srub démocrate

Review of the Czech Republic, Vol. 13, N0 6/2006
Equestrian statue of St Wenceslas, patron saint of the Czech lands, on Wenceslas Square in Prague, Josef Václav Myslbek, 1912; Photo: Monika Harbichová
Contents
Surprising Religious Shifts
at the Heart of Europe
– the Czech lands as a spiritual space
pages 4 – 7
Editorial
According to sociological studies carried
out at the end of the twentieth century, the
Czech Republic along with Estonia and the
former German Democratic Republic are
among the least religious countries in Europe and indeed the entire planet. What has
happened in the course of history to Czech
belief? In the past, the Czech lands were a
byword not only for religious fervour, but
for a subtle and deep religious culture. It is
worth recalling that Christianity was not
introduced here by fire and sword: instead,
the first centuries of the incorporation of
the Gospel into the Czech milieu are symbolized by such highly educated individuals as the philosopher Constantine-Cyril, Prince Wenceslas and Bishop Vojtěch
(Adalbert). The Czech lands have always
been favourable to reforming trends, and
this has traditionally been, if not the cradle,
then at least fertile soil for religious innovations – devotio moderna in the late
Middle Ages, pre-Reformation movements,
Hussitism, Utraquism.
What then explains the current dereligification of Czech society? Is it merely a question
of a more marked expression of the general
process of secularization in Western society?
Is it an end product of decades of Communist
rule, with its suppression of the churches
and massive atheistic propaganda?
One possible answer is that Czech spirituality gradually overflowed from the classic church form into another manifestation.
When considering the religious development of Czech society, we should not focus
merely on commonly mentioned (and statistically researched) phenomena such as participation in religious services and the traditional church forms of religious practice.
It seems to me that the passionate concern
for the values of the Christian faith – and
especially for its ethical and social aspects
(truth, justice) – that used to be so typical
of the Czech lands has not vanished completely. But this ethos is now articulated
in another discourse than that of the traditional language of the church.
My term for this phenomenon is “the modest
belief of the Czech lands”. If one considers
the outstanding figures in Czech culture in
the past century and a half or more – Bernhard Bolzano, Karel Havlíček Borovský,
František Palacký, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Karel Čapek, F. X. Šalda, Václav Černý, Jan Patočka, Václav Havel – one feature they all share is that none of them was an
atheist. On the contrary: each of them placed great importance on what they referred
to by such terms as the vertical or transcendental of human existence, the “horizon of
horizons”, the “angle of eternity”, and so
on. They were all very sensitive to the moral
values of Christianity, but none of them expressed themselves in traditional church
terminology. I would use the phrase “modest
belief” in connection with a comment made
by the Czech author Jaroslav Durych in his
description of a journey he made in Spain.
While the Spanish Catholic prays with the
help of dramatic gestures – for example
spreading his arms wide before the cross –
according to Durych the typical Czech’s gestures while praying are furtive, discrete,
as though he felt himself the object of the
sceptical and ironic gaze of the non-believer. It seems that the Czech mentality
mistrusts such striking outward forms of
religion, feels they are insincere, merely
formal, or is afraid that they are a mask
for concerns of power.
I believe that this “modest belief”, this spirituality present in the thinking of the leading
figures in Czech culture that avoids traditional manifestations of faith, is the missing
link in the process of the shift from the traditional religious belief of the church to the
“invisible faith” of our society. But just
because it does not display the features of
that earlier type of religious belief is no
reason for us to confuse it with atheism.
Miracles, and St. Matthew’s Pilgrimage
– pilgrimages: originally religiously
motivated journeys, today occasions
for merrymaking
pages 8 – 11
The Guests at Czech Hospices
– homes for the terminally ill are no
houses of horror
pages 12 – 13
The clients at Camphill, České Kopisty
– having found a home here, the mentally
handicapped work hard to keep it
pages 14 – 15
The Bethlehem Chapel Revivus
– the place where the legendary Jan Hus
preached now regains its dignity
pages 16 – 19
The forgotten inheritance
– of the (not only) small stone monuments
of the Bohemian Forest
pages 20 – 21
Holy Protectors of the Czech Lands
– highly educated personalities and
martyrs, rooted in Czech history
pages 22 – 25
Traditional Pilgrimage Sites
– an invitation to sites where people
“seek grace”
pages 26 – 29
The Trials of Jan Koblasa
– his statues found in collections in
Amsterdam, Philadelphia and Aswan, at
home his name was taboo for twenty years
pages 30 – 33
Mosaic
– interesting people and events
in the Czech Republic
pages 34 – 35
Witnesses to Bygone Tragedies
– for a long time it was not clear what
purpose was served by these stone
crosses in the countryside
pages 36 – 38
The Heart of Europe appears six times a year and presents
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Editor-in-chief: Pavel Šmíd, Art editor: Karel Nedvěd
Chairman of the Editorial Board: Zuzana Opletalová, Director
of the Press Section of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and spokesman for the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Members of the Editorial Board: Libuše Bautzová, Pavel
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Petr Volf
Translation by members of the Department of English and
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Lithography and print by VČT Sezemice
Tomáš Halík
Professor of the sociology of religion
at Charles University in Prague and President
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ISSN 1210–7727
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3
Surprising Religious Shifts
at the Heart of Europe
As far back as the ninth
century, the terrritory of
what is now the Czech Republic was the scene of an
interesting religious experiment. It would seem that
the aim of the Byzantine
missionaries Cyril and
Methodius in Great Moravia was to create an independent religious entity
alongside Latin and Byzantine Christianity. Later the
Western branch was to dominate, but the Czech lands remained
open to the Christian East. In the fifteenth century almost the whole of
Bohemia and most of Moravia joined
in an attempt to reform the Church.
4
Adult baptism, Old Catholic Church
Acolytes, blessing of school bags
in Pardubice
This continued throughout
the sixteenth century and
only after the uprising of the
Czech Estates was crushed
in 1620 did this experiment
run aground. But one hundred years after the first
Czech efforts at reform,
Martin Luther had expressly declared his debt to the
Czech Reformation.
Why is it that a country
that used to be so deeply religious is now a religious
anomaly? How did it come to pass
that today this is a country in which a
large majority of inhabitants say that
they have no religious belief? A similar situation can be found in the
Society
Before Advent Mass in St Vitus‘ Cathedral
“Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’
but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’”
Khalil Gibran
Lebanese author
(1893-1931)
former East Germany, Bulgaria and
Latvia. In Slovakia, which was closely
linked for centuries with the Czech
lands (with which it shared a common state from 1918-1992), religion
is a natural part of public and private
life. In neighbouring Poland, almost
everyone belongs to the Roman Catholic Church; only a tiny handful of
Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Muslims, Jews and members of other faiths
are to be found. The same is true of our
southern neighbour, Austria.
W
hen the results of the most recent census, taken in 2001, were made
public, some newspapers wrote that
the majority of Czechs were atheists.
But other surveys show that individuals who are convinced that God does
not exist and that religion in any form
is pointless do not account for even
ten percent of the population. So what
is the real situation with almost half
the population?
The expression “nondenominational” is an old administrative term. In
an era when the state made official
belief a criterion for participation in
public life, it used this term to refer to
those who did not belong to the officially recognized religious groups.
Today the term is used to lump together people with various attitudes
to religion, from atheists through
religious seekers who have not yet
come to a final decision (and indeed
may never do so) to religious individualists who are unwilling to put a
name to their conviction and practice
but are certainly religiously inclined.
The American sociologist Robert
Neely Bellah has done research on
religious individualism, a term that
Christmas plays in Kladno, Czechoslovak Hussite Church
can be used to characterize a third of
Americans. And here in the Czech
Republic, too, this phenomenon is
gradually appearing.
Most frequently those who list themselves as “nondenominational” are in
fact religiously indifferent. These are
people who have no interest in either
religion or atheism. They do not pass
any definitive judgements concerning
God or any other phenomena transcending the bounds of this world. They
do not confirm or deny them. Religion
and atheism irritate them.
Yet the Czech Republic has a very
rich religious scene. Somewhat more
than a quarter of the population at the
present time is made up of Roman
Catholics, at least formally. But active Catholics only account for a small
portion of these, around 4 percent of
the population. Their numbers are
steadily falling, but still they form the
most numerous group. Traditionally
they are joined by two relatively large
churches. Of these, the Czechoslovak
Hussite Church was established in
1920, fourteen months after the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic,
5
Flower offering at Hare Krishna festival
Celebrating Good Friday, Old Catholic Church
by former Roman Catholics who felt
drawn to national religious traditions
and promoted a programme of modernism. This church grew rapidly
and had almost a million members.
Today it is only a tenth its size at the
time of its greatest glory. The Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren
came about in December 1918 through
the union of two Protestant churches,
the Church of the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) and the Church of the
Helvetian (Reformed) Confession.
T
he three largest churches are losing adherents. But nondenominational
numbers are not rising proportionally.
So what is happening to the former Roman Catholics, Protestants and Hussites? If we look at the statistics, we
see that the smaller Christian churches
are stable and some are even growing
significantly. In the ten years between
the most recent censuses, their numbers have increased dramatically.
Impressive growth was chalked up
by some small Protestant churches,
but also by Orthodox churches (most
likely thanks to immigration from
Russia and the Ukraine) and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Smaller Christian churches such as
the Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals
and Seventh Day Adventists could
not have absorbed the hundreds of
thousands of people that are unaccounted for in the statistics. In this
connection, there is a tendency to
overlook the modest category found
somewhere towards the bottom of all
comparative tables. Even its name says
nothing at first glance – “Others”.
6
Visitors at the Spanish Synagogue in Prague
Who are these people? Officially,
those who do are not members of any
registered religious group, but who –
unlike those who have been put in the
category “Nondenominational” – in
fact do claim to have some kind of
belief. Aside from figures that reflect
confusion in filling in the form, these
are people who belong to various small,
new, alternative religious groups, whether
Christian or non-Christian. It is interesting to note that between the last two
censuses (in 1991 and 2001) this unobtrusive group has grown more than
fortyfold, overtaking Evangelicals
and Hussites and ending up in second
place behind the Roman Catholics.
Since 2001 five religious groups whose
members were earlier hidden beneath
to a certain degree more as a social
club, with spiritual interests remaining
on the periphery.
V
Falun Gong; the exercises of this cultivation method
of the Buddha School are carried out in parks
in fifteen Czech towns
the meaning of life or ethical values.
Instead, they are said to be pragmatic
and technically-minded. But elsewhere people refer to modest Czech
belief. Some consider today’s critical
situation the beginning of change.
The many centuries of dominance by
the major Christian churches is coming
to an end, alternative forms of spirituality are taking root in small, informal
groups or individually. Some say that
we are “incurably religious” beings,
that in fact religion is an anthropological constant and it is taking on new
forms in changed conditions.
Today ideas and practices connected with the hermetic tradition are becoming popular, as are various astrological, alchemical and cabalistic interests. In the past few decades, thousands
of people have had some experience
of magic and Rosicrucian orders. After
the fall of the former regime, Freemasonry revived, even though it functions
arious Eastern religions have
grown considerably in popularity.
Buddhist meditation groups have
sprung up like mushrooms. It is estimated that around half of all Czech
Buddhists belong to the Diamond
Path, linked to the famous Danish
lama Ole Nydahl. This community is
now preparing for registration, and
will undoubtedly fulfil the moderate,
very liberal conditions. At the present
time they have almost fifty centres
in Bohemia and Moravia. Thousands
of people have also made meditation
sessions with the Yoga association
part of their daily life, under the leadership of the Indian master Maheshvarananda, currently residing in Vienna.
The majority of Czech people do
not have a very positive attitude to religion, but it can be said that the stance
of the state is very liberal. At the time
of the passage of a law on the status of
the churches in 2002 there were attempts
to increase bureaucratic control over
religious activity. But a final resolution of the issue is still in the air, somewhere between the government, Parliament, the President and the Constitutional Court.
Ivan O. Štampach
Photos: Antonín Forbelský, Czechoslovak Hussite
Church, Evangelical Church of the Czech
Brethren, Old Catholic Church, Jan Lokos,
ČTK, Czech Hare Krishna Movement
the rubric “Others” have become officially registered – two Christian
churches, two Hindu groups, and the
Muslim community.
I
t would seem that the mass flight
from religious denominations is slowly ending, and that it is now more a
question of individuals moving away
from the large, traditional religious
churches – which the public believes,
rightly or wrongly, to be linked to
political parties and to have strong
financial interests – and choosing instead small, relatively new religious
groups.
The media claim that Czechs are
not interested in religious questions,
Celebrating a Moslem festival in the Brno mosque
7
Miracles, and
St. Matthew’s Pilgrimage
St. MatWhen people use the word “pilgrimage”, they mean different things. Originally a pilgrimage meant a journey:
long, difficult and full of dangers. A
pilgrim was anyone who was travelling: this did not always signify a
religious purpose.
T
he dictionary
defines a pilgrimage
as a journey to a special destination with a
religious or mystical aspect. This kind of pilgrimage became very widespread
during the Middle Ages. The
most popular pilgrimage routes
among Christians led to the
Holy Land or to Rome. Pilgrims
set out to visit the graves of saints
8
and to view their relics or images, or
to visit the places where miraculous
or extraordinary events had taken place.
In Catholic countries such pilgrimages are very much alive today. They
were originally religious in character,
but they also serve a social function
and not incidentally provide a
tourist attraction. Pilgrimages are part of many of the
world’s religions: each year
thousands of Muslims go to
Mecca, while Hindus travel to
bathe in the holy River Ganges.
Dozens of pilgrimages, some
renowned, some little-known, are
still held each year in the Czech Republic, as they are in other European
countries built on Christian cultural
foundations. They are usually held
to honour pictures or statues of the
Customs
“For a pilgrimage, well-planned
and with a goal in mind, is a child
of joy.”
Jakub Deml
Czech priest and author
(1878-1961)
from the book Pilgrimage
to Svatá Hora
Virgin Mary or of other saints who
receive the prayers of the devout and
are able to intervene positively in
their lives. Often pilgrims leave little
plaques expressing the thanks for
answered prayers. Sometimes they
take the symbolic shape of limbs or
organs returned to health: little legs,
arms, ears or eyes, usually made from
wax; wealthy people had them made
of silver. These are placed in the
church near miraculous statues or
pictures. Pilgrims usually walk to the
designated site together in what are
called processions. They may travel
for several days; their sufferings along
the way heighten the urgency of their
prayers and the likelihood they will
be heard. Many pilgrimage places are
located near some natural spring
whose waters are considered miraculous. The honouring of springs and
sources of water goes back to preChristian times; the Catholic Church
at first tolerated this cult, then coopted it. Indeed, such pure spring
water (often slightly radioactive) may
contribute to one’s health in some
cases, especially combined with firm
belief. Pilgrimages to famous churches
were part of social life not only in the
country, but in urban areas as well.
Even little children took part, often
cards. Holy pictures served as rewards
for good children; sometimes they
were buried with the deceased. Today
they are prized collectors’ items.
Besides the Infant of Prague, whose
cult spread from Prague throughout the
entire world, the most famous Czech
pilgrimage sites included Svatá Hora
near Příbram, Stará Boleslav, Velehrad, Svatý Kopeček near Olomouc,
Hostýn, Nicov, Klokoty, Lomec, Králíky, Filipov, Vranov and many other
localities.
O
carried on the backs of their parents.
For young people the pilgrimage was
an opportunity to meet others, and
go someplace they had never been
before. It was an unwritten rule that
you had to bring home gifts for family
and friends, usually “holy pictures”,
pictures of the sacred places; later a
picture of the saint painted on glass,
on cups, drinking glasses or on other
items. Other suitable trinkets were
rosaries, statuettes, scarves, beads
and, in the twentieth century, post-
n pilgrimages, however, not
only religious considerations are involved: in the past some Czech pilgrimages were of a political nature,
for example pilgrimages by Czech
patriots to places like Říp Mountain
(the legendary arrival point of the first
Czechs), Blaník (where an army of
knights is waiting to save the country
“in its worst hour”) or the village of
Husinec (birthplace of Jan Hus). At
times of political trouble for the nation
these events became an expression of
love for country, psychologically bonding the participants.
Another meaning of the word pilgrimage is the Catholic phenomenon
called the festum patrocinii, or cele-
9
bration of the saint to which the local
church is consecrated. If the church is
dedicated to St Wenceslas, the pilgrimage will take place on 28 September,
for this is the day of St Wenceslas in the
liturgical calendar. Churches are named
for different saints, and thus the pilgrimages rotate throughout the year
according to the liturgical calendar.
They are accompanied by special services of worship and often by visits
by higher church officials. After the
Battle of the White Mountain in 1620
the Czech lands were predominantly
Catholic; thus church rituals were part
of the family and social life of every
village and town. Pilgrimages were
where relatives and friends came together, boy met girl and proposals of
marriage were made and accepted.
They were events of a social as well
10
as a religious character. There was also
an element of community prestige involved: the magnificence of the procession, the accompanying music,
how well the people danced and how
many people came: everything was
carefully noted, and comparisons drawn
with the festivals of other villages.
From medieval times on, theatre presentations were also part of the pilgrimage entertainment. In front of the
church, trick bears and their trainers,
acrobats, jugglers and other itinerant
artists held forth. Add to that the
stands selling sweets and other delicacies, and this was the pilgrimage
festival, unchanged until the coming
of modern times.
Which brings us to the last meaning
of the word pilgrimage. For many
people today the word means cotton
Vltava). From the Lesser Town they
walked up to Prague Castle to the
Church of St. Vitus, where the tongue
of St. John of Nepomuk was said to
rest (the relic is actually a
piece of brain tissue). The
St. Wenceslas pilgrimage
used the same route. Both
events brought thousands
of visitors to Prague.
To this day in Prague
the first pilgrimage of the
year is the curious pilgrimage of St. Matthew (24 February) in Šárka. The
church is
small and
originally
lay beyond
the boundaries of the
city. But St.
Matthew’s day
was always one
of the favourites,
a day when you
could feel the approach of spring.
The little church
stands on a hill and
the area is small, so it eventually became difficult to find room for all the
necessary attractions. To satisfy the
numbers of pilgrims, the accompanying attractions were moved to Vítězné Square in Dejvice, before finding
a permanent home at the Exhibition
Grounds in Holešovice. In this way
the amusements became separated
from the religious celebration. But
that doesn’t bother today’s visitors:
nowadays very few are aware that the
original purpose of the pilgrimage
was a journey of the soul.
A
nother feature
of pilgrimages since
medieval times has
been ornately-decorated gingerbread cookies, especially in the
shape of a heart. To
this day it is a traditional pilgrimage gift,
bearing the words
“With Love”. Likewise, no pilgrimage
in the nineteenth
century could
be without its
grilled
sausages,
pickles and
Turkish delight.
All of which are
still standards today. Nowadays we
bear away home
from the pilgrimage
not holy pictures, but
big wads of cotton candy
on a stick, paper roses and
plastic balloons. And like children
centuries ago, we look forward to
next year.
Milena Secká
Náprstek Museum
Photos: Karel Cudlín; holy pictures:
author’s archives
candy and noisy (and expensive) kiddie
rides. While in the villages the pilgrimage was celebrated with great dignity,
it was otherwise in the towns, where
there were more churches. The pilgrimages in the central church or churches
consecrated to the more important
saints were celebrated in a more opulent manner. The most grandiose pilgrimages were the St. Wenceslas day
events (28 September), honouring the
country’s patron saint and protector.
After that came St. Joseph’s day (19
March) and St. Ann’s day (26 July).
The second-largest pilgrimage in
Prague after St. Wenceslas’ was St.
John’s day (16 May), for which participants gathered in the Old Town,
then proceeded over the Charles
Bridge (where St. John of Nepomuk
was thrown off and drowned in the
11
The Guests
at Czech Hospices
The Roman philosopher Cicero (106
– 43 BC) uses the word “hospes” for a
host who welcomes and entertains an
unexpected guest. The word “hospes”
is the root of the adjective “hospitalis”, which means “friendly”. Other words with the same
source include hospital, hotel
and hospice. In Rome in the seventh or eighth century a place
was established where pilgrims
to the grave of St. Peter could
rest and recover their strength.
It was called the Hospitium.
ideas on care for the dying all over
the world. Hundreds of hospices have
been established in Britain, and there
are now hospices in more than 95
A
t that time hospices were
known as places of rest and recuperation. The concept of hospices as
places for the dying to spend their last
days in peace was initiated in modern
times by the founder of the modern hospice movement, Dame Cicely Saunders.
She began in 1967 at St Christopher’s
in London; since then, she has reshaped
12
At the John Nepomuk Neumann Hospice
countries around the world. The Czech
Republic has ten regular hospices as
well as six that provide mobile care.
The founder of hospice care in this
country is MUDr. Martie Svatošová,
who says that a hospice is “the art of
companionship”. In the hospice the
spiritual element of care is accentuated in the kind of friendly, domestic environment that many hospitals
lack. A social worker, psychologist or chaplain is always
part of the professional team.
Help from volunteers can also
be counted on; in the Englishspeaking countries they are
called “listeners”. The need to
be heard: this reveals another
aspect of what spiritual comfort for the terminally ill at the
hospice is all about.
The first hospice in the
Czech Republic was the Hospic Anežky České (Agnes of Bohemia
Hospice) in Červený Kostelec. It was
officially opened as a project of the
Diocesan Charity of Hradec Králové
in December 1995 and functions in a
new building that provides its guests
with all the amenities.
At the Road Home hospice
Agnes the Czech Hospice
The Vysočina hospice movement, Nové Město na Moravě:
clients in the seniors’ home
At the John Nepomuk Neumann Hospice
Health
St Stephen Hospice
“All paths lead to the people.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
French author
(1900-1944)
The interiors of the rooms are designed to be home-like, not institutional. This
is an important element of hospice care.
“The philosophy of the hospice is to
preserve to a certain extent the comfort
of domestic surroundings. What’s crucial is the concept of quality of life as
defined by the patients themselves and
their loved ones. The goals of treatment
and what specific treatments are to be
undergone are decided by the patients,
their loved ones and the medical team,”
says Václav Filec, a specialist on hospice care. Each room has its own bathroom and shower. On the individual
floors there are small tea kitchens. Besides the daytime room with cafeteria,
there is a glassed-in veranda including
some resident parrots: a good place for
comfort and relaxation. Though age,
race or religion play no role in acceptance to the hospice, the spiritual centre
of the building is the chapel, where
mass is held twice a week. The daily
programme is adapted to the clients’
needs: visiting hours are any time, 24
hours a day, 365 days a year. Guests
contribute a small amount to cover the
costs of their care, according to their
ability to pay; if necessary the fee can
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be waived. The majority of guests at the
Agnes of Bohemia Hospice are clients
in an advanced state of oncological illness. Around 50 volunteers work at the
hospital, in addition to doctors, nurses,
interns and other personnel.
“Of course, none of our other hospices are exactly like the one in Červený Kostelec. On the contrary every
hospice in this country is a little different, just as our families and homes are
different,” explains Václav Filec.
D
uring the ten years they have
existed, Czech hospices have not yet
caught up with what the English have
achieved over forty years. Experience
and new ideas are constantly being
exchanged through an international
programme called Hospice Twinning,
which helps organize close cooperation
with partner hospices in Great Britain.
“A logical step toward increasing the
user-friendliness of treatment centres
(and not just hospices) is opening up
and giving access to religious workers.
In our not-so-religious society this is a
new idea – current health care legislation does not address the issue of spiritual care, but then again does not forbid
it,” says Filec, one of the initiators of
the discussion over participation by religious workers at health care facilities.
“Legislative change needs to be encouraged and financing for hospice
care assured. It’s also important to expand awareness of them on the part
of the broader public, government officials included, perhaps in the form of
education centres. These are the most
immediate tasks of the hospice movement in the Czech Republic,” adds Marie Macková of the Faculty of Social
Health at the University of Ostrava.
Photos: Association of Hospices
in the Czech Republic
13
The Clients
at Camphill, České Kopisty
Camphill is a facility named after the
Camphill Estate in Scotland, where
the Austrian educator Dr. Karl König
laid the foundations for mental health
care. It is a village where the mentally
handicapped find a dignified and civil
environment, where the accent is on
activity and spiritual growth.
Elsewhere, the mentally
handicapped are excluded
from everyday society: they
have no chance to find a
good job and the usual leisure-time activities of their
peers are not open to them.
Often they spend a lot of
time at home with parents or
grandparents, usually watching television.
On Wednesday and Friday,
Vlasta, Naďa and Marek come
to České Kopisty. Each of
14
them is different, but they have one
thing in common: they are clients and
residents of Camphill. Here they join
Anička, Láďa and Miloš, who live here
all year round. Anička grew up in a
Assistants and clients at Camphill České Kopisty
children’s home, from which she moved
on to a Halfway House. Láďa wound
up in a senior citizens’ home, and Miloš
lived with his sister, but she was unable to properly care for him. Gradually all three found a home at the only
Camphill in the Czech Republic.
I
n the morning after
breakfast they go, accompanied by their social assistants, to the workshop. In
the textile workshop they
weave on hand looms, fill
pillows and felt wool. Residents of Camphill also work
with wood and pottery. Last
year they bought a kiln, and
Camphill products such as
their Nativity scenes soon
became an article in demand
Vlasta, Hana and Naďa planting strawberries in the autumn
Dagmar and her client Anička cutting chives
Some of Camphill’s original ceramic products
Naďa and Anička selling Camphill products at the Christmas market
Christmas performance by employees and clients of Camphill České Kopisty
at various outdoor fairs. They produce
wooden candleholders, Easter decorations and lovely tea services.
Every day some of the clients stay
home and help to cook in the kitchen.
They cook their own bio-vegetables
from their own field. Where possible,
the clients help grow vegetables, work
in the harvest and pitch in with canning or freezing.
T
he routine at Camphill is livened
up by crafts fairs and other traditional
events, the Carnival procession with
masked ball, St. Nicholas’s Day celebrations, various folk observances and
so on. Last year the personnel and clients
at Camphill prepared a Christmas play
about the Lord’s birth: their performance was attended by 60 acquaintances,
friends and village residents.
Weekends are times for outings, cultural events or hikes; the biggest event
in this year’s holidays was a week in
the mountains. “We were a bit stressed
out, not only in climbing the Giant
Mountains, but also when Láďa got
lost in the mist on a hike. Luckily
the rangers found him, but pretty
far away; he was striding happily along
and didn’t even know he was lost,”
says Radomil Hradil, the association’s
Vice-Chairman.
Camphill was founded as a nongovernmental, non-profit organization
in 1999 in the village of České Kopisty, about one kilometre away from the
former concentration camp at Terezín
(Theriesenstadt). The farm bought by
the founders had a very complicated
history after the war: in 1953 the
Communists drove out the family that
owned the farm, sending the man to
work in the uranium mines. Until
1989 the farm was run by an agricultural cooperative, which left the place
Anička and the huge dish she carved
desolated. In 2000 the rebuilding started, financed by several foreign foundations. In 2002 Camphill was damaged
by a flood – the village and a large
area around it ended up several metres
below the waters of the Labe (Elbe)
River. After the flood reconstruction
continued, and in January 2004 Camphill was opened for mentally handicapped people.
Care for mentally disadvantaged
people in this country is still concentrated in large state institutions. The
only alternative is for parents to care
for them at home (often with the help
of grandparents) as long as they can.
Smaller community facilities are practically non-existent. Only in January
2007 will a new law on social services
similar to those in other EU countries
go into effect.
“To establish in the Czech Republic
a new method of care for the disabled
is a pretty tough struggle but the joy
our clients get from their work, their
own products and produce, the life
they live, convinces us that it’s worth
the effort,” adds Hradil.
The editors
Photos: Camphill České Kopisty
(www.camphill.cz)
Bank account number (accepting CZK
and Euros): 2365285001/2400
15
The Bethlehem Chapel Revivus
In the heart of Prague’s Old Town
the trapezoid-shaped structure of the
Bethlehem Chapel juts forward into the
square bearing its name, one taken
from Christ’s birthplace and concealing
at its core the troubled course of history. Over the years, hardly a stone of
the chapel walls was left standing,
though for six centuries the foundations remained firmly in place.
All who walk through the streets of
the Old Town arrive eventually at Bethlehem Square, linked indelibly with
the name of Jan Hus (c 1370-1415).
preacher there. Before him came Jan
Protiva and Štěpán of Kolín, and only
in 1402 Master Jan Hus. In addition to
Imaginary view of the Bethlehem Chapel
by Václav Želízko, 1831
The Bethlehem Chapel today
V
View of Bethlehem Chapel and surroundings,
Ing. J. D. Huber, 1765-1769
Since the fourteenth century the square
has undergone many changes. The original Philip and James street, flanked
by a church dedicated to these two saints
and its adjacent graveyard, formed the
backbone of the space. The shape of
this original layout is now marked by
the semicircular pavement edged with
bollards situated in front of the chapel.
The chapel itself was founded by one
of King Wenceslas IV’s courtiers, Jan
Manuš of Mülheim, and the shopkeeper
Kříž, an alderman in the Old Town. On
24 May 1391 the area, which also included Kříž’s commercial buildings
with a malthouse and garden, was declared a building site for the Bethlehem
Chapel, intended explicitly as a place
where preaching would be carried out
in the Czech language.
The primary mission of the chapel
was to reach out to the broad masses of
the public. Jan Hus was not the first
16
being custodian of the chapel, he was
a preacher in the Church of St Michael,
a priest and the newly-elected Rector
of Prague University. From that time
on, the chapel was linked with the
university.
ery little of the original structure
has survived. The original Bethlehem
Chapel was a simple structure, built
in the common style. The flat wooden
roof enhanced its stylistic purity. Some
of the windows had pointed Gothic
View of Prague by Folpert van Ouden-Allen (1685),
showing imaginary windows on the façade of the chapel
arches, others were rectangular, as in
burghers’ houses. The speed with which
the chapel was built is reflected in the
five entrances situated in the corners of
the structure.
From the chapel, Hus spoke to the
whole of Prague. For seven years he
preached here with the support of the
king and archbishop. But his sincere
and orthodox Christian faith came into
increasingly sharp conflict with the
religious and secular authorities. In
1410 the Pope ordered the chapel to be
closed down. Two years later, when
Hus spoke out against the sale of indulgences, he lost the support of the
king. On 11 July 1412 the first victims
of growing unrest were buried in the
chapel, three young men who had been
executed for having fanned protests
against indulgences. On 1 October 1412
some of the city’s German-speaking
citizens, led by Bernard Chodek, actualThe chapel as depicted by the miller Václav Veselý, 1729
Václav Brožík’s painting of Master Jan Hus at the Council in Constance (1898)
Architecture
“I also implore you, especially the
people of Prague, to favour Bethlehem,
as long as God grants His word to be
preached there. I trust that the Lord
will keep this city in His will and there
render greater blessings through others
than He has through me, his unworthy
servant. And I also ask you to love one
another, to save the good from being
oppressed by force and to wish the
truth to all.”
Jan Hus
Religious thinker, reformer, preacher
ly marched on “Bethlehem” with the
intention of seizing Hus. In February
1413 Hus preached here for the last
time, and on 11 October 1414 he set
out on his fateful journey to the Church
Council in Constance.
Before Hus left the chapel, he had
images painted on its walls. These were
accompanied by a text of his attacking
heresies, and later other writings. The
remnants of these are still visible in
the chapel today. At the Council Hus
refused to recant, and on 6 July 1415 he
was burned at the stake.
The stormy period that followed,
when the Hussite movement shook Europe to its roots, retreated with the tides
of history, and for more than two hundred years the Bethlehem Chapel remained an unusually silent memento of
Master Jan Hus and his times. In 1548
Alžběta Cvoková undertook a major reconstruction of the building. The wooden
ceiling was taken down and the whole
space covered with vaulting resting on
three rows of octagonal columns. In
1622 the chapel was confiscated and
handed over to the Jesuits to administer.
After sixteen years of fierce attacks on
Hus’s legacy, they left, but administration of the chapel remained in the
hands of Prague University. On 20 October 1661, however, it sold the chapel
back to the Jesuit order for 3200 gul-
Master Jan Hus
Master Jan Hus (c. 1370, Husinec
– 6 July 1415, Constance) was a leading medieval Czech religious thinker,
reformer and preacher.
In his sermons he spoke out against
the sale of indulgences. In his most
important work, De ecclesia (On the
Church), he defines the Church as the
community of those who live according to Christ’s teachings and declares
that the head of the Church is not the
Pope but Christ and that the test of
the truth of doctrine is the Bible. In
his arguments, he draws on Wycliffe’s
teachings, which he often refers to in
other works written in Czech.
Hus was first excommunicated and
then summoned to defend his teachings
at a Church Council in Constance.
There he was condemned as a heretic,
and because he refused to recant, was
sentenced to be burned to death at the
stake. His death led to increased tension
within the Kingdom of Bohemia, climaxing ultimately in the Hussite revolution.
Hus is often regarded as a precursor of
the Protestant Reformation.
dens. The gables were removed, the
pulpit was broken up, the inscriptions
and paintings were covered in plaster.
For more than a century the building
slowly decayed, until on 10 April 1785
F.L. Herget, a civil servant acting in his
capacity as a building appraiser, pronounced the final verdict on the structure. Dangerous cracks in the vaulting,
the age of the structure and the decayed state of load-bearing beams left no
one in doubt as to the building’s fate. In
June 1786 the Court Building Chancery issued an order for it to be torn down;
the university raised no objections, even
though some of its professors were actually buried there. In 1836-1837 a threestorey building with two wings in the
courtyard was erected from the half-demolished remains on the site. The original walls of the chapel served as the
foundation for their outer walls.
H
idden from the view of visitors,
Bethlehem Chapel remained within the
walls of this structure until 1949. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Karel Guth
(head of the National Museum) had
initiated a debate in more specialized
circles on the fate of the chapel, but
it held no particular attraction for the
public at large, and no steps were taken
Hus being burned at the stake in Constance; miniature from the Jena Codex, early sixteenth century
17
View of the choir loft in the Bethlehem Chapel
towards its reconstruction. Only after
the war was this task entrusted to the
great Czech architect Jaroslav Fragner.
He made partial use of the remains of
the historic walls, which he complemented to create what is still a remarkable and unusual double-aisle space.
Three walls of the chapel were unstable
and had to be strengthened with reinforced concrete pillars, tied together
at the level of the cornice by a concrete
ring. The ancient foundations were injected with concrete and the original
masonry formed the core of the new
load-bearing construction. New columns
in the cellars were sensitively placed
round the bases of two original Gothic
columns. The gables were designed to
replicate their appearance in the time of
Hus, deduced from traces of the beam
pockets of the original rafters.
T
he renewed chapel has the same
ground plan and almost the same
height as Hus’s chapel. Three Gothic
windows have remained in the west
wall, and in the wall opposite a large
original window with its casing. Horizontal tie beams provide an elegant
articulation of the view of the chapel
ceiling from below. None of the wooden
Lapidarium
18
The Robing Room – meeting room for the teaching staff
Jan Hus preaching in the Bethlehem Chapel,
woodcut, c 1520
parts of the chapel, of course, survived. The choir loft and pulpit are
new, as is the oratory for the founder
of the chapel, the shopkeeper Kříž.
From here a door leads to a courtyard
gallery and the House of Christ. Immediately adjacent to the chapel is
the preacher’s house with a room in
which Hus lived for ten years. The
interior of the chapel is decorated with
images taken from texts and illustrations in the Jena Codex, the Velislav
Bible, the Reichenthal Chronicle and
the Jistebnice Hymnbook.
The architect Jaroslav Fragner was responsible for
reconstructing the chapel in the 1950s
The main entrance to the chapel
nowadays is in the south wall, which
was reconstructed from a single fragment of the original soft limestone
wall. The chapel, 10.5 metres (35 feet)
high, was lowered by 50 centimetres
(20 inches). This uncovered the original pockets for the ceiling beams. In
the cellar the bases of columns from
the end of the fourteenth century have
been preserved. Owing to their age and
their unstable condition, it was necessary to introduce new weight-bearing
concrete pillars. These are situated outside the line of the original columns,
thus enhancing the main historical feature of the cellar. On the western wall
an original fragment of a Latin text dating from 1417 concerning communion
in both kinds was preserved and renovated. It had been placed there by
Hus’s successor, Jakoubek of Stříbro.
The new images are the work of students at the Academy of Fine Arts in
Prague. The two hymns, “Who are God’s
Warriors” and “Arise, Arise, Great City
of Prague”, were taken from the Jistebnice Hymnbook. On the right-hand
side, part of the Latin tract De sex erroribus (On the Six Heresies) has survived
vered here, and between them the remains of three round metal-foundry
kilns from the eleventh century, when
the surface of the street was three metres
(ten feet) lower than it is today.
In 1978 the Bethlehem Chapel was
entrusted to the Czech Technical University in Prague. In accordance with
plans drawn up by the architect Jaroslav Sýkora, insensitive period elements were removed. The floor was
redone to match the remnants of old
square tiles. The chapel was linked to
the reconstructed premises of the technical university in Hus street, and opened to the public. Recently – again to
designs by Jaroslav Sýkora – a further
revitalization of the chapel was undertaken, this time including floor heating
and air conditioning. An unobtrusive
new lighting system was installed, and
the acoustics modernized. Now, at a
time when the Czech Technical University in Prague is celebrating the three
hundredth anniversary of its foundation, the beautiful interiors of the chapel
reflect the dignified heritage of Master
Jan Hus and the tradition of learning in
the Czech lands.
Jan Mikeš, Marcela Efmertová
Photos: Vlasta Chválová, Jan Hojdar,
ČTK, ČVUT archives
– a text taken from the chapter on the
sixth heresy, simony. Above the text
the restorers painted Master Jan Hus at
the stake, taken from the Jena Codex.
On the eastern side, Kříž’s oratory
was renewed, with a covered courtyard
gallery linking the House of Christ in
Hus street with the Bethlehem Chapel.
The entrance to the large ground-floor
room of the building was preserved,
along with part of the original, well-worn
threshold. The victims of the disturbances protesting the sale of indulgences
are recalled by a marble plaque. Nearby is the entrance to a well whose surface lies at a depth of eight metres (26
feet) below the chapel paving, fed by
waters from the Vltava seeping through
sandstone deposits.
The other parts of the chapel are replicas of the originals. The pantiled roof
was constructed exactly in accordance
with ancient techniques. The cellars
were extended beneath the whole building. One of the graves that was uncovered (dating from the Hussite period) was
left just as it was found, with a wall built
round it and a covering of glass. The
foundations of two stone columns from
the fourteenth century were also disco-
Lapidarium
View of the well
State of the chapel after the most recent upgrading of the lighting and sound systems
19
1
2
3
4
8
9
5
6
7
20
Gallery
“My sweet country, land of proud forests,
Welcome me, when my hair has grown grey,
Welcome me into your shade, care for me in my
old age.
And when the Lord does call, then
I will gaze upon these mountains all around
And lay my head down in their lap,
To find there eternal rest.”
“To Home”
Adalbert Stifter
Southern Šumava poet and prose writer
(1805-1868)
“Old Šumava, my cradle! Gone are your deep
forests, never to return in their former glory.
Only the bogs overgrown with scrub remain
what they were, and in the autumn nights mysterious lights flitter about in them, blue flames,
the souls of the dead.”
10
From The World of Secluded Forest Glades
Karel Klostermann
author
(1848-1923)
11
1. Cross at Vchynice-Tetov (central photo)
2. Cross in Gsenget
3. Cross at the top of Březník near
Dobrá Voda
4. Wayside shrine near the school
in Zelená Hora
5. Wayside shrine above Nová Pec
6. Wayside cross by the road beneath Želnava,
detail
7. Wayside shrine at Horská Kvilda
8. Cross at Zhůří
9. Cross at Horská Kvilda
10. Wayside shrine at Filipova Huť
11. Cross at Studený potok in Nové Huť
12. Březová Lada
13. Historic boundary stone near
Mlýnský potok
14. Memorial stone at Jelení vrchy, detail
15. Upper portal of the Schwarzenberk
transport canal at Jelení vrchy
Photos: Vladislav Hošek
13
12
14
15
21
Holy Protectors of the
Czech Lands
Like other European nations and
countries on other continents with
Christian traditions, the Czech lands,
too, have their national patrons, their
“holy protectors”. Unlike the early
Christian martyrs, whose historical
existence is often open to
doubt, the Czech patrons
were unquestionably real
people. No historical circumstances, especially those surrounding the oldest national
saints, can remain clear
through the ages. The Czech
and Moravian patron saints,
however, are reliably documented, firmly anchored
in the national history, and
their “second lives” as saints
are part of the foundations
of Czech culture.
22
In Czech national history, it was
within the competence of the local
church, that is, the bishop of the dioThe strangling of St Ludmila, illustration in the
Velislav Bible, early fourteenth century
Sts Cyril and Methodius, west window of the basilica at Velehrad
cese, to decide which saints to honour.
Thus no records exist on the canonization of our oldest saints. Their honour
on earth grew while their contemporaries were still alive. From a formal
standpoint it was necessary to officially move their graves (in
Latin, translatio) and write a
history of their lives. In the
East this type of work was
called a bios hagios, that is,
a life of the saint, recording
his earthly life as well as his
life after death. In medieval
times, manifestations of respect for saints included miracles and other wonders,
the answering of prayers and
miraculous healing. In Latin
regions this kind text was
termed a legenda.
Sts Cyril and Methodius, painting donated by Poles
to the Velehrad basilica in 1885
The most famous equestrian statue of St Wenceslas, on the square in Prague that bears his name
Tradition
“A saint is a person whom God raised
up as a sign. The saints are way points
and milestones on the path to God. No
wonder we set them on high: they should
be visible from afar.”
Petr Piťha
Czech educator, linguist and historian
(born 1938)
ed the Bible. Methodius became the
first Moravian bishop, serving in the
role of Metropolitan. The two stand at
the beginnings of national education,
culture and full state sovereignty
within the entity known as the Great
Moravian Empire. Cyril died in Rome
in 869, Methodius in Moravia in 885.
The split between the Christian churches
in 1054 made the topic of these two
scholars of Greek origin taboo in the
Latin world. They became honoured
again in the fourteenth century under
Emperor Charles IV, whose ideological identification with the Great Moravian Empire was mainly political.
The Cistercian monastery at Velehrad
became the centre of the cult of the
two brothers, and since the mid-nine-
Cyril and Methodius
Chronologically, the first holy patron saints in this country were the
Byzantine missionaries Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius. Their legacy
is so important that they, along with
St. Benedict, were proclaimed by Pope
John Paul II as the co-patrons of Europe. Cyril and Methodius were full
brothers from the city of Thessalonika who were sent by the Byzantine
Emperor Michael III to Moravia in
863 at the request of Prince Rostislav.
Cyril devised the first Slavonic alphabet, called Glagolitic, used for the
creation of a liturgical and literary
Slavic language based on the Macedonian dialect into which he translat-
Statue of St Wenceslas dating from 1373, attributed variously to Petr and Jindřich Parléř
St Adalbert (Vojtěch)
23
At the canonization of Agnes the Czech
St Prokop, panel painting by Master Theodorik
teenth century this locality has been a
popular pilgrimage site.
The Premyslid Dynasty
At the court of Svatopluk, Archbishop Methodius christened Prince
Bořivoj Premyslid, and perhaps his
wife Princess Ludmila as well. These
were the grandparents of the renowned St Wenceslas (Václav in Czech).
In 916 Ludmila was murdered by
strangulation, becoming the first
Christian martyr in Bohemia. Soon
afterward, on 28 September 935,
Prince Wenceslas was murdered on
the order of his brother Boleslav in
Stará Boleslav, thus becoming the ruling dynasty’s second martyr. At the
very end of that same century a third
martyr gave his life: after disagreeing
with the powers that be, the second
Bishop of Prague, St Vojtěch (Adalbert), went first to Rome, and from
there on a mission to convert the pagans in Prussia. There he was murdered in 997.
seat of the Moravian princes, a cathedral dedicated to St Wenceslas was
built in the twelfth century. He has inspired countless paintings, sculptures
and manuscript illustrations.
Princess Agnes
St. Wenceslas – patron saint
of the Czech lands
First among Czech saints is St
Wenceslas, of the Premyslid dynasty.
He is the “Holy Protector of the
Czech Lands”, who protects the
Lands of the Czech Crown with his
heavenly army. Countless legends
were written about him in the Old
Church Slavonic, Latin and then
Czech languages. Under Charles IV
he was honoured with a magnificent
chapel in the great Cathedral of St.
Vitus at Prague Castle. In Olomouc,
24
In the thirteenth century the Premyslid line produced an extraordinary personality and exemplary Christian, Princess Anežka (Agnes). She
was the daughter of Přemysl Otakar I,
the first hereditary Czech king. In her
life, Agnes modelled herself on her
contemporary, St. Clare of Assisi. As
a Franciscan abbess she gained the
help of her family in establishing the
famous Prague hospital Na Františku,
and founded the Order of the Knights
of the Cross with the Red Star. This,
the only order to have been founded
in Bohemia, soon spread into neighbouring Poland. The location of Agnes’s grave is unknown; this created
difficulties with her official canonization, which did not occur until 1989,
literally on the very eve of the fall of
Communism, fulfilling an ancient
prophecy that the Czech lands would
be happy again when Agnes Premysl
was made a saint. She is sometimes
called Agnes the Czech, a reflection
of the great reverence attached to
her memory.
Zdislava of Lemberk
Agnes’s contemporary Zdislava of
Lemberk, noblewoman, caring wife
and mother, and generous helper of
the needy, waited even longer to become a saint. Her canonization was
undoubtedly helped along by the
St Agnes nursing a patient (detail), altar painting
on wood, 1482
and giving him such a shock that
the Pope proclaimed Abbot Prokop a
saint without further delay.
John of Nepomuk
John of Nepomuk was also made a
saint only some time after his death.
As general vicar to Archbishop of
Prague Jan of Jenštejn, he suffered a
martyr’s death after getting caught up in
a long dispute between the archbishop
and King Wenceslavs IV. Interrogated
under torture, John of Nepomuk died,
and his body was thrown into the
Vltava River from Prague Bridge, today the Charles Bridge. To avoid the
wrath of the king he was buried quietly in the cathedral. The campaign to
make him a saint began during the era
of re-Catholicization after the Thirty
Years’ War in the 1600s. In 1683 the
martyr’s statue was installed on Prague Bridge, but some years followed
before he was canonized. When his
body was exhumed some years later,
it was supposedly discovered that,
while his body had undergone the
normal process of decay, his tongue
was perfectly preserved. In 1721 the
martyr John was beatified, and eight
years later he was officially canonized. St John of Nepomuk became one
of the country’s most popular and important saints. Statues of him are
found on bridges, next to rivers and
streams, and in the many churches
and chapels consecrated to him.
For non-Catholics John of Nepomuk
became a hated figure, promoted by
the Church during the era of reCatholicization of the Czech lands
in order to overshadow the memory
of Jan Hus, who was burned at the
stake in Constance in 1415. As a result, statues of St John of Nepomuk
were removed in many places after
the creation of an independent Republic of Czechoslovakia in 1918.
Jan Sarkander
Out of the confessional conflict in
Moravia came the martyr Jan Sarkander (died 17 March 1620). This parish
priest in the town of Holešov died
during interrogation under torture in
the city of Olomouc. Because of his
involvement in the political conflict
between Catholics and Protestants,
the Church was long hesitant to begin
the canonization process. He was beatified in 1859, and made a saint by
John Paul II in 1995. The canonization drew protests, however, from nonCatholic Czechs, who perceived it
as an act of sympathy toward the Catholic Church and its methods of reCatholicization.
The Czech people’s reverence for
its national patron saints in the past
and present is demonstrated by the
country’s many pilgrimage sites,
churches and chapels, statues, paintings and roadside shrines dedicated to
these holy defenders of the faith.
Miloslav Pojsl
Photos: Vladimír Hyhlík,
editorial archives
“Slavic” Pope John Paul II, who performed the ceremony in 1995 on his
second visit to the Czech Republic.
Abbot Prokop
Although he served as abbot of a
monastery on the Sazava River, we
know St Prokop mainly from lives
written about him, filled with legendary events he is said to have been involved in. In works of art he is often
shown holding the Devil on a chain:
one popular legend claims that the
saint managed to tame his adversary,
forcing him to do something useful
by ploughing a field. When Czechs
requested his canonization by the
Pope in the early thirteenth century,
their pleas went unheard. But eventually the saint himself intervened, appearing to Pope Innocent III in a dream
Statue of St John of Nepomuk on Charles Bridge
St Jan Sarkander
25
Traditional Pilgrimage Sites
Travelling to “holy places” forms part of
the tradition of all the world’s great religions. Over the course of centuries in Christian countries, large numbers of places of
this type arose. They became not only a religious but, in the broadest sense, a cultural
phenomenon, especially in Europe. The
Czech Republic, which more or less coincides with the historical lands of the Bohemian crown (Bohemia, Moravia and a part
of Silesia), has an unusually rich array of
pilgrimage sites. For believers these are still
places of spiritual regeneration, offering an
intimate encounter with God. On their own
they also appeal to tourists, art lovers and
individuals fascinated by the nation’s past.
Every individual, even those who do not
identify with, or are even ignorant of, Christian culture, can find here a moment of inner
peace and, very often, a far from ordinary
emotional and esthetic experience.
Some have a history of unbroken continuity, others have suffered the misfortunes
of war or the destructive passage of time.
Some have even vanished completely, while
others have been renewed. Many pilgrimage sites date back to the Middle Ages,
C
zech pilgrimage sites are highly
varied, from those rich in artistic sophistication to places of spare human simplicity.
26
Interior of St Vitus’ Cathedral at Prague Castle
St Vitus’ Cathedral at Prague Castle
while others were a product of the re-Catholicization of the Czech lands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some even
date from relatively modern times. This is
the case, for example, of the former Cistercian monastery in Velehrad. The Emperor
Joseph II dissolved the monastery in 1784,
and it was only in the second half of the
nineteenth century that it was slowly transformed into the best known pilgrimage site
in Moravia. The veneration of the Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius in
many ways overlapped with national and
cultural interests. In the nineteenth century,
Velehrad also became the centre for efforts
aimed at bringing about an ecclesiastical
unification of the Slav nations (“unionism”). In 1990 Pope John Paul II visited
this famous pilgrimage site.
The oldest sites have often led a chequered existence. Most of them were destroyed
in religious wars (the Hussite wars in the
fifteenth century or the Thirty Years’ War
two hundred years later), though many
were later re-established; others are newer
foundations from a later date. The Baroque
Pilgrimages
Calvary – Římov
“Many pilgrimage chapels and churches
have been situated in the countryside in such
a way as to be viewed from afar, as the pilgrim slowly approaches the sanctuary. This
helps us to appreciate their beauty better,
and to experience a feeling of joy. There is
no reason why a pilgrimage has to be undertaken in an organized way, by a group. Even
in small and almost forgotten pilgrimage
sites we can experience God’s mercy.”
From the website of the České Budějovice
Bishop’s Office
period was a particularly favourable era for
the renewal of former pilgrimage sites and
the foundation of new ones. In fact, it is impossible to imagine the Baroque period without the phenomenon of pilgrimage sites.
From the sixteenth century, the Jesuits
were among the most ardent proponents of
renewing pilgrimage traditions and developing pilgrimage sites. After the Italian pilgrimage site of the Virgin Mary of Loreto
had been entrusted to their care, the Jesuit
order became associated with the spread
of her cult. Loretos – copies of the Holy
House of Loreto, which it is claimed originally stood in Nazareth – became frequent
parts of pilgrimage sites in the Czech lands,
just like “Sacred Stairs” (whose origin is
found in the Lateran Basilica in Rome).
The great majority of pilgrimage sites also
include elaborate Stations of the Cross, inviting pilgrims to imitate Christ’s painful
journey to Calvary. Another common feature of pilgrimage sites is the presence of
water, in the form of various wells and springs
of “miraculous” and “healing” water, for
spiritual and physical refreshment.
Not all pilgrimage sites were equally
famous or visited by the same numbers
of pilgrims. Some attracted believers from
Church of St Wenceslas, Stará Boleslav
a wide area, including the neighbouring
countries of Germany, Austria, Poland and
Slovakia. Others were only familiar to those
who lived in the immediate vicinity. And
they also suffered different fates. Pilgrimage sites linked with a local parish (Stará
Boleslav, Římov, Dobrá Voda near České
Budějovice, Klokoty near Tábor, Svatý
Kopeček near Olomouc, Křtiny, Hluboké
Mašůvky near Znojmo or Dub nad Moravou) remained untouched during the period
of Church reforms ushered in by the Emperor Joseph II (1780-1790). Where this was
not the case, they were suppressed: the property and fittings were sold and they soon decayed or vanished completely (Svatý Hostýn, St Anthony’s Hill above Blatnice, Zelená Hora near Žďár nad Sázavou, Svatý Jan
pod Skalou, the pilgrimage chapel of St Wolfgang in Chudenice or the chapel of St John
of Nepomuk in Letohrad). Reestablishing
27
Blatnice, participants in the pilgrimage
Svatý kopeček near Olomouc
these pilgrimage sites was a very complicated business, and took place mostly in the
second half of the nineteenth century.
E
ven in the more recent Communist
period not all pilgrimage sites faced the same
fate. The worst off were those in the care of
monastic orders. During the night of 13-14
April 1950, all the religious in the country
were taken from their monasteries as part
of “Action K” and removed to a number of
centralized camps. In many cases the empty
buildings were taken over by the army, agricultural cooperatives or manufacturing enterprises. In the ensuing years, the buildings
at many pilgrimage sites of this kind became
neglected, fell into decay or even vanished.
Worst affected were pilgrimage sites in the
border regions, which had been emptied of
their German-speaking population following the end of the Second World War.
But not even the concerted ideological
and anti-religious pressure of the regime
managed to fully obstruct the pilgrimage
activities of the faithful. And after the collapse of the Communist regime, even the
worst damaged pilgrimage sites gradually
began to be restored. The pilgrimage
church of St Anne in Stará Voda was only
saved thanks to the efforts of the Historical
Monuments Board (it was the only part of
the former monastery and village in the military territory of Libavá na Moravě to survive); it was renewed in the early 1990s.
The interior was deliberately left in its
devastated state as a witness for future generations. The church in Neratová on the
Bohemian-Moravian-Polish border is being restored by a group of enthusiasts. As a
result of long-time decay following a fire in
1945 the vaulting collapsed and all of the
interior fittings were destroyed. The ruins
28
Interior of the basilica on Hostýn
of the Baroque vaulting have been replaced
by a modern, simple roof structure. This is
one of many ways of restoring a building
of this kind, and at the same time a witness
to a period that pursued a deliberate policy
of destroying religion.
Localities associated with the Virgin
Mary and with homage to the nation’s
saints are places with strong local Czech
traditions. This is true above all of Stará
Boleslav, where the Czech Prince Wenceslas, of the Premyslid family, was murdered.
His body was soon transferred to Prague,
where it was buried within the Castle precinct in the Chapel of St Vitus. Today the
Chapel of St Wenceslas in Prague Cathedral is the most historically significant place
in all of the Czech lands. In the Baroque
period a pilgrimage route lined with various religious monuments led from Prague
to Stará Boleslav. In Stará Boleslav itself
The basilica at Velehrad
pilgrim sites is Svatý Hostýn: it is associated with a legend concerning the aid given
by the Mother of God to the Moravians
when they were threatened by the Mongols
in 1241. Typical Baroque sites include Sva-
Did you know that
the town of Český Krumlov
is UNESCO’s largest urban
conservation area? Find out more
about historic sites in the
Czech Republic at
www.czech.cz
tý Kopeček near Olomouc, Dub nad Moravou, Hrabyně, Frýdek (also called the
Silesian Lourdes), Rajnochovice, Křtiny
and Sloup and Vranov near Brno.
Many localities are dedicated to St Anne,
St Anthony and other saints. Moravian pilgrimages are also opportunities for displays of the colourful local folk costumes.
Folklore is still alive in many parts of Moravia, particularly in connection with religious occasions.
Baroque patrons and builders managed
to achieve a sensitive harmony between the
architecture of the pilgrimage churches and
whole complexes on the one hand, and
the surrounding countryside on the other.
Their aim, as in the case of other Baroque
structures both religious (monasteries) and
secular (chateau complexes), was to achieve
a perfect unity of architecture (the work of
man) and nature (the work of God). Neither
element was meant to compete with the
other: in a spirit of humility, the countryside was rounded out with the architecture
of the pilgrimage churches and their accompanying features (Stations of the Cross,
water chapels). Some pilgrimage sites form
an inseparable whole with stretches of
landscape such as the panoramas of towns,
for example Svatá Hora above Příbram and
Svatý Kopeček above Olomouc, or dominate the whole countryside, as is the case
with Svatý Hostýn.
A visit to a pilgrimage site is a spiritual
and cultural experience of lived faith and
living folk tradition.
Miloslav Pojsl
Photos: Vladimír Hyhlík, ČTK, CzechTourism
there is still an important Marian pilgrimage church. Prague was a witness to the
famous pilgrimages to the tomb of St John
of Nepomuk; thanks to the Jesuits, his cult
is also found across the seas, but even more
in neighbouring Austria and Bavaria. The
grave of this Czech saint in St Vitus’ Cathedral, with its magnificent silver monument, drew thousands of pilgrims in the
eighteenth century.
Svatý kopeček near Mikulov
T
he most famous Marian pilgrimage
sites include Svatá Hora near Příbram, Římov, Sepekov, Kocléřov, Bohosudov and
Dobrá Voda near České Budějovice.
In Moravia the number one pilgrimage
site is the previously mentioned Velehrad,
associated with the Thessalonican brothers
Constantine-Cyril and Methodius. One of the
most important and most visited Marian
Church of St John of Nepomuk, Zelená Hora
Svatá Hora near Příbram
29
The Trials
of Jan Koblasa
“There were only a couple of us in
the fifties; a handful of people in a
bubbling mire of collaboration and
opportunism. I drew and painted –
my attempts at sculpture were timorous – I was afraid that something
rotten in the atmosphere of the Academy of Fine Arts had stuck to me.
If you walk past manure, you’re sure
to pick up the stink... Individual opinions were banned, intelligence was
a residual left-over from capitalism,
and to be an intellectual was a mortal sin at a time when the Communist
Party was writing the new Ten Commandments. That’s what it was like
when we were young. We were puking from boredom. Whatever wasn’t
banned outright, was not permitted.
School? Render unto Caesar that
30
which is Caesar’s, but what then?
WHAT THEN?!!”
These words appear in the diary of
seventy-year-old Jan Koblasa, a creator
of monumental sculptures. Although
he spent many years as a professor in
Kiel, and still lives in Germany, he now
teaches in Prague at the Academy of
Fine Arts he so gladly left those many
years ago. He is known to the domestic
audience not only as a graphic artist,
painter and sculptor, but as a creative
figure in theatre and film – for example,
as artistic advisor on František Vláčil’s
legendary film Markéta Lazarová.
Stolen years
Altar (1963-4), painting by Mikuláš Medek
(Jedovnice)
Odysseus, painted oak, height 4 m, 1998 (České Budějovice)
“I decided to be a sculptor sometime when I was sixteen or seventeen
Penelope, painted oak and ceramics, height 4 m, 1998 (České Budějovice)
Great Mother, Carrara marble, height 35 cm, 1985
Personalities
“We remember his early work and the
courageous way in which he fought the
dictatorship of ideology and harassment
by the bureaucracy. He was merciless toward himself as well, when he repudiated
his own sculptures and destroyed them
in his Bubeneč atelier. Koblasa’s talent
grew out of his family’s legacy of musical
culture, and a cultivated respect for the
manual crafts that opened the doors to his
intimate understanding of the material
character of stone and wood.”
Jiří Šetlík
Art historian
years old, when our art teacher
brought some clay to class.” Koblasa had a good feel for clay: his first
sculpture – a likeness of his grandfather – seemed to take form under
his hand instantly. He himself was
surprised – he even got the proportions right! Captivated, he changed
his career plans right there, having
previously intended to become a
musician like his father (or perhaps
a biologist).
Koblasa began as a student at the
Academy in 1952, the era of hard
Stalinism and class struggle, in which
Koblasa belonged among the defeated. He wasn’t even supposed to be
allowed to take his graduation exam.
“I wasn’t inconspicuous enough, I
didn’t watch my mouth, and back
then that was enough to make a person dangerous.”
There were three sculpture workshops at the school, those or Professors Landa, Pokorný and Španiel.
Back then everybody wanted to go
to Španiel’s, since he was – because
of his age – the least-orthodox Socialist Realist. But first they had to
do their preparation with Landa.
“For me this was the acid test, because Landa and I just didn’t like
one another. His very simple approach
to the job was very alien to me.”
When Professor Španiel died, Koblasa went to the atelier of Professor
Pokorný. At that time he was still
struggling not to be expelled from
the Academy. The last attempt to get
rid of him was made by Professor
Pokorný two months before the end
of his studies, when Koblasa did a
nude of a young woman for his state
examination work. “Pokorný was
furious, and wanted me to do something modern, like a boy, a girl and a
motorcycle. That’s how they thought
of modern art in 1958.” As Koblasa
sees it today, the Academy robbed him
of six years of his life. “School was
only important for me because I found
out how much inner strength I had to
be able to survive such a horror.”
Freedom at last
Hardly had the gates of the Academy closed behind him when he
Costume for the Sophocles trilogy, Za branou Theatre, Jan Tříska as the blind King Oedipus
31
Black Heart, height 70 cm, 1985, diabase
began to devote time to what he really wanted to do. He shared the esthetic of the era, formulated in the
philosophy of existentialism: a person is thrown into an uncaring
world, left to his own devices. He
sought the company of like-minded
friends such as Mikuláš Medek, Josef Istler, Jiří Kolář and Jan Kotík.
He was fascinated by Abstract Impressionism, Tashism and the graphic
art of Vladimír Boudník, whom he
met around that time. He was determined to ignore the ruling stupidocracy and continue in the tradition
of art. At the same time he was
aware that he had chosen the path
of an outcast.
The Šmidras
In order to survive the pitfalls of
that time, he and some friends founded
Voice of the Mountain (from the project Journey of
Friendship), 2002, (Bílka pod Milešovkou)
a satirical brass band called the Šmidras that even wrote their own songs
and staged various public happenings. The Šmidras included Karel
Nepraš, Bedřich Dlouhý and Rudolf
Komorous, and a bit later Jaroslav
Vožniak, Libor Pešek and Jan Klusák.
Sometimes they were joined by Ivo
Paukert or Václav Havel. In the early 1960s the group was already an
important part of the Czech cultural
underground. They exhibited mainly
in their studios, but outside Prague
from time to time as well. Mikuláš
Medek and Jan Koblasa exhibited
for the first time in Teplice in 1963.
It was about then that they began
to hear murmurs of interest from abroad.
“In the mid-1960s we found ourselves in an absurd situation. For
32
example, we made statues for Czechoslovak Airlines offices outside Prague
and abroad, but at home we weren’t
allowed to do anything, and that’s
how it stayed practically until the relative social thaw in 1968.” During
the same period, in 1963, Kan Koblasa and Mikuláš Medek were commissioned to make the altar for the
Church of Sts Peter and Paul in Jedovnice. After the works of the two
artists were banned again after 1970,
the church long became a “pilgrimage
site” for young artists.
Knocking on the wrong door?
In March 1968 Jan Koblasa took
up residence in Kiel, Germany, where
he was preparing an exhibition. It
opened in June, but he extended
his stay, and in the summer he was
joined by his wife, Klára Gočárová.
On 21 August they were in Italy
when his German friends called to
tell him that troops of the “friendly”
armies had begun the occupation
of Czechoslovakia.
W
hile Koblasa was hesitating
about what to do, he got an offer
from Kiel to head the department of
free sculpture at Muthesius Hochschule. But first he had to build the
department, for sculpture had never
been taught at the school before. He
was successful. That same year the
school awarded him the equivalent
of tenure, and he taught there until
actly what they want; they want to be
given tasks, and you wonder whether
they aren’t barking up the wrong tree.
Giving someone an assignment in
art is absurd. The student has to have
ideas himself, otherwise he’s at the
wrong school. People here haven’t
learned to ask questions yet.”
Koblasa is not generally inclined
to theorizing about the spiritual impulses of his art. Interesting is a letter
written to his parents dated 30 October1969, in which he expresses
the personal credo that influenced
his later work:
“dear parents – it’s more or less
quiet here – all the events that are
happening at home, the renewal process [i.e., the beginning of ‘normalization’] – it’s just a question of
where it will stop – with its purges –
it’s happening amazingly fast – the
boys from state security under the
orders of the soviet interior ministry
are ever diligent – it all seems like a
cynical trap to get rid of the czechoslovak intelligentsia – slowly i’m
getting back to work – i’m starting
with graphics and finishing up on
various ideas for sculptures, and
trying to realize myself in this very
sterile school – the good review of
‘lorenzaccio’ [the staging of Musset’s drama Lorenzaccio by the director Otomar Krejča] – there was
also a long story in the frankfurter
allgemeine: ‘again the outstanding
artist Koblasa has worked on the
masks and costumes – for krejča’s
previous stagings he created demonical grimaces and a hellish brew of
misshapen monsters.’”
T
he next day Jan Koblasa wrote
in his diary the following lines, which
perhaps illustrate the effect his mental
state had on his work at the time: “1
November – working in wood for
models of sculptures that don’t have
a solid basis – no front or back, no
top or bottom – like natural objects
– pebbles or stones – developed from
graphic layouts that metamorphose
into others – the linking of two similar graphic signs – they would like to
have decent proportions – four or
five metres – ten metres – (...)”
Karel Hvížďala
Photos: Wulf Brackrock, Jan Koblasa’s archives
Portrait of an Ancestor, Ibiza conglomerate, 2002
his retirement. After five years he
came out of retirement to head a
workshop at the Academy of Fine
Arts, where he succeeded the late
Karel Nepraš.
“For twenty-eight years you
taught in Germany, and now you
teach in Prague. What differences
do you see?” I asked at the conclusion of my interview with Koblasa,
who has given nearly a hundred
independent exhibitions in places
all over the world and won many
awards. “The fundamental difference
is that the students abroad make
their own decisions, and each of
them has their own programme. The
professor just offers what help he
can. Students here, it seems to me,
are indecisive. They don’t know exSpectator, Verona marble, height 60 cm, 1997-1998
Dead Mother, cast iron, 1991
33
A Forgotten
Heritage
It took five years to carry out repairs to
the crosses, wayside shrines and commemorative stones in the Šumava National Park.
Here these small objects are found not only,
as is common, between two trees, but more
frequently in what are now forgotten and
run down places. When they are discovered,
the question often arises as to why they were
erected in those particular spots. Sometimes
they may have marked a simple fork in a road,
in other cases they were placed alongside the
path taken by local people going to a distant
church for mass or a christening or as part
of a funeral procession. Some inscriptions
make it clear that some tragic event happened
on the spot, but in many cases why they
were erected remains a mystery.
The largest category of restored monuments is that of small crosses. There is a
deep reason behind this. The cross not only
serves as a symbol of the suffering of Christ,
but more generally it symbolizes Christianity and human suffering. The lives of those
who in the past erected the Šumava crosses
or prayed by them were difficult, marked by
hard labour, the long struggle with the harsh
climate and countryside to make a living,
and also personal pain and loss.
In recent years there has been a widespread
reawakening of interest in these monuments
produced by people at the lower end of the
social structure this is often formulated as an
effort to maintain the character of the countryside and its “memory”. Towns, associations
and cultural funds have joined their efforts,
and slowly the number of renovated chapels
and crosses is growing. The Administration
of the Šumava National Park has seen to the
repair of more than 250 small “eyewitnesses”
to the history of the region situated within
the boundaries of the park. In the course
of this, it benefited from the cooperation of
local people, donors, specialized firms,
craftsmen, historical monuments boards and
the authors who described the project in a
book entitled Forgotten Heritage. The project was supported by the Czech-German
Fund for the Future, which has its Secretariat in Prague, and included as participants
many German partners.
34
A Mirror
Monument
A new monument to the victims of
totalitarian regimes has been unveiled in
Liberec. It is highly untraditional, taking
the form of a huge prism 3.2 x 4.5 x 7
metres (10.5 x 14.8 x 23 feet) and consisting of two large mirrors mounted in a steel
frame. At the foot of the monument, set in
the pavement, there is an inscription that
can be read in reflection: “Seek the answer
within yourself – do you defend, honour
or curb freedom?” Situated in a park, the
monument is surrounded by large wooden
benches, while at night the subtle floodlighting of the surrounding trees adds to
its dreamlike, ethereal character.
“The motif of the monument is mirroring,” state its creators, the architects Petr
Janda and Aleš Kubalík. “The burden of
deciding who is victim, and who tyrant, is
transferred to everyone who comes to the
monument. Each individual is forced to
decide what kind of person he is, to look
himself squarely in the face.”
Sigmund
Freud Statue
As part of the celebrations held in
Prague in May and June of this year to
mark the 150th anniversary of the birth
of Sigmund Freud, the Moravian-born
founder of psychoanalysis, several leading sculptors were invited to submit
designs for a statue of Freud to be erected at Kozí plácek. Ten sculptors were
approached; in the end the jury selected
the design submitted by Michal Gabriel,
who said that the inspiration for the seated figure came from a photograph of
Freud at a desk, with a number of small
antique sculptures before him. The formal unveiling of the statue is planned
for May 2007, on the 151st anniversary
of Freud’s birth.
A series of activities linked to Freud’s
name included an exhibition entitled
“Life – Dream” at the Town Hall of the
Old Town, lectures given by the Czech
Psychoanalytical Society, an exhibition
of sofa-objects and happenings during
which Prague people painted their
dreams in the city’s streets.
Pilgrimage
to St Wolfgang’s
Locals and well as individuals from neighbouring villages in Austria who participated in
the Pilgrimage to St Wolfgang’s, which took place
in September 2006 at Hnanice near the southern Moravian town of Znojmo, had the chance
to pause, learn something about the lives of the
saints and spend a few days in quite meditation.
The pilgrimage linked up with an old, historically attested tradition of pilgrimages and fairs in
Hnanice. Representatives of the now small group
of original German-speaking inhabitants of the
place, expelled after the Second World War,
came to the pilgrimage from Bavaria.
After a solemn mass in the Church of St
Wolfgang, a procession set out for the chapels
in the village surroundings; headed by the local
priest, it included young members of the firemen’s brigade carrying banners with images of
saints and a brass band. The beautiful autumn
weather, the gentle paths leading through gardens
and vineyards and the magic views of the surrounding countryside all contributed to the
sense of satisfied expectation shared by the
pilgrims. The partner for the Pilgrimage to
St Wolfgang’s project was the neighbouring
Austrian village of Retzbach. A tradition has
been re-established that will enrich the life and
contribute to the cultural vitality of the region.
Mosaic
Forum 2000
Church of St Nicholas, where it is carrying
out the restoration of unique ceiling frescoes
from the war years 1915-1918. These have
remarkable themes: in addition to scenes
from the life of St Nicholas they include, for
example, a soldier kneeling in prayer.
Miss World
is Czech
and the most important Romanesque
palace in the Czech lands.
Joining the museum and the Romanesque castle has created an attractive
complex and made accessible to the
public the last part of the museum’s exhibition, situated in the Chapel of St
John the Baptist – a sculptural group
of figures on the Mount of Olives that
dates from the 1430s, one of the most
valuable works of sculpture from this
period in the whole of Central Europe.
The Věstonice
Venus
The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (left)
with former Czech President Václav Havel;
Photo: ČTK
For the sixth time Prague Castle welcomed a host of important figures who
had come to take part in the “meeting
for the next millennium”, Forum 2000.
This event, which aims at identifying
the current problems facing the world
and seeking solutions for them, is the
brainchild of ex-President Václav Havel. In addition to Havel himself, the
participants in this year’s “search for a
codex of coexistence” included Tibet’s
spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Prince
Hasan bin Talal of Jordan’s royal
Hassim dynasty, the former Irish President Mary Robinson and the author
Elie Wiesel.
The Society
of St Prokop
Thanks to the Society of St Prokop, the
small village of Praskolesy with its thousand or so inhabitants can boast exemplary
care for its historical monuments. The society, an NGO established by local people
in October 2004, cares for the historical and
architectural heritage of the village. It was
named after the village’s oldest building, the
Chapel of St Prokop, which records show
was already standing in 1216. At the present
time the group is taking over responsibility
for the protection and reconstruction of the
Emblem of the Society of St Prokop
On 30 September the title of Miss
World was won for the first time by
a Czech, Taťána Kuchařová. At the competition in Warsaw, the eighteen-yearold student from Opočno was the favourite not only with the jury, but with
the public and media as well. The attractive blonde from the Czech Republic
was surrounded by fans from the moment she arrived in the country. Polish
journalists raved about her, people in the
street and in shops asked her for her
autograph. According to eye-witnesses,
even before the results were announced
the packed-out auditorium was rocking
with chants of “Czech Republic!”
New Fame for a
Forgotten Monument
The permanent exhibition at the Archdiocesan Museum in Olomouc includes
exhibits in a wide range of artistic genres
from the Romanesque period to the Rococo. Now part of the tour includes
the Romanesque bishop’s palace. The
bishop’s palace in the former Přemyslid
castle is a National Cultural Monument
High Romanesque window in the bishop’s palace,
before 1141; Photo: Markéta Ondrušková
Under the watchful eyes of six policemen armed with sub-machine guns, the
famous Věstonice Venus was taken from a
vault in the Moravian Museum in Brno to
the National Museum in Prague. The prehistoric statue is the most valuable exhibit
in an exhibition entitled “The Mammoth
Hunters”, which opened at the National
Museum on 11 October. The oldest ceramic statue in the world measures only 11.5
centimetres (4.5 inches), but its value is
incalculable. It was unearthed in southern
Moravia in June 1925. Besides this statue,
the exhibition includes some of the other
oldest finds from the middle Paleolithic
period (30,000 – 40,000 years before the
common era). These include evidence of the
world’s oldest ceramic production, fibres
from the world’s oldest fabrics, and items
reflecting a complex spiritual life and the
existence of shamanism. The exhibition is
open until next April.
35
Witnesses
to Bygone Tragedies
The landscape of the Czech Republic
is dotted with small brick and stone
monuments. Where field paths cross,
or at the outskirts of towns and villages, we find wayside shrines and memorials. While shrines from the period
of the Late Gothic (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) are not a rarity, the
majority of such monuments are lateseventeenth and eighteenth-century Baroque. These mute stone and masonry
witnesses to the piety of our ancestors
are commonly encountered in field and
forest, by the roadside, at the crossroads
and by rivers and streams.
M
ilestones are another type of
stone artefact we encounter while walking through the countryside or forest.
Often they are marked with a divided
circle (perhaps the symbol of a wagon
wheel). This special kind of artefact is
36
Vtelno, Most district
most often found at the distance of
one mile from a town, or was used to
mark the borders of one-time feudal
estates. In the Middle Ages, the borders
of such estates were delineated by
visible natural features such as rock
outcroppings, lone boulders, streams,
rivers or unusual trees. Only after the
Thirty Years’ War, and especially during the early eighteenth century, did
boundaries come to be marked by a
system of border stones. Variouslyshaped stones were engraved with the
symbols and initials of property owners
or institutions like monasteries. Walking through the forests (or less often the
fields, which are regularly ploughed),
we can find dozens of these markers,
perhaps half-buried under the leaves
or overgrown with moss.
Stone crosses are among the most
common types of historical field monuments. The crosses tend to be roughhewn or primitive, adding to the impression of age. We find these types of
crosses over a wide area of Central
Europe, but interpretation of their ori-
Horní Hraničná, Cheb district
Polínka, Plzeň North district
Protivec, Karlovy Vary district
Stebno, Louny district
History
Rožnov, Náchod district
“More important than searching
for new interpretations of the origins
of wayside crosses is care for the
shrines that still exist. Enlightened
scholars should explain to people the
value of these crosses and the need to
preserve them.”
Walter von Dreyhausen
German historian
(1913-1990)
gin and purpose vary from place to
place. After the mid-nineteenth century, the prevalent romantic opinion
in Moravia was that these were “Cyril
and Methodius” crosses dating back to
the journeys of these famous holy
missionaries in the ninth century. In
neighbouring Austria these crosses
were thought of as “Hussite”, in the
mistaken belief that these were memorials to the raids of plundering Hussite
troops outside the bounds of their own
already devastated country.
W
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Tachov, Tachov district
countered by traders and artisans who
travelled with their goods on the road
to markets near and far.
Thanks to rare written documents
we now know that many of the stone
crosses were part of the atonement decreed by the law. Along with the sentence of death, some criminals or their
relatives were required to erect such
memorials for the salvation of the victims’ souls. Others were voluntary expressions of regret by the relatives of the
criminal, to mitigate the burden of conscience on both sides and in memory
of the victim.
hat they were, in fact, are “atonement” crosses, placed in expiation
of various human tragedies or crimes,
such as murder or robbery. Although
most old stone crosses are without
symbols or inscriptions, some bear primitively-carved figures such as hatchets,
swords, daggers or various tools (hoes,
shovels). In exceptional cases the crosses show the remains of an inscription
or message, often no longer legible,
describing the events that the stones
were erected to memorialize, such as
banditry, robberies, murders and other
crimes – the kind of misfortunes enPovodí, Cheb district
37
Vítkov, Tachov district
For the great majority of these silent
witnesses we have no accompanying
written source. Their character and
function are oftentimes uncertain. Old
stories and folk traditions often conceal romantic fables. But today it is
seldom possible to determine reliably
the events represented by these stone
monuments, shrines and stone crosses.
During the last few decades entire teams
of amateur and professional historians
have worked on listing and documenting the country’s roadside shrines and
crosses. Reports on individual artefacts
regularly appear in national heritage
journals, and the historical community
is attempting to approach these little
stone witnesses from the past more
systematically. The first complete register of these monuments covering
the entire Czech Republic including a
unified database for both Bohemia
and Moravia has been prepared by the
museum in the town of Aš.
F
or the sake of illustration we present two specific cases, both from Moravia, illustrating the origins and age
of these objects. The first is found in
the region of Blansko, in the Brloh
Forest between the villages of Katany,
Újezd and Milonice. It is a flat slab
with the relief of a cross and a split pe-
38
Arnoltice, Děčín district
Lažany, Blansko district
destal. Below the arms of the cross are
three lines of writing in Latin, and below these the symbolic attributes of the
craft of clothmaking. The cross is pierced by the nails of Christ’s suffering.
The inscription relates that Michael, called Keisser, was murdered on this spot.
Another stone witness to a long-forgotten tragedy is found on the former
Buchlov estate. It commemorates the
murder if its owner, Jindřich of Zástřizly, which took place near Buchlov
Castle. Just who was responsible for
the murder of Jindřich has never been
reliably determined, either by his contemporaries or by modern historians.
There were several persons that may
have had an interest in his death, but
nothing is certain. Two hundred years
later, in 1782, the owner of the estate,
Marie Eleonora of Petřvald, had a memorial stone erected in remembrance
of this dark event. The inscription in
German reads: “Halt, pilgrim, and read.
Here ended the life of Jindřich Prakšický of Zástřizly, treacherously speared with his own weapon by his armourbearer, 25 July 1582. Now go thou,
and commit no crime, but love virtue
and wish him eternal life.”
Cross near Buchlov Castle commemorating the murder of Jindřich of Zástřizly
Miloslav Pojsl
Photos: Jana Slaběňáková, Jaroslav Brojír,
František Svoboda
http://krize.webpark.cz/krize.htm
http://smircikrize.euweb.cz/