Diamonds in the Snow

I keep writing about diamonds in the snow in the Czech Republic and my British friends and family nod and say "Yes, how lovely". But until you've seen them, I don't think you really can know how remarkable these ice formations are. Even in the recent snowy British winters I have not seen anything like them. They are not just the occasional flash of light against pristine winter snow. They are large crystals that grow in formation as the result of a succession sunny days followed by bitterly cold nights. The UK just doesn't get that sort of weather - a couple of bright days if we are lucky, before the grey presses in once more.

They are inevitably not easy to photograph - so my apologies that my efforts here do not do them full justice. But perhaps they might give you, dear reader, a glimmer of the pleasure they bring me.

Mice again

I have arrived back in the Czech Republic to find pristine snow glittering with ice diamonds and clear blue skies. I have also found that I share my home with mice. I suppose it is hardly surprising given the long grass surrounding the house now a foot deep in snow. My local field mice have packed their bags and taken to the warmth of my house.

This is not the first time I have had this problem, as long-standing readers of this blog will know. Before I left the house I spent a great deal of time blocking holes in skirting boards with sadra (plaster) and cutting strips of wood to fit the gaps in the floorboards (my builders had very kindly supplied the mice with perfect nest-building conditions by putting insulation materials under the floorboards). All in vain, alas.

I had left one bed ready made for my return, I turn back the duvet ready to climb in and lo! - a pile of bean husks and mice poo. The following day I searched the house to find that the little furry darlings had knocked over a container of dried peas and struck lucky as the lid had come off, not one pea was left to be seen. Well not to be seen there, all day I found stashes of peas - among the bedclothes, in the towels, in my stationary drawer. Then as I lifted a pillow off the wardrobe a huge quantity of peas fell through a hole which had been gnawed in the pillowcase. I still cannot work out how they got up there, I had to stand on a chair to look, sure enough there was another pile of peas.

Back in the bedroom where I had first found the remnants of mice midnight feast, I suddenly noticed the corpse of a mouse by the table and then, as I picked that up with a shovel, another under the radiator. There was no sign of injury on them and they were as fat as mice who had been living on the products of my larder should be. I carried them into the yard and left them for the farmcat. I am hoping the dried peas disagreed with them. It will save me from extracting mangled corpses from mousetraps if so.

Photographic lane

Back in November I visited Jindrichuv Hradec to arrange a visit by a group from Australia to the town. As part of the visit we will be attending a demonstration at the world-famous tapestry studios established by the Czech cubist Marie Teinitzerova. That studio is to be found along a lane which runs between the walls of the town and a river channel, it also runs at the foot of the beautiful Jindrichuv Hradec castle, hence its name Pod Hradem.

I don't know whether it was because the tour I was organising was for artists, who want a tour which will allow them to see examples of Czech arts and crafts and to create their own art, but I found myself making a photographic study of the lane. I was helped in this by buildings in the lane being both old and mostly unrestored.

 

 

Many have retained their original doors and windows with their lovely decoration and patina.

And ancient windows. It was just like parts of Cesky Krumlov and indeed Prague used to be when first I started to visit this country. Perhaps that was another reason why I found myself so drawn to capturing it photographically, I knew it would not and could not last like this for long.

Even the street lights take you back in time.

 

And then there was this sign outside a small building on the riverside. It's a sign for a beer sanitorium and spa! Maybe I should take the Australians there as well - after all the Czechs have turned brewing and consuming beer into an artform. If I do take them, I will tell you all about it.  

The Greatest Czech

In 2005, following the success of the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons, Czech Television launched a competition to find the greatest Czech. Who won? Not Vaclav Havel, Charles IV, Jan Hus, Jan Zizka, or the country's first president Tomas Mararyk. No, the greatest Czech as voted for by the Czech public was Jara Cimrman.

Never heard of him? He's very well known in the Czech Republic. I was recently reminded of that by the large number of posters on the Prague underground for a Jara Cimrman book. He has his own museum in Prague.

Cimrman was born in Vienna in either 1857, 1864, 1867 or 1894 - the exact date is uncertain, since the doctor recording the birth was drunk. He grew up to be a hugely influential inventor - his inventions include the CD (Cimrman's disc) and yoghurt. Unfortunately he was always a few minutes late at the Patent Office, so someone else got the credit. He was also influential in the theatre, he advised Chekhov that Two Sisters were too few and also corresponded with George Bernard Shaw (who never replied). For a fuller list of his achievements check out his Wikipedia entry.

And yet despite this, Czech TV refused to accept the public's decision.Why not? Well there was the minor problem that he did not exist, has never done so in fact, apart from as a fictional comic creation. The wonderful Czech public had refused to play ball.

But in many ways Cimrman would have been so right for the title. He works not just as a comic character but as a summary of Czechness. The Czechs know that they would have invented everything if they hadn't been distracted, that they would have been great explorers if they had chosen to (Cimrman nearly was the first man to the North Pole - he missed it by seven metres), and that they have wrongly have been overlooked. The trouble is they can't quite take things seriously - things like tv competitions for example.

Hospitality

We Brits are told that we are reserved and private in our behaviour, compared to other nations that is. Looking at the Czechs superficially that may appear to be true, but look closer and in certain crucial ways things are not so simple.  

We are told that an English man's home is his castle. Then what is a Czech's? I have seen inside very few Czech homes. I've sat in their gardens drinking coffee and/or beer but as for going inside, that is another matter. If we want to get to know people, we middle-class Brits will invite them to dinner (usually a dinner party to be precise). The dinner party will often include a tour of the house. Again that has hardly never happened here in Czecho. Well one reason is, I suppose, the fact that the main meal of the day in this country is lunch, but still I think it is deeper than that. Only one Czech friend has cooked for me - lunch or dinner.

I am not sure why this is. Perhaps it goes back to the communist days, when the only people you could trust were family and close friends and the only place you felt (relatively) secure was in your own home.  You didn't let strangers into the sanctuary - a Czech's home was indeed a castle, whereas the Englishman's was actually his family seat.

If you do get invited to someone's home or garden - then take a gift. And if you invite someone to yours expect at least one jar of jam, or some home-made slivovice, or a whole tin of cakes, or vegetables and fruit from the garden or a mixture of these. In my experience the gifts will be home-made rather than shop-bought, especially if your guest is female. No matter that you only invited them round for a cup of tea - it is simply not done for them to arrive empty-handed.

I was talking about this to a friend, who although Czech by birth and upbringing spent twenty years in Britain, and we came to the conclusion that it was something about the Czechs wanting to show that they can afford to give food in return, again a harking back to a time when indeed there was very little to go around.

Hussite Video/Slideshow

The Hussites were followers of the teachings of theologian Jan Hus (John Huss) who was burnt at the stake as a heretic. Their one-eyed general Jan Zizka turned his followers from inexperienced peasant farmers into a formidable fighting force. The music is one of their hymns - "Warriors of God".

The Real Good King Wenceslas

There are many myths and few facts about the original Good King Wenceslas.

Let's start with the facts. Wenceslas was Vaclav I Duke of Bohemia from 921 - 935 AD. He was born into the house of the Přemyslids, the first rulers of Bohemia, at a time when Christianity was only just beginning to take hold among the Slavs. His grandfather Borivoj was converted by St Cyril and St Methodius (the Apostles to the Slavs) and Wenceslas was brought up a Christian by his father Vratislav. When Vratislav died Wenceslas was only 13 and his care passed to his saintly grandmother Ludmila. But a power struggle ensued over control of the young king and his kingdom between Ludmila and Wenceslas' mother Drahomira, which resulted in Ludmila's death by strangulation. In 924 or 925 Wenceslas had his mother exiled and took control of his dukedom.

Under his rule Christianity was promoted in Bohemia and the chronicles attribute to Wenceslas great acts of piety. In 929 the army of  the Duke of Saxony, Henry the Fowler, attacked Prague and Wenceslas sued for peace and pledged allegiance to the German Duke. This action together with Wenceslas' support of the Christian church angered many Bohemian nobles who turned to Wenceslas brother Boleslav as an alternative duke. At some point later Boleslav invited Wenceslas to a religious feast and when Wenceslas was on his way to church Boleslav and his allies murdered him

So Wenceslas was actually Vaclav; he wasn't a king but a duke and we can't even be sure of the dates - he may have died in 929 or alternatively 935. History is also unclear about his enemies. Was Drahomira a pagan - the chronicles can't make up their minds. Was Boleslav - well he didn't exactly stop the growth of christianity after Wenceslas' death. What we have here is a pretty typical example of realpolitik in the Dark Ages, with the usual fratricide, invading armies, conspiracies and a dose of religion to boot.  After which we get the postumous and highly unreliable hagiographic royal biographies.

Now for some of the myths -

• The story of the old man seeking fuel appeared in 1853 - a piece of Victorian whimsy by John Mason Neale. The tune however is older - it's a medieval spring carol.
• Wenceslas is said to be sleeping with an army of knights under Mount Blanik waiting to ride out to save the Czech nation - though why you would want a leader who failed to defeat the Germans in his lifetime escapes me. 
• In an extension to the last myth Wenceslas will take the magical sword of Bruncvik from a stone in Charles Bridge, and with the sword he will defeat the country's enemies. Myths it seems are the same the world over.

Well there you go - the real Good King Wenceslas stays as illusive as ever.