{"id":3606,"date":"2016-02-24T11:10:10","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T16:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svetanyc.com\/?p=3606"},"modified":"2017-10-07T09:45:42","modified_gmt":"2017-10-07T13:45:42","slug":"prague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/192.168.2.119:1984\/svetanyc\/2016\/02\/prague\/","title":{"rendered":"Prague, Czech Republic. February 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Whoever wants to live in Central Europe must never sober up.”\u00a0<\/em>Writer Bohumil Hrabal<\/em><\/p>\n

“Beer is a sign of national identity, a medium of camaraderie, a gift from heaven and a character from a story.” <\/em>Craig Cravens<\/em><\/p>\n

The slim spires of Gothic architecture are the dominant feature of the Prague<\/a>‘s centuries-old skyline, the city known as “Hundred-Spired Prague”, (Stovezata Praha<\/em>). And it was there I decided to spend a few days right after my 36th birthday, in February 2016. Beer, Bohemian glass<\/a> and beautiful architecture are perhaps the first things that come to my mind when I think of Prague and Czech Republic in general. It was the first foreign country my mom visited in 1989 and back then, it seemed to her, as a Soviet citizen, to be the pinnacle of wealth and abundance. Of course, it felt different to me. One thing that caught me off guard was just how similar Belarusian, my mother-tongue, was to Czech language.<\/p>\n

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First of all, let’s get one thing straight – Czech republic<\/a> is not located in Eastern Europe. Czechs never tire of pointing out that Prague lies to the west of Vienna and it is closer to Dublin than Moscow. It is indeed, the “Heart of Europe”! It is also the birthplace of Antonin Dvorak<\/a>, Franz Kafka<\/a>, the religious reformer Jan Hus<\/a>, and the father of modern psycho-analysis Sigmund Freud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nearly three hundred castles and chateaux are scattered throughout the Czech lands and no other city possesses such a wealth of unspoiled historical structures from so many different periods. Countless European cities have been bombed and burnt and torn down and rebuilt again that their physical history survives in stray fragments or not at all. But Prague is the time’s showcase, exhibiting beautiful, eclectic bits from each successive era. Here, Gothic towers neighbor 11th-century courtyards, which lead to Baroque and Renaissance houses with 20th-century bullets embedded in their walls. Art Nouveau hotels abut formerly socialist department stores that now sell French perfume and American sneakers. Through a combination of luck, circumstance, and obstinance, Prague has stockpiled ten centuries of history.<\/p>\n

Despite the manicured beauty of the city, I found its citizens to be depressed, indifferent or cynical. Czech national character was influenced by the small size and uncertain existence of the nation – a sense of national pride in an almost 300-year history of Hussitism<\/a> and an acute sense of humiliation in another 300 years of subjugation. As a result, a pattern seemed to have developed: in times of assured statehood the Czech people strove for the ideals of humanity; in times of peril, they lowered their heads to save the national body. Pushing this argument even further, Chalupny, a Czech sociologist, suggested that the epoch of degradation created a sense of inferiority in the Czechs which is often repugnantly manifested as contemptuous rudeness to those beneath them and a fawning servility to those above them.<\/p>\n

Literature.<\/strong><\/p>\n