to leave again. Their affairs delayed them, however, and they did not leave the city until 1561. After Ferdinand’s death in 1564, his successor, Maximilian II, permitted the Jews to return to Kolín; but the wealthiest among them did not avail themselves of the permission. In 1618 the Jewish community of Kolín was, next to that of Prague, the largest in Bohemia. It had to pay heavy taxes into the royal treasury; in 1618 the sum amounted to 18,000 thalers, or 47 thalers per head. In 1603 the municipal council forbade the Jews to appear on Sundays and on other Christian holidays in those parts of the city inhabited by Christians; it prohibited them from keeping dogs; and forbade also Jewish butchers to sell meat to Christians. In 1611 a special prison was built in the Jews’ street for the Jews, at their request and at their expense; it has only recently been demolished, after having served as a dwelling for poor families for more than one hundred years. No Jew was permitted to own any real estate except his house, or more than one horse. Jews were forbidden also to engage in those trades or lines of business in which their Christian fellow citizens were engaged; they were obliged, therefore, to establish connections with foreign houses. The municipal council, which was intent upon isolating the Jews from the Christian population, forbade the latter to enter the service of the Jews; even washerwomen were not allowed to do laundry-work for them. As the Jews were accused of having brought the plague into the city on returning from their business trips, they were not permitted to remain outside of their own street for any length of time, nor to draw water with their vessels from the Christians’ wells. During this appearance of the plague (1613-14) the municipal council had both entrances to the Jews’ street walled up.
In December 1621, the knight Jan Vazlav Grizl of Grizlov was made captain of the imperial estate of Kolín and Bieberitz. He permitted the Jews to engage in those trades and lines of business which had hitherto been open only to Christians; and on several occasions he showed them favor. When an epidemic of dysentery appeared in Kolín in 1660, Rabbi Borges and his son Schaje (Isaiah) were accused of having killed a pig which had escaped from the house of the widow Sperlink into the Jews’ street, and of having thrown the same into the communal well, thereby poisoning the water. Both fled from the city.
In 1942, 2202 people were deported to Terezin from Kolín and its vicinity in 1942 and only about 105 survived the Nazi occupation. It’s not clear that there are any Jews living in Kolín now. We were particularly interested in seeing the remains of the Jewish ghetto, part of which has survived, and the Kolín synagogue, which is the second oldest in the Czech Republic, originally built around 1642. This synagogue, whose entrance is inside a school (so we could not go in today) functioned until 1955. Around that time, its Torahs were send to the different Jewish communities all over the world. Only the early baroque Aron ha kodesh, acquired at the expense of the Viennese financier Samuel Oppenheimer, uncle of David Oppenheimer, the provincial rabbi in Bohemia, remains in its original location. The inscription in the frieze reads “This is a gift from the prince and high official Samuel Oppenheimer at the King’s Court and in the capital city.” This title of prince, however, does not imply noble status but expresses the importance of the offerer in the eyes of the Kolín Jewish community. The whole complex of the Kolín synagogue and the former Jewish school underwent extensive reconstruction work at the end of the 1990s and at the present time it is partially used for cultural purposes. The chandelier and a part of the furnishing are now in Denver at Temple Emmanuel, so we had heard of Kolín several years ago.
Modern Kolín is an industrial city, a river port on the Elbe (Labe) River, known for its metal and chemical industries. The city also has a petroleum refinery and a hydroelectric station. Earlier this year Kolín opened a Toyota-Peugeot-Citroën automobile factory at the northern edge of the town, which employs about 3000 people. Its capacity is 300,000 cars a year. Kolín was founded by king Wenceslas I in the 13th century, under the name Colonia nova (New Colony). Between 1475 and 1488, Hynek z Poděbrad, a Renaissance writer and son of King Jiři (George) of Poděbrady, lived in Kolín Castle. Jiří z Poděbrad, King of Bohemia (1458-1471), was the first king in Europe to renounce the Catholic faith when he adopted the religion of Jan Hus. Kolín’s major growth occurred after the construction of the Vienna-Prague railway in the 19th century.
We spent our time near the city center, which is surrounded by Gothic and Renaissance buildings, including a splendid town hall. The 13th-century Church of St. Bartholomew, noted for its Gothic choir, was designed by the famous Peter Parler, one of the builders of St. Vitas Cathedral at Prague Castle. While the sign on the church said that there were services at 6pm, the church was closed and empty. Marketa went to a service at the Roman-Catholic church of St. Johan Baptist, while Howard and Rick and I explored the Jewish sites. We were treated to an outdoor music festival just down the street from the Church of St. Bartholomew and had fun walking through the city streets listening to the music. I especially enjoyed the fact that it was sunny and warm—too warm for most sensibilities—and the sun was still shining after 9pm when we got back to Prague.
Kouřim
Friday, May 27, 2005.
Another day in paradise: warm weather and sunshine! Unfortunately, the tourists have arrived in Prague in droves. All the streets and squares are packed with hoards of people cheek to jowl.
This afternoon I went downtown to sit in on part of Veena and Richard’s conference, “Bringing the World Home,” coordinated by Americans for Informed Democracy (AID). This is one of a series of weekend retreats in Europe for Americans who have finished study abroad programs, focused on techniques for raising global consciousness in the U.S. This Prague retreat was held at the Pedagogical Faculty of Charles University, whose building is behind the Roman Catholic Church of St. Thomas on Lazarska, just across the street from Chez Amis. The conference attracted a good turnout – at least 30 attendees. I came for the introductory remarks at 1pm, and had intended to stay for a panel discussion which was scheduled to begin at 5pm, but instead went home after a short shopping errand at 4.
Rick and I went together to services at the Spanish Synagogue, which were led tonight by Cantorial Soloist Coleman Reaboi from Florida. This time Coleman is here with his wife Julia and year-old son Leo for an extended 3-week visit. Coleman conducted the service was which absolutely lovely. The singing was interrupted only by a few silent or spoken prayers and a short Dvar Torah. There were only about 20 or 30 people in attendance, a relatively small crowd, mostly locals, which seemed nicely intimate.
After the service, we went to Charlotte and Bruce’s flat for dessert. Charlotte had made fruit dumplings – potato dumplings filled with whole strawberries – and we all had ample portions topped with cheese, sugar, and melted butter. Charlotte is a wonderful cook, but of course the real reason to meet them for dessert is for their company. This evening was special partly because they have just celebrated their third anniversary this week, but also because Bruce had won several trophies in a golf tournament this afternoon.
Thursday, May 26, 2005.
Eva had asked me to give a seminar on Team-based learning as part of a faculty workshop at VŠE this week. Her session on student presentation skills started at 8:30, and mine followed at 9:30. Most of the attendees were faculty from the International Business division, all of whom spoke very good English. The discussion about using, forming, and grading team projects was very lively, with every person engaged and obviously interested in finding ways to incorporate team projects in their classes. Most of these people teach lectures of 80 students, so they are trying to find ways to involve students in projects together instead of assign 80 individual reports or presentations. Forming teams at Czech universities is, of course, different than in my classes in the US. Here, all students are roughly the same age and, with very few exceptions, were born and grew up in the Czech Republic. The two main topics of interest were finding ways of to form diverse teams and how to evaluate team member performance.
The weather today is lovely: sunny and quite warm. For the first time I am wearing short sleeves! Rick and I both went to the grocery store. We are ready for a few simple home-cooked means and quiet evenings!
Wednesday, May 25, 2005.
This morning we are headed home, Vicki to the US and Rick and me back to Prague. Alfonsas was ready with his taxi promptly at 8:30am to take us to the airport. Again, we saw so many crazy drivers, we wondered how we were so lucky in our rental car to have avoided any accident. Vicki’s flight was two hours earlier than ours, so we had a long wait at the airport, which only has one small café and a few shops (and no lines at the check-in counter or security!) We arrived in Prague around 5:30pm to warm weather and sunshine, quite a contrast from the cold rainy weather we had left only one week ago. It is finally time to shed our jackets and get out the short-sleeved shirts!
Tuesday, May 24, 2005.
We began our day with a trip to Rumšiškes, an open-air museum located 18 km east of Kaunas between the Kaunas-Vilnius highway and the Kaunas Basin. This museum was established in 1966 to portray a typical Lithuanian country village. There are buildings, furniture, household articles, iconography materials, fences, wells, beehives, orchards, flower gardens and other artifacts, which illustrate the way of life, work and traditions of the peasants and townspeople of these regions. The core of the museum consists of dwelling houses and economic buildings transferred from different regions of Lithuania: Aukstaitija (Upper Lithuania), Suvalkija, Zemaitija (Lower Lithuania or Samogitia), Lithuania Minor. The buildings are grouped in complexes: farmsteads, small villages, and towns. They represent the most characteristic stylistic features, planning, constructions, and decorative elements of buildings of different epochs and social strata, set in the natural environment, complete with fences, green plantation, and sacral monuments. There are 51 buildings that one can go inside and see period furniture, clothing, kitchen articles, and working tools. In some buildings there are artisans demonstrating work such as making pots of clay, processing of the amber, wood, metal, weaving etc. The walk around the 7-km path took us about two hours, by which time the weather had turned from grey and cool to sunny and quite warm.
We returned our rental car and spent the afternoon in Kaunas’s Old Town. Kaunas has a population of nearly 400,000, over 35,000 of whom are students studying at one of seven universities, and is now a large center of business and industry. Kaunas is also a city of old traditions, and an important historical and cultural center. In 1408, Magdeburg rights were granted to the city of Kaunas by the privilege of Vytautas the Great. During the early 20th century, governed by its first Burgomaster Jonas Vileisis, Kaunas was the home of the Lithuanian Government and the capital city; a period considered by many as the golden age of the city. However, the city, situated at the confluence of the rivers Neris and Nemunas, experienced many other periods of great prosperity and national importance. In 1030, Lithuanian Prince Koinos established a fortress at the confluence of the Viliya and Nieman Rivers and named it Kovno after himself.
In 1410, the first Jews were brought in as prisoners of war and settled across the Nieman in Vilijampole, which was then called Slobodka. In the fifteenth century, Jewish traders temporarily resided in Kovno, but from 1495 to 1525 pressure from Christian merchants forced them into Slobodka. They weren’t allowed to return to Kovno until 1782. The Slobodka Yeshiva was founded in 1882 and by the end of the nineteenth century there were more than 25,000 Jews living under the czar. In 1915 as the German Army approached, czarist authorities expelled about 32,000 to the interior of Russia. Only 9,000 returned. Germany occupied Kovno for three years, and when an independent Lithuania was established in 1919, Kovno became Kaunas. When Poland annexed Vilnius in 1920, Kaunas became the capital.
By 1933 there were 38,000 Jews, nearly 30 percent of the total population, with five daily Yiddish newspapers. There were Hebrew and Yiddish schools, numerous synagogues and Zionist youth groups. Jews held positions in medicine and in commerce, a few were judges, but opportunities in government were limited. Soviet rule began in June 1940; Jewish institutions were shut down and many Jewish leaders and Zionist activists were exiled to Siberia. In June 1941 the Nazis took over and by July an estimated 10,000 Jews were murdered. That month, the Germans reestablished the ghetto in Slobodka. The Jews in the ghetto operated a Resistance underground, holding clandestine religious sessions and secretly documenting their tragedy through letters, art and photography. In 1945 the Soviets again entered the city. The repressive Russian rule lasted until Lithuania regained its independence, at which time most of the remaining Jews emigrated to Israel.
Most of our day in Kaunas was spent walking around Old Town. Old Town’s main street was now empty of the craft booths we had seen on Saturday. Many of the stores that line the street sell shoes – more shoe stores that we’ve ever seen in one city, let alone on one street!
We walked through town, toward the end of Vilniaus Street, toward Kaunas Castle. This 13th century castle was thought to have been built by Kęstutis to defend a road to Trakai. It was the country’s first defensive bastion and the only double-walled castle in Lithuania. The surrounding walls were initially over two meters wide and 13 meters high. Unlike most other castles of the time, Kaunas was not made by wood, but was one of the few stone castles. However, in 1362, after a siege, the crusaders managed to destroy it. Legend has it that the castle was not destroyed and that 36 survivors remained. These survivors along with the knights allegedly are still burning in an eternal fire which can only be extinguished by an innocent person entering the castle via a secret cave. However, history books dictate that the castle was destroyed and its replacement, some of which can be viewed at this site today, was built by 1368.
Most of the museums are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so we walked back toward the center of Old Town. We stopped at Christ’s Resurrection Church, two Orthodox cathedrals, and the Town Hall, a baroque-style building with early classic and gothic architecture which looked like it had once been a church. The inside was splendid, obviously recently refurbished and modernized for civic offices.
We also stopped at Perkunas House, another example of late Gothic architecture, built in a similar style to St. Anne’s church in Vilnius. Built during the final days of the 15th century, the rich architecture symbolized the economic power of the Hanseatic League and German expansion. Today it is in a sad state of disrepair, but does host regular art classes. The St. Francis Church and Jesuit Monastery is also in disrepair, but we were able to go inside to see the library. The building dates from 1666, but fire has taken its toll over the centuries. Like many churches in Lithuania this one has changed hands many times, and was restored to its original owners once again in 1990.
The most predominant church is St. Michael the Archangel, which apparently still functions for services on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Today we could only see the outside of the building, which looks like a Russian Orthodox cathedral rather than a Catholic church. It is referred to as soboras, or a Lithuanization of the Russian word sobor or cathedral. The neo-Byzantine, symmetrical building was built towards the end of the 19th century by Russian architects.
The Vytautas Church is a gothic structure, built by Franciscan monks in the beginning of the 15th century with a tower that was added later that century. Invaders took advantage of the central location and the building was used as ammunitions storage by the Napoleonic army (who set the building ablaze in farewell) and later as an Orthodox cathedral from 1845-1853. The church was returned to the Catholics in 1990.
Our last stop of the day was the Kaunas Choral Synagogue, built in 1871. We arrived around 5:30, before the daily service. The synagogue’s silver dome and stained-glass windows glisten in the late afternoon sun. The inside of this synagogue is quite spectacular, with a marvelously ornate gold-leafed altar, overhung by an intricately designed golden chandelier. Two men inside explained that there is a minion every evening, with about 20 men. On warm evenings, elderly men and women sit on benches outside and schmooze in Russian or Yiddish before services. In the back courtyard there is a towering monument, a somber memorial to the more than 1,600 children who were murdered at the Ninth Fort.
The car-rental agency was kind enough to give us a ride back to Vicki’s flat, although the kindness was nearly made up for by the harrowing trip through rush-hour traffic, with several near-missed accidents. We went back to Old Town later that evening, for a last dinner at “Bernelių užeiga,” a traditional Lithuanian restaurant whose name is loosely translated as “The Boys’ Meeting House.” We made sure to sample the ethnic dishes, including the sweet bread ale.
Rumšiškes
Monday, May 23, 2005.
Vicki had asked me to give a presentation to the staff at her company at 8:30 this morning, so we went to her office early to get everything set up. It was a pleasure meeting so many of her employees, and engaging them in conversation. From their comments, it seems to me that there are many similarities between the attitudes of Lithuanians and Czechs, largely due to their history under Nazi terror and Soviet domination, and recent emergence into the EU.
Rick and I were on the road back to Vilnius shortly after 10:00, to see some of the remnants of the former Jewish areas of town. You wouldn’t necessarily know it by walking the streets today, but Vilnius was once one of the cultural centers of the Jewish world. Known before World War II as the Jerusalem of the North, Vilnius was home to more than 60,000 Jews, most of whom spoke Yiddish. Vilnius was considered the capital of Yiddish culture and learning and was home to the famed Yiddish Institute of Higher Learning (YIVO) and the Strashum Library. The first Jews came to Lithuania in the 14th century, lured to the area by tolerant Lithuanian regimes. On the eve of the war, some 240,000 Jews lived in Lithuania—virtually all of whom were killed during the Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944. Today, there are few reminders of Vilnius’s Jewish past, save for Hebrew letters on a few signs and buildings. Before WWII, there were 100 synagogues in Vilnius. Now there is only one, built in 1905, the Romanesque-Moorish Choral Synagogue. This building claims to have one of the most beautiful altars in the entire Jewish world. The synagogue is undergoing repairs, so we were not able to see inside. But perhaps the real reason we could not go in is that a bitter conflict has been going on since last fall between the Jewish community and the extremist sect “Chabad Lubavitch” led by Solom Ber Krinsky, that is trying to take over and dominate the Jewish community. Rabbi Krinsky and his followers have been using slander, violence and intimidation in order to impose their will upon the community.
http://www.litjews.org/index.asp?DL=E&TopicID=51We went to the monument where Jewish Street—or Zydu gravde in Lithuanian—cuts through the heart of old town Vilnius. But there’s not much overtly Jewish about it anymore. The Great Synagogue, which once stood at the end of Jewish Street, was dynamited by the Nazis and then later bulldozed by the Soviets; there’s now a Soviet-built kindergarten and basketball court where the synagogue used to stand.
We met a Lithuanian man who claimed to have lived in one of the houses on this square when he was three years old. He was with an Israeli couple, he from Denmark, she from South Africa. In our short conversation, the Danish (now Israeli) gentleman revealed that the only reason he was on earth is that the Danes, alone among all the countries of Europe, protected their Jews. His parents had fled to Sweden on the morning when virtually all Danish Jews were instructed by the Danish authorities to escape the Nazi putsch.
The fact that this conversation was conducted in a trashy neighborhood around a modest street plaque which was the only evidence of the magnificent main Schul of prewar Vilnus, emphasized to both of us how tragically and completely the Nazi monsters had succeeded. There simply is no significant Jewish presence in modern Lithuania, and precious little evidence of the past glories remain. The Jewish ghetto was encircled by barbed wire and transformed into a prison camp for the city’s 60,000 Jews, nearly all of whom were later marched to the Paneriai forest eight kilometers away and executed. Across Lithuania as a whole, some 200,000 Lithuanian Jews, or over 90 percent of the pre-war Jewish community, perished. The guidebook says there are some 6000 Jews in Lithuania today, most of whom immigrated here from Russia during the Soviet era; there are fewer than 200 Holocaust survivors left in the country. Vilnius’s Jewish past still draws tens of thousands of Jewish visitors a year from the United States, Israel Argentina and also South Africa, where as many as 80 percent of the nation’s 90,000 Jews descend from Lithuanian Jews, or litvaks.
There is a plaque on the wall of a building on the corner at Zydu (Jewish) Street commemorating The Great Vilna Gaon -- Elijahu ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797). The Gaon was the greatest luminary not only among the many Talmudical scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries (and five centuries before that), but also for many generations to come. It is said that his unsurpassed intellectuality and spirituality gave him an unchallenged supremacy as an exponent of the Torah and the Talmud, to the study of which he devoted his life. This made him spiritual head of the whole of the Lithuanian and Russian Jewry and later that of all the Jewish communities in Eastern and Central Europe. He introduced innovative methods of Talmud study and attempted to restore Jewish law to its original rational meaning with the help of critical commentaries. He applied these critical methods to research and improve the texts of both Talmuds—the Babylonian and the Jerusalem, and to all rabbinic literature. In addition to his knowledge of Jewish law, he also was a learned student of history and geography, and particularly of mathematics, astronomy and anatomy. He insisted that it was necessary to study secular sciences, because the Torah and science were linked together. The Gaon fought Hasidism as dangerous to traditional Judaism and also issued an excommunication to several Hassids. He fostered the creation of schools and yeshivot for the acquisition of Talmudic knowledge and was the forefather of the dissemination of secular knowledge among the Jews. The Gaon embodied the results of his study, research and reflection in a great number of works (approximately 70) embracing a big variety of topics. They were published after his death. He has been described as a “genius of the first order” and as “the last great theologian of classical Rabbinism.” He is considered a symbol of the 700 years of Jewish presence in Lithuania.
A Jewish museum has been established in Vilnius three times. The first one opened in 1913. The greater part of its collection of Jewish folklore, art, music, published and unpublished materials, perished during the World War I. On the eve of the World War II, the museum had accumulated more than 6 000 books, thousands of historical and ethnographic works and documents, publications, periodicals in 11 languages, and a rich folklore collection. There were ancient coins, including Jewish ones. There were 3 000 art works. The unique contents of this first Jewish museum were nearly all destroyed during the World War II. The second museum was organized in 1944, after the Soviet liberation, by survivors of the Nazi occupation. This second museum had a very short life. The Soviet authorities, in their campaign against Cosmopolitanism and Zionism, closed the museum on June 10, 1949. Its collection was scattered amongst other Lithuanian museums and archives. Forty years after the second one was closed down, the Soviet Lithuanian authorities permitted the opening of the third museum in Vilnius, from October 1, 1989 under the Ministry of Culture and Education.
We had a hard time finding the Jewish Museum, because it is housed in an out-of-the-way rundown building and is closed for reconstruction. We read that among the objects in the State Jewish Museum in Vilnius are ritual items salvaged from the Great Synagogue that was destroyed by the Soviets, including parts of the original ark and reader’s desk. Nor were we able to find the Museum of Genocide Victims, which is located in what was the much-feared KGB headquarters until 1991. The guidebook says that you can tour actual cells where prisoners were held and tortured, and that on a recent trip, President Adamkus found the entry for him in the KGB log book, from when he was a prisoner in the building.
We did find the Holocaust Museum, eight rooms of displays located in a small green house at the top of a driveway. Although tiny in comparison with the Holocaust museums in Jerusalem and Washington DC, it is a haunting collection of writings, artifacts and photographs chronicling what really happened in Lithuania during WWII. The museum also contains a display focusing on the major figures in Lithuanian Jewish history.
On our way back to Kaunas, we stopped at the remains of a huge Jewish cemetery, wrecked by Nazis and still in a state of haunting disrepair. There were a few locals sitting on some of the stones drinking beer and having lunch. We also drove to the location of the crumbling remains of two other synagogues, in a residential section on a hillside outside the city center.
Vilnius Synagogue
Sunday, May 22, 2005.
We spent the morning at the castle at Trakai, the former capital of the principality of Lithuania. Trakai, about an hour’s drive from Kaunas, and just 27 km west of Vilnius, is the most popular destination not only for tourists but also for the inhabitants of Vilnius. Trakai was built on a small island, reached now by a footbridge. In the 1950’s the castle was reconstructed at a great cost, before there were just remains of the old castle. Now there is also a historical museum in the castle. We had the good luck to arrive at the castle at its reopening after closure for the filming of a German movie. In the Trakai courtyard were still Styrofoam sets of castle walls!
From Trakai, we went into Vilnius, Lithuania’s current capital city. Modern Lithuanian history began on 13th January 1991, when the Soviet Red Army attacked unarmed Lithuanian citizens with heavy tanks, while they defended the TV-tower in Vilnius from being captured by the Soviet regime. Fourteen people, mostly young students, were killed. This uprising led to Lithuania’s final liberation from Soviet sovereignty. Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, lies in the far southeastern corner of the country, only a couple of dozen miles from Belarus. It was a stronghold against first the German Teutonic Knights, then the Crimean Tatars. The river Neris flows westwards to Kaunas, Lithuania’s capital earlier this century, when Vilnius and the surrounding area belonged to Poland, and for 17 years these two countries were not on speaking terms. Poland and Lithuania were joined by marriage in 1397; in 1795 Vilnius was swallowed into the Russian empire. Russification followed Polonisation, and many of the churches the Jesuits had so elaborately built, evolving a local baroque style which peaked in the 18th century, were given over to the Russian Orthodox belief. Early in the 19th century Eastern Prussia was one-half Lithuanian speaking (and Protestant). These people started to use German as their mother tongue during the 19th century and were expelled as Germans after the Second War, when Eastern Prussia was divided between Soviet Union and Poland. Before WWII Vilnius was one of the great Jewish cities of Europe, and the center of Yiddish publishing. New streets and buildings in its center mark the site of their ghetto: 150,000 were killed by the Nazis.
We parked our car near the Gates of Dawn, at the southernmost point of the old city. This last remaining part of the old city wall (much of the fortifications in Vilnius were destroyed by the Czar’s army in the 1800s) was converted into a chapel in 1671. A main draw of the chapel is the gold and silver icon of the Virgin Mary, which is revered by Catholics in the region, from Poland to Belarus. The chapel is a mecca to thousands of pilgrims every year. As an act of devotion, some climb the cement steps to the icon on their knees.
We strolled through Old Town, visiting several churches, monasteries, and statues. Part of the Holy Spirit Monastery has been rented to the Italian Ambassador in order to raise money for the church. The Dominican Church is thought to be haunted. During a plague that swept the land in 1657, a cellar in the monastery was used to accommodate an overflow of corpses. In the late 1800s, area residents began to complain about incessant moaning coming from the cellar area, where, upon investigation, police found hundreds of mummified, long-forgotten bodies. It is said that faint, eerie wailing can still be heard by those passing by the Church in the early morning hours.
One of Vilnius’s most distinctive churches is St. Anne’s Church, a fine example of Gothic architecture from the 16th century. When he came through Vilnius, Napoleon is said to have been so taken by St. Anne’s that he wanted to haul it back to Paris and set it down alongside Notre Dame. Looking up, we could see the Hill of Three Crosses. Historical rumor has it that seven Franciscan monks who foolishly tried to convert Lithuanian pagans were murdered here. Four were tossed into the river while three were hung out on the hill to dry. The first crosses were erected in the 1600s to honor the martyrs. Stalin had them torn down; the prewar crosses rest at the foot of the mound where new ones were raised in1989.
We walked to Castle Hill, the site of the oldest settlement in Vilnius, though there isn’t much left to show for it. In the 14th century, Grand Duke Gediminas dreamt he saw an iron wolf howling on this hill, which towers over the old city, between the Neris and Vilnia Rivers. The wolf’s cry signified to him that a great city would arise at this location, and he proceeded to construct it. From the original settlement, Gediminas Tower is the only major remnant of the 13th century Upper Castle still standing. There is now a history museum inside the tower. At the base of the hill is a series of barrel-shaped structures covering the excavation site of the city’s ancient castle, the Lower Castle, which was the residence of the nation’s grand dukes for more than three centuries. Next to the hangars is a cathedral originally built as a temple to the thunder god Perkunas. By the 19th century, after scores of transformations, it had been almost completely revamped in neoclassical style. After the Soviet takeover in the 1940s, the Communists turned the church into an art gallery. It was converted back to a church in the late 1980s. The church is still the resting place for many famous figures in the history of Lithuania-Poland, including royalty. Flanking the cathedral is the bell tower, one of the city’s leading landmarks and a favorite meeting place for local Lithuanians.
Our last stop of the day was the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, just northeast of the old city, prominent for its bright-green the domed exterior. This church was originally built in the 14th century, but was then rebuilt in Baroque splendor in 1668, commissioned by Michael Casimir Pac, Grand Hetman of the Lithuanian armies. His tombstone, inscribed hic iacet peccator (here lies the sinner) is embedded in the wall to the right of the entrance (Pac died in 1682, before the church was fully completed). Although strangely painted from the outside, from the inside this church is truly breathtaking. The walls from top to bottom are alive with frescos in animal and human forms—no two of them exactly the same. Over 2,000 stuccoed figures crowd the vaults, representing miscellaneous mythological, biblical and battle scenes. One of the noteworthy adornments is a huge chandelier made from brass and glass beads and fashioned in the shape of a ship, made in Latvia in 1905. The some 200 artists who worked on the interior were directed by the Italian masters Pietro Peretti and Giovanni Maria Galli. There are even elephant motifs decorating one of the archways!
Trakai Castle
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Before heading back to Kaunas, we drove up the hill to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Nida. This church was built in 1887-1888. From 1966-1988 this was the site of the Curonian Spit Historical Museum, after which time the Church was given back to the Evangelical and Lutheran community. Now Catholic as well as Lutheran services are held here. The main altar of the Church was restored from 1990-1992. An organ was installed in 1984. Since 1988, organ music festivals, poetry readings, and advent, chamber, and choral music concerts take place in the Church. The cemetery in the churchyard is also lovely, with interesting krikštai (krikštas is in the singular) marking the graves of the deceased. Unique to the area a krikštas can be of various nature-related themes, and is placed at the foot of the grave.
We retraced our path to Klaipeda, sailed to the mainland on the ferry, and headed to Kaunas. We stopped at Maxima, a huge supermarket, for dinner provisions, wine, beer, and chocolate. Then, after a short rest at Vicki’s flat, went downtown for a stroll around Old Town.
Kaunas is the second largest city in Lithuania. In 1408, Magdeburg rights were granted to the city of Kaunas by the privilege of Vytautas the Great. During the early 20th century, governed by its first Burgomaster Jonas Vileisis, Kaunas was the home of the Lithuanian Government and the capital city; a period considered by many as the golden age of the city. On the 20th of May, 1463, Kazimieras Jogailaitis renewed and expanded the privileges of the city, so May 20 is now celebrated as Kaunas City Day.
Annually, objects of historical value are created for this event, for example an anthology of verse about Kaunas Coti, the symbol of the festival “Kaunutis” or a coin of Taurus. Townspeople and guests crowd in folk art fairs, concerts that demonstrate both the achievement of professionals and amateur artists, and represents the artistic life of Kaunas City. This weekend Kaunas’s Old Town is adorned with street vendors and musicians, with evening concerts and fireworks.
Friday, May 20, 2005.
After an elegant – and ample—breakfast at the hotel, we walked to the dunes on the bayside of the peninsula where the water is calm, and cafés and small shops adorn the center of town. We walked around the town, stopping for ice cream, coffee and pastries, and looking at various crafts displays. This area is famous for its amber and textiles, and there was an abundance of amber jewelry and linen clothing.
We went into a small museum, depicting an authentic fisherman’s house, and walked around the town center. Most of the day was spent walking along the pine-bough lined paths up to the top of the dunes. The weather is still cool, but today is sunny and perfect for a hike up the dunes. Vicki says that if we walk far enough, we will reach Russia. Unfortunately, the signs request that we stay only on the pine-bough lined paths. We tried to drive to Russia along the spit but were confronted with road construction blockades.
At the very top of the Parnidzio Dune is a sundial, which is constructed of stone. Apparently, only from this point can one see the sun rising out of and setting into the water—from the Lagoon into the Sea. This structure symbolizes not only the passage of time, but also the interaction of natural elements—wind, sand, and water—on the Spit. The Parnidzio Dune raises up the sundial 53 meters, the highest point on the Spit. The Nida Sundial carries on the astronomical traditions of the ancient Baltic tribes. Similar principles of the Sundial were used to build observatories designed for calendar measurements throughout Lithuania. The architecture of the sundial on Parnidzio Dune accents the superiority of nature and the memory of culture.
We went back for a walk along the Baltic shore before sunset, and then went to dinner at a restaurant overlooking the bay.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Hello from Lithuania! Vicki and Rick went to pick out a rental car – and came back with an upscale Hyundai Sonata for our trip to Lithuania’s “amber coast” on the Baltic Sea. We left Kaunas at 10am, drove about 250 km northwest to Klaipeda, took the ferry across the strait to Kursiu Nerija, the Curonian Spit, and drove 50 km south to Nida, the southernmost part of Lithuania on the peninsula. This peninsula, named Neringa in 1961, is a sandy strip approximately 50 km long, the largest part of which belongs to Lithuanian Republic and the southern part belongs to Russian territory of Kaliningrad. From one side, the peninsula is washed by the waterways of the large Kursiu Lagoon, and from the other, the Baltic Sea. The wind from the sea and lagoon have formed high sand dunes, some of which are more than 60 meters high. This area has been a national park since 1976, with cute gabled houses, outdoor restaurants and shops, and clean beach areas that bear no resemblance to the rural shanties or rundown Soviet-era high rises that we passed on the main highway from Kaunas to Klaipeda.
We stopped at Juodkrante, the small town just north of Nida. Juodkrante comes from the words juodas (black) and krantas (shore). The main attraction in Juodkrante is the “Witches Hill” (Raganų Kalnas), a forest path bedecked with a collection of about 80 weird and wonderful wooden sculptures. These amazing sculptures were first commissioned by local artists in 1979, and each summer new sculptures are added during an art camp in Juodkrante. Each wooden sculpture illustrates a different character from the Lithuanian world of fairytales and myths. The sculptures are larger than life and are very detailed, personifying many old folk tales.
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~garwood/tr/lt/LithuaniaGallery1.htmlThere are many fables and customs associated with witches, most of which are associated with midsummer, the shortest night of the year, which is June 24th. In olden times, this was called Feast of the Dews, or Rasos. When Christianity was established in Lithuania, the name was changed to Feast of St. John, according to agrarian folk calendar, the start of haying. The main aim of the festival on this day was to protect the harvest from natural calamities, evil souls, witches and mid summer visitors like draught, hail, downpours of rain and thunder. It was believed that activity during this night of supernatural creatures or female witches was ill disposed towards men, animals and plants. To keep animals from their malevolent actions, animals were put in barns before sunset and were fed bread with salt for protection. Mountain ash branches and wheat sprays were hung on door posts for protection against evil spirits. During the night of the Feast of St. John, witches party and rage all night and invent all kinds of enchantings. Several sculptures depicted the devil, who asks for your help to get off a tree and for your help will tell you where to find the miraculous blooming fern, which is said to protect from evil eyes, cure sickness, and bring good luck. Just past the gates of hell, the cock crows, and the musicians gather for dancing and celebration.
Nida, the southernmost part of Lithuania on the Curonian Spit, was originally a fisherman’s village. Now it is a Baltic resort town, the epitome of the spit’s charm with pretty rustic houses and sparkling waterfront framed by the majestic sweep of the dunes. In 1930-1932 Nobel Prize-winner Thomas Mann spent his summers here, and there is a museum in the Thomas Mann house above the bay, not far from a lovely Lutheran church. We walked along the beach, hiked through some lovely forest areas. Our hotel, the recently-renovated Nidus, is about 600 meters from the bay. We were given grand treatment since we were their first guests since its reopening. We are here just before the expected onslaught of tourists, and there is a lot of construction and painting going on all around the small town. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the beach. It reminded us of a coastal resort on Cape Cod – no indication that this was so recently a Soviet nation. We had dinner – eel, herring, trout and mushrooms—at a charming fish restaurant near the waterfront. We’re at 55-degrees north latitude, so at this time of year, the sun doesn’t set until after 10 p.m. In fact, the night is not very dark here even at midnight. Nonetheless, we had a good night’s sleep after our long day of driving and hiking.
Witches Hill
Witches Hill
Baltic Sea
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Wednesday, May 18, 2005.We were on the first bus to the airport at 5am, to board a 7:05 flight to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. We took the long way, flying west to Frankfurt and then east to Vilnius. We were accompanied on the flight to Frankfurt by about 30 students from Morningside College who were returning to Iowa from a 10-day tour of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. We arrived early in the afternoon at the small Vilnius airport where a driver named Alfonsas was waiting for us with a taxi to Kaunas, about 100 km from Vilnius. The drive was lovely, along a straight highway lined with trees and small farms. In Kaunas, Vicki met us in the parking lot of the building where her company is located, and showed us the new company facility and introduced us to some of the employees. I had previously met Inga in Denver, and it was nice to see her again and to meet some of the other people.Vicki escorted us to her apartment and then went back to work for the afternoon. A true friend, she had provided tea for Rick, and coffee and chocolate truffles for me! In the evening, we went to the center of town for dinner at a brew pub. This brew pub was part micro-brewery and part elegant restaurant. We made sure to order mushrooms and seafood, local specialties. Rick tried both the honey beer and the regular ale. He even tried the beer soup. Everything was delicious, especially the cream-based beer soup.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005.
This afternoon, Alena and Marcela, both from the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences, and Karen, the PhD student from Minnesota, joined me for a presentation at the Woodrow Wilson Center of the American Embassy. Karen provided the title of our panel: “Reflections on the Role of Gender in the Formation of Expertise: Perspectives from the Entrepreneurial and Scientific Spheres.” I spoke about women entrepreneurs, Alena spoke about women and men entrepreneur partnerships, Marcela spoke about gender inequities in science, and Karen spoke about the research she has started on the formation of expert networks on gender in the Czech Republic. I started the presentation by putting stones that I had collected in Israel in a Czech country cap and passing them out, explaining that the stones were like businesses: each an identifiable stone yet distinguishable from each other. My research involves looking at the qualitative differences, as opposed to counting the stones, or the businesses. Marketa, the Cultural Affairs Director from the US Embassy, told Rick that she was moved by the stones from the holy land in the traditional Czech hat.
welcoming the champs in Old Town Square
Monday, May 16, 2005.
The Czech world-cup hockey victory celebration at Old Town Square this afternoon drew at least 100,000. The hockey team rode into the square on top of a big tour bus, as fans chanted and waved flags and banners. The scene reminded me more of a pep rally than a victory celebration – cheerleaders waving pompoms and dancing to the music onstage. There were no marching bands and presidential speeches, but each player was introduced – to loud chants and applause, the trophy was held high, and champagne was uncorked and spewed onto the crowd. The players left as they had come, standing on the roof of the bus and waving to the crowd, as the bus made its way down Paris Street toward the Continental Hotel, followed by throngs of fans.
Earlier today, a statue of Czechoslovakia’s controversial post-war president Edvard Benes was erected despite condemnation from Germans expelled by him after the second world war. The sculpture was unveiled outside the Czech foreign ministry in the presence of the Republic’s new prime minister Jiri Paroubek, whose center-left government narrowly won a vote of confidence last week. But the decision to honor Benes – whose post-war decrees led to the forcible expulsion of 2.6 million ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia – prompted an angry response from some German politicians. Edmund Stoiber, the premier of Bavaria, and the leader of the rightwing Bavarian Christian Social Union party, told the Association of Expelled Germans the sculpture was “damaging.” He dubbed the Benes decrees “unconstitutional” and “an open wound in Europe.” The association wants to build its own monument to those forced out of central Europe in the chaotic aftermath of the war. According to government documents declassified in 2002, some 30,000 were killed as they tried to escape Czechoslovakia to neighboring Austria and Germany.
Sunday, May 15, 2005.
The Czechs are the IIHF 2005 World Champions! The Czech Republic won the world ice hockey championship in Vienna, with Martin Rucinsky and Jaromir Jagr leading them to a 3-0 shutout of Canada, breaking the Canadians stranglehold on the gold medal. The win handed the Czechs their fifth title in 10 years and broke Canada’s bid to win a third consecutive championship and 24th overall, which would have tied them with the former Soviet Union/Russia for the most golds. The Czechs, who were cheered on by a strong contingent of fans, including the Czech president and prime minister, now have 11 titles, counting those from the former Czechoslovakia. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek and Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, visited the players after their victory to personally congratulate them. The Czech team presented Klaus with a red national team uniform with his name and the number 2005, with a glass of champagne. In his short speech he thanked the players for their exceptional performance and representation of the Czech Republic. Nine years ago the Czech team also defeated Canada in the final world ice hockey championships (4-2) and rejoiced over the first Czech champions’ title after the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993. At that time, Klaus was in the audience as the Czech prime minister. Back in Prague, there was cheering in the streets and in Old Town Square, where a big TV screen had been set up. There will be more celebrations tomorrow when the team returns home.
Lesser headlines on the national news scene concerns the coalition government of Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, which won a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament on Friday. Hopefully this will end the months of political crisis in the Czech Republic. Mr Paroubek replaced Stanislav Gross, who had been forced to step down amid months of controversy over his personal finances. All 101 MPs in the ruling coalition voted for Mr Paroubek’s government, while the remaining 99 opposition deputies all voted against.
On the economic front, the Czech Republic climbed from 43rd to 36th place out of 60 countries measured in terms of economic performance, economic policy, the corporate sector, and infrastructure, according to the local news media. The Czech economy’s strongest point is investment in telecoms, where the country ranked third. Foreign investment and exports were also above average. Growing stock prices, literacy, good railways and electricity systems, low interest rates, the number of mobile phones, and relatively low managers’ salaries were other aspects where the country ranked high.
But the Czech Republic fell from 28th to 36th place in economic performance. The country ranked only 56th in labor market, one of its biggest weaknesses, 44th in government policies. Among post-communist countries, only Estonia ranked higher than the Czech Republic. Slovakia, thanks to its many reforms, was 17th, ahead of such countries as Austria and Germany.
Saturday, May 14, 2005.
The weather today was nice, with no rain until shortly after 5pm, but the only walking around we did was to go to the grocery store in the morning. In typical fashion, the checkout took about half an hour. There were two lines open (there are three registers) for the busy crowd. The stores close to us close early on Saturday, so everyone is there to do weekend shopping.
We had dinner with Charlotte and Bruce and Michele and Liz. Bruce put chicken on the Weber charcoal grill on the deck behind their flat and Charlotte made salads and rolls and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The evening was relaxed and fun – the six of us telling stories and reminiscing about common experiences growing up around the same time in the US, and of course talking a bit about current politics. As we all learn a bit more about the Czech culture, we get in touch with our own just a bit more.
We were on our way home when Charlotte sent us a message on our mobile phone that the Swedes had just tied the score with the Czechs in the semifinal world cup hockey game: it was now 2-2 with 10 minutes to go. So Rick stopped in a bar to watch the last few minutes of the game. (I elected to go back to the flat instead of hang out at the very smoky bar.) The Czechs won with a miraculous goal in the last seconds. The goal had to be reviewed because the puck was in and out of the net so fast that it wasn’t clear that the goal had taken place. At every metro station on the way back to the flat, the entire crowd loudly chanted “Češi, Češi,…” Now we’ll have to see if we can watch the finals.
Friday, May 13, 2005.
It’s a beautiful day today. Eva and I met for coffee near Hradčanská to talk about the faculty workshop that she’d like me to help with on the 26th of this month. This is a week-long course for young faculty and doctoral students on teaching methods. I had given a workshop on case teaching, but this one will be on constructing, using and evaluating student teams.
After the business-side of our meeting, we strolled up to the castle to see the Adolf Born exhibit “From La Fontain to Livingston” at the Imperial Stable. Adolf Born is a Czech illustrator of children’s books and the creator of 45 animated films for children. He was born in Ceské Velenice in 1930, and studied at Education Faculty of Charles University in Prague and later at the Academy of Plastic Arts in Paris. The exhibition had many of Born’s illustrations of Grimm’s fairy tales, Three Musketeers, and La Fontain’s fables. There were also clever and amusing paintings inspired by Greece, Holland, Turkey and Norway.
We also stopped by a small gallery of computer-enhanced photographs by Jaroslav Prochazka. The photographs themselves, mostly of dead trees and branches, were not altered, but copies of the pictures were superimposed on themselves to create mirror images that appeared to look like owls, castles, and monsters.
We walked along some of the less-traveled areas around the castle, including the interesting buildings in Novy Svet (“new world”), one of the last surviving residential neighborhoods at Prague Castle, home to buildings dating back 500 years or more. Many of the buildings are now abandoned, perhaps in restitution-limbo, but a few have been refurbished into cafes, galleries and shops.
Later in the afternoon Charlotte and I met downtown at Patriot-X café, a comfortable restaurant with outdoor seating area near Stara Celnice at Republic Square. It was nice to see her again – she just returned last week from a month visit to Chicago, mostly to see her mother who is 88 and amazingly spry.
Rick and I met up at the Spanish Synagogue for services at 7. Tonight’s crowd was relatively small, with only a small handful of regulars and 20 or 30 tourists. Peter conducted the service himself, in English and in Slovak. After the service, we went out with Howard for a quick dinner. Marketa joined us afterward and we went to a glass gallery before heading home for the night. This particular gallery was not to our taste—nor to Howard’s either – but Marketa liked some of the large vases.
Thursday, May 12, 2005.
Today is the anniversary of composer Bedrich Smetana’s death and the start of the Prague Spring Festival, the Czech Republic’s biggest and oldest classical musical festival, and perhaps its best known annual cultural event. The Prague Spring Festival originated in 1946 when the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and its conductor, the late Rafael Kubelik, decided to celebrate the orchestra’s 50th anniversary and the end of the war with a series of concerts in which artists from the West and East would take part. The annual festival opens with “Ma Vlast” (My Country), a cycle of symphonic poems by Czech national music founder Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884). To kickoff the festival, there is a procession from Smetana’s grave at Vyšehrad to the Municipal House, where the London Symphony is playing its first concert this evening. Smetana’s piece has usually been played by Czech orchestras at the opening ceremony on May 12. But this year’s festival, the 60th, will be opened and closed by two prestigious foreign orchestras. Also new this year, part of the festival will include jazz as well as classical music, including a performance by the Herbie Hancock trio, who will perform with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Rudolfinum next Saturday.
Rick and I opted out of any concert tonight – in part because tickets to Prague Spring have gotten so expensive – (approx $150 each) and had a nice dinner at home instead. My whole day was spent at home, transcribing the last of my taped interviews. Rick had an appointment with Ales early in the day, and went to the gym before dinner. I probably should have gone out – today was the first sunny day we’ve had in awhile.
Meanwhile, in the ice hockey world cup quarter-finals, Finland beat Russia in Vienna while the Czechs beat the Americans in a turnabout from last year’s matchup that saw the US win a berth in the semi-finals during a penalty shootout. This time the Czechs were victorious, despite an unbelievably masterful effort by US goalie Rick DePietro, who up until that point had deflected 50 shots on goal by the Czechs. In Innsbruck, Sweden beat the Swiss, so the Czechs will play Sweden on Saturday. Canada beat Slovakia, so Canada will face Russia, who beat Finland 4-3 in a penalty shootout.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005.
We met Ales and Marta at Vyšehrad this afternoon, for a walk around the old castle grounds and to visit some of the cubist houses along the river. Czech architects developed Cubism into a distinctive style in architecture. It was revolutionary in appearance both because of the new shapes facades could take, being different from contemporary and historical styles and because of the use of (reinforced) concrete structures. In this sense Cubism was richer in content than Modernism, using the facade as a plane of expression. The plans of the buildings usually were less radical than those developed by Modernism, but stand out from the traditional buildings in their distinctive angles and graceful dimensions. There are several cubist buildings near Vyšehrad, all designed by architect Joseph Chochol. My favorite is the villa on Libusina. Libusina is now a busy street, so the villa has been converted into an office building instead of a residence. The apartment building on Neklavova is particularly graceful, especially since it’s positioned prominently on the corner. After our walk we went to a nice restaurant near the old castle gate. It’s quite cold tonight—Marta says these cold days in May are called the ice men – but at least it’s stopped raining.
Cubist apartment building on Neklanova Street
Monday, May 9, 2005
The American Embassy and Fulbright folks had asked Karen and me to give a presentation at the Woodrow Wilson Center, which is scheduled for next week. Karen and I do very different things, but we think alike, so we agreed to turn our forced-fit two-some into a panel, with Alena and Marcela at the Sociology Institute to bridge the gap. The four of us met this afternoon to coordinate our presentations and plan the format.
Later in the afternoon I spoke with Alena’s Gender Studies class, an interesting contrast to the Entrepreneurship class I had taught for Martin. These women clearly were not interested in starting businesses, fully understanding the time commitment and fearful of the risks. We had an interesting discussion about women’s versus men’s goals and priorities, including gender stereotypes and social pressures.
The American Embassy invited all the Fulbrighters to a “Gala Concert on the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Czechoslovakia” this evening at the Rudolfinum. The invitation said “dinner jacket,” which we interpreted to mean “formal.” There were a few tuxes, and most people were in typical theater-formal dress, but there were also a lot of men and women in full-dress military uniforms. The first part of the program was performed by the Band of the Armed forced of the Czech Republic, conducted by LTC Viliam Bereš, and the second half by the 76th Army Band, conducted by SFC Kevin G. Reibel, a man who, despite the trim and well-decorated uniform, looks more like a weight-lifter or breast-stroker than a bandleader.
http://www.imms-online.org/html/united_states.htmlBefore the program started, there were several awards given to several Czech officers. The Czech part of the program then started with the 4th movement of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8, and included familiar works by Smetana, Khachaturian, Mácha, and last, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. After an intermission, the American musicians came on the stage, at first with some of the Czechs to round out a full orchestra – sans strings of course, but with a full concert grand piano – to play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, with a masterful piano performance by a woman who is a Czech émigré in the US army. Then the stage was cleared for the 20 men in the jazz band – 17 on brass and a string bass and piano and, for one number, a clarinet. There were also two vocal soloists for “It don’t mean a thing,” and “Almost like being in love.” It goes without saying that the tenor of the music changed. The whole demeanor of the American band was different, more relaxed and upbeat, than the Czech band, with lots of improv and saxophone, trombone, drum and piano solos. After two encores, the full American-band contingency came out and performed Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. Wow.
Victory Day Parade in Prague
Sunday, May 8, 2005.
Today is the official National holiday “Liberation from Fascism, 1945.” For decades, May 9th was celebrated as liberation day, to commemorate the day the soviet tanks overcame the last German resistance and entering Prague, bringing an end to over six years of occupation. But after the fall of communism that date was brought forward to the 8th, the day marked by the Western Allies. And this year’s celebration is bigger than the 50th anniversary, allegedly because of the increased pride the Czechs feel in their own role in the liberation, the security they feel in their own nation, now firmly based in Europe, and the fact that they are less troubled by their association with the Soviets as victors of the war.
There are liberation celebrations all over town today —parades of military vehicles and veterans in historical uniforms, military bands and concerts honoring WWII heroes, and memorial ceremonies for those who lost their lives during the war. We went to see the parade at Letna, where around 1,100 people, 250 vehicles and 9 horses marched in what was the biggest military parade in the Czech Republic since 1989. Besides the land forces, there was a fly-by of Czech helicopters, two types of Czech-made subsonic fighters and for the first time ever - a couple of brand new Jas-39 Gripen fighter jets that will gradually replace an aging fleet of Soviet Migs. In addition to the marching units, there were two concert stages (Czech military and jazz bands playing American tunes, prominently featuring Frank Sinatra) and lots of veterans and enthusiasts showing off old vehicles and supplies, including replicas of compounds and mess halls. Among the guests of honor were many war veterans, the Czech Defense Minister, Karel Kuehnl and, as the supreme commander of the Czech Armed Forces, President Vaclav Klaus. A parachute jump was scheduled for 2pm, but we saw no signs of any jumpers, probably because it was so windy. Around 3pm, we saw the military helicopters fly overhead, but no sign of anyone getting ready to jump. By that time, however, we had made our way to Dejvicka, where there were demarcation zones arranged with cultural events and national food from America, Russia, England, France, Czechoslovakia and Poland. There were bands on several stages, including the “presentation of new anniversary hymn
Dejvická demarkačni,” introduced by President Vaclav Klaus. This was followed by another Czech military band, first with baton twirlers and then military drills, after which there were assorted modern groups, many of whom sang American songs (Broadway tunes and rock and roll), mostly in Czech.
We made another excursion into town later in the evening, this time to the Old Town Square where a gala concert for heroes was scheduled. But we found no concert. There were fireworks on Strelecky ostrov island, but only a short display which we missed. So our evening ended quietly, with no loud music and raucous crowds at the end of the day. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, so walking around town was quite pleasant.
Meanwhile, back in the US, today is Mother’s Day. I miss my favorite mothers – Caroline, Joy, and Lorraine – who are in Denver, which at times like these seems far away. My day was complete when I got a call from Matt. He’s finishing final exams this week and will be leave next Friday to spend the summer in Denver. I also received a nice mother’s day greeting from Molly, who has just returned to the US from Georgia.
Saturday, May 7, 2005.
Prague’s 3-day celebration of the liberation started yesterday, with numerous veterans and other American representatives at wreath-laying ceremonies, speeches, and US Army Band concerts, although wreath-laying and dedications have been going on since Wednesday. We went to see the reenactment of the
Prague Uprising and the battle for Czech Radio, where the call to arms was broadcast. On May 5, 1945, a reporter from the Czech Radio, or Český Rozhlas, broadcast a message calling all Czechs to “come to our aid immediately.” Czech Radio, known in those days as Radiojournal, has been at its current location on Vinohradska Street (known in those days as Foch Street), just behind the National Museum, since 1933, ten years after the station was launched. The original call for help, transmitted to call the Czech police, Czech firemen and people in Prague to help defend the radio building, was the signal for the uprising of the Czech people against the Nazis, the final resistance to the German forces in Czechoslovakia. The center of uprising was in the Radiojournal building, which was seriously damaged by an air attack organized by the Nazis. Some of the street fighting along Vinohradska Street was reenacted by 60 actors in historical uniform, tanks and weapons – complete with loud gunfire and many wounded soldiers carried off to medical vans – but we could not see much through the crowds of spectators behind the barriers. On this day in 1945, some 30,000 people answered the call to take up arms against the Germans and, within four days, fierce street fighting left over 2,000 dead. The Prague Uprising finally came to an end on the morning of May 9 with the arrival of the Red Army –the First Ukrainian Front—who defeated the last vestiges of German resistance. Prague was the last European capital to be liberated after six years of terror at the hands of the Nazis. Unlike in Plzen, the Americans are not the heroes here, having stopped east of Prague under the command of General Eisenhower to honor his agreement with Joseph Stalin to stop short of the Czechoslovak capital city.
Later in the afternoon we went to the main train station to see the photography exhibition from Sebastiao Salgado’s documentary series “Workers,” a display of photographs of manual laborers in 27 countries. This exhibit was arranged in specially designed railway cars, which will travel through 10 Czech cities over the next two months.
Friday, May 6, 2005.
We spent the day in Plzeň (Pilsen), 80 km SW of Prague, the easternmost city in then-Czechoslovakia that was liberated by General Patton’s Third Army before the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945. On May 4, 1945, General Patton gave the order to resume the offensive in West Bohemia, and the 2nd and 97th Infantry Divisions and the 16th Armored Division pushed forward in the direction of Plzeň. American tanks appeared on the streets of the city from eight o’clock on the morning of Sunday, May 6, to be greeted with immense enthusiasm by local inhabitants. Commemoration of the occasion was suppressed under the Communists, but Plzeň has put on ever-bigger celebrations since their departure. For this year’s 60th anniversary, Plzeň city officials have planned a week-long series of high-profile events, and have invited many U.S. veterans who participated in the historic liberation to participate in the celebrations today. The planned celebratory events include the annual “Convoy of Remembrance” parade of historic military vehicles, the grand opening of the newly-constructed Patton Memorial Plzen museum housing WWII historic artifacts, a concert of American classical music featuring U.S. conductor Paul Manfray, and reconstruction of a U.S. army camp outside the city limits. The U.S. military contributed fly-overs, military bands, marching units, honor guards and vehicle displays. The main event was a “Thank you America!” commemorative on Americky Square attended by Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic; Jiri Paroubek, the new prime minister of the Czech Republic (appointed just over a week ago to replace Stanislav Gross who resigned under immense pressure); and William Cabaniss, U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic.
Around the city center we saw many WWII reenactment camps, lots of memorials – most with wreaths – and numerous American flags. In between WWII commemorative events, we visited the Great Synagogue (we didn’t have time to see the old synagogue or the cemetery) which currently has an exhibition of after-the-war photographs (“There was a war here”) showing the devastation, especially in Germany, before reconstruction efforts. The synagogue here is the third largest in Europe, a Moorish style building that has not been renovated on the inside, but which still has original frescoes and ornamentation largely intact. Plzeň was one of the earliest Jewish communities in Bohemia, dating back to the 1300s. As of 1900, the Jewish community in Plzeň was one of the five largest in Bohemia. In 1930, there were about 2,800 Jews in the city (2.4% of the total population). After the German occupation in March, 1939, persecution of the Jews began. In 1942, more than 2,000 persons were deported to Nazi extermination camps. A Nazi plan to destroy the synagogue was given up, since it would have required the destruction of a city block. After the war, the community was reorganized by about 300 persons. The synagogue is still in use.
We spent part of the afternoon at the Pilsner Urquell brewery “Plzensky Prazdroj.” The Burgess (Burgher’s) Brewery in Pilsen brewed the first batch of pale lager on 5th October 1842, under the brands Plzensky pramen (The Spring of Pilsen), Prapramen (The Source of Sources), Mestanske zelene (The Burgess Green), Plzensky pravy zdroj (The Genuine Spring of Pilsen) until the end of the 19th century. The trademark Prazdroj was created in 1898. Until 1933, two breweries existed in Pilsen: the Burgess Brewery (Prazdoj) and Plzenske akciove pivovary (PAP; the Pilsen joint stock breweries). These two merged, with most of the PAP`s shares held by the Burgess Brewery. In 1945, Prazdoj and PAP (Gambrinus) were put under national administration, and the joint stock company Plzenske Pivovary (Pilsen Breweries) was created after privatization on May 1, 1992. The company was renamed Plzensky Prazdroj in 1994, and became part of South African Breweries Plc. after its merger with Radegast in 1999. Our tour took us underground to the many tunnels where barrels of beer once held the aging brew. Rick points out that this phase is what gives lager its name. Lager means to lay by or store in German; the corresponding Czech word is ležák. Lagers are to be distinguished from ales. Lagering is now done above ground in temperature-controlled stainless steel or copper vats. Only in Plzeň can one drink this beer unpasteurized and unfiltered.
Rick bypassed one of the wreath-laying ceremonies in favor of a short trip to the Brewery Museum, which is located in the original Pravovarecny House in the historic center of Plzeň, dating to 1492, although remains of late Gothic architecture belonging to a previous malt house confirm that the building’s foundations were laid much earlier.
References to the house’s use for brewing beer first appeared in 1520. The museum houses documents from the earliest licensed town brewers, which were preserved in burghers’ homes and in the Plzeň brewery, later Plzensky Prazdroj. The building was chosen to house the museum following WWII; at the time the house was in an advanced state of disrepair, but following its overhaul and the installation of the exhibition items the Brewery Museum had its official opening on May 8, 1959, on the 100th anniversary of the “Pilsner beer” trademark.
There were fireworks on the American Embankment in the evening, but Rick and I headed back after dinner on the 8pm bus (the last to Prague) before they started.
3rd army recreated in Plzen
Plzen City Hall
Thursday, May 5, 2005.
My scheduled meeting with Petr at Anglo-American College was rescheduled as a conversation with Kevin, AAC’s outgoing (and interim) President. Kevin is another American who has fallen in love with Prague and has chosen to stay here. Kevin has not fallen in love with higher administration, however, and is eager to assume lower-administrative duties and return to the classroom. Although Petr is retiring from AAC, I still hope to have a chance to talk with him and others who have been at the college for several years, through some of its interesting transitions.
Eva and I went to the Cubist Museum and the café which has recently opened on the first floor. The idea to go to the museum was Marta’s, who had suggested it for last week. I had rescheduled, partly so Eva could join us, but Marta was unable to meet today. I still hope to introduce Eva and Marta, since they are both appreciators of Cubist art and architecture.
This evening is the first dinner together this week for Rick and me. He has been going to his Czech class on Mondays and Wednesdays, which puts him home around 10pm. It was also nice to have a nice simple dinner at home, another rather rare occurrence these days. Only too late did I realize that we had missed the Jazz at the Castle performance by George Robert.
Wednesday, May 4, 2005.
I left on the 6:30am bus for Brno, to give two lectures at the University of Technology. Ralph, a Fulbright engineering professor from Penn State Erie, met me at the bus terminal in Brno at 9am and escorted me to the new classroom building to meet Anna, for whom I would be giving a lecture at 11am. Anna is teaching an Ethics and Social Responsibility class in English to students from France, Germany, Finland, Poland and Wales as part of the Socrates Erasmus program (European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students), the European Commission’s educational program for Higher Education students, teachers and institutions. This was the first class I’ve taught here for non-Czech students, and also the first where the expected language of instruction was English! The students were quite engaged and the discussion lively.
The afternoon class, in another building, was for engineering students. Ralph teaches a class (in English to Czechs) entitled Product Realization and Entrepreneurship and has been talking about turning ideas into business opportunities, so he asked me to talk about creating a business. I used some of the “secrets of great teams” he had given me from one of his previous lectures to talk about “team myths” and the difference between a team and a company.
After his class, I was given a brief tour of the baroque-style Cartesian monastery building in Kralovo Pole that has been home to the engineering school since 1963. This building is the oldest preserved monastery in Moravia, connected by chapels on both sides. I was particularly interested in the offices that had at one time been a cloister, with slots in the thick walls to allow food to be given to the monks who wished to remain in solitude with no human interaction. Other significant points of interest are the painting “Dance of Death” on the front vault arch in the staircase to the first floor, the turrets that are now lovely curved office or library spaces, and the cellar which is set up as a pub-style gathering place.
It rained most of the day in Brno and was still raining in Prague when I arrived at the bus terminal at 7:30pm. I had hoped for more of Monday’s warm, dry weather, but the forecast for the next several days is a return to cooler temperatures and more rain.
Tuesday, May 3, 2005.
Harriet was a guest lecturer for an ethnography class at Charles University this afternoon, and she (and her host) graciously invited me to attend. She spoke about fieldwork in linguistic anthropology, which was fascinating to me and not totally unrelated to the kind of fieldwork that a sociologist or case writer does, although the study of language is more intimate. Harriet described some of her work on the Comoro Islands and in New Orleans, studying language, culture, and music.
Bibi performed some compositions of Dora Pejačevič, Croatia’s first woman composer, as part of a lecture sponsored by Embassy of Croatia at the Clam-Gallas Palace. I had hoped that the evening would be mostly music with some lecture, but instead it was mostly a lecture (about Sidonie Nadherna, a Czech baroness and patron of famous artists between the World Wars), with a bit of music. I understood very little of the lecture, but was glad to finally hear Bibi play the violin.
Monday, May 2, 2005
We’ve gone from cold and rainy to hot and sunny, to the point where the May 2 record of 27.5 degrees centigrade (81.5 F) from 1934 was largely beaten today when Prague’s Klementinum thermometer registered 29.7 degrees Centigrade (85.5 F) this evening. Cooler temperatures and rain are predicted for tomorrow, with torrential rains in places.
Most of my day was spent inside, with various interviews. But the time I had to stroll around in the warm sunshine reminded me of how much I like Prague in the spring. The Czechs, of course, are complaining about the hot weather.
Sunday, May 1, 2005.
Today is May Day, the old Communist International Workers’ Day, the anniversary of the EU ascension, the Orthodox Easter, and the last day of Passover.
Thirty years ago, on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese tanks knocked down the gates of the presidential palace, the heart of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government and the South Vietnamese surrendered, officially marking the end of the Vietnam War and the communist victory over the U.S.-backed regime. At Strelecky Ostrov island in Prague, trade union leaders commemorated the first May Day today.
My afternoon was spent at UNVA listening to the remaining “Redefining Europe” conference sessions. I especially enjoyed Joelle’s presentation comparing Canada’s constitution and situation with that of the EU, and Michael’s comparison of the EU process with American Federalism.
Recently, Czech President Vaclav Klaus urged the Czechs to reject the EU constitution, describing it as a revolutionary document which will change the lives of all Europeans for the worse. Klaus’s stance against the constitution has been making headlines after a Spanish vice president of the European Parliament accused him of misleading and lying to voters, and said his Euro-skepticism could lead Czechs to isolation. Former Prime Minister Stanislav Gross has warned that EU entry would provoke exorbitant price hikes and loss of competitiveness. So far, however, macroeconomic figures have shown that the Czech Republic has benefited from the move. Three quarters of Czech voters said Yes to joining the EU, and even supporters of Klaus’s party the Civic Democrats tend to be generally pro-European. Just under a month from now, the whole of Europe will be watching France, where a crucial referendum is being held on ratifying the European Union’s first constitution. The Czech Republic is due to hold a referendum on the issue next year.
Rick and I had dinner with Marty and Harriet. Marty renewed his Fulbright to stay on the second semester, but we had not had a chance to get together with them since before Christmas. They have a flat in Old Town, so they know all the good (and cheap) places to go. We had a most relaxing dinner at Blatnička, followed by ice cream at Cream & Dream.
The surprise of the evening is that Rick discovered that Marty, who is a cultural anthropologist at Kansas State where Dick Greechie conducted his career for many years, not only knew Dick, but had written several papers with him. In case you might think that mathematicians might have a hard time finding common ground with anthropologists and vice-versa, consider kinship relations. They are a cultural variable of unlimited complexity, and readily admit modeling by abstract mathematical constructs. Sure enough, when Rick Googled Dick’s web page, he found mathematical anthropology among Dick’s listed interests. In fact, the famous C3P0 is a reference to terminology established by this collaboration, since the screenwriter had somehow been exposed to the Greechie-Ottenheimer stuff, and had absorbed at least this fascinating bit of their terminology.
All in all, the evening constituted an extreme example of the small-world phenomenon. And in any case, Dick enjoyed finding out that he was warmly remembered in Prague that night.
