Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (69 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
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In 1843, a group of students from Prague studying in Vienna, Czechs and German-speaking Jews, believed that the time had come to bring Slavs and Jews closer together. The young Czech poet who first advanced this idea was Václav Bolemír Nebeský (who had just left Božena N
mcová’s embrace), a melancholy Byronist and also ardent defender of liberty and emancipation, only later a stuffed shirt in the service of the Prague Museum. Among his colleagues were David Kuh, from a famous Prague Jewish clan (later a German nationalist much hated by the Czechs), and the medical student Siegfried Kapper, son of a Jewish glazier from Smfchov and a particularly gifted translator of Czech poetry into the German tongue. The friends regularly met at the Slavic café at the corner of Währingerstrasse and Berggasse, not far from Sigmund Freud’s later home; Nebeský and Kuh wrote articles and essays in support of a Slavic-Jewish rapprochement which were published in Czech and German periodicals in Prague and Germany; and Kapper’s contribution to the cause was a slim volume entitled
eské Listy
(
Czech Pages
, 1846). This is the first book of Czech poems written by a Prague Jew; and later critics discussed it from different political perspectives but rarely was it read as a lyrical confession of a young man who did not know where he belonged. Kapper’s ambivalence clearly emerges from his allegiance to his Czech, not Bohemian, homeland (
eská vlast
), where the romantic outsider, as Jew, seeks intimacy and consolation among the carefully trimmed Slavic linden trees; in Czech nature, he finds the “Zion of his desire, the Canaan of his thought,” while the Czech foliage whispers and the Czech rivers gently flow. Yet he knows himself that his praise of the Czech landscape
does not articulate all his feelings; in many poems he pushes aside the props of third-rate national poetry and longs for the biblical land of his ancient origins, with its fierce sun, roses of Sharon, and mysterious cedar trees in the mountains. One set of motifs clashes with the other and, ultimately, young Kapper honestly accepts the pain of his divided self: “I am the son of Jews! I love my country, and yet I am a foreigner.”
mcová’s embrace), a melancholy Byronist and also ardent defender of liberty and emancipation, only later a stuffed shirt in the service of the Prague Museum. Among his colleagues were David Kuh, from a famous Prague Jewish clan (later a German nationalist much hated by the Czechs), and the medical student Siegfried Kapper, son of a Jewish glazier from Smfchov and a particularly gifted translator of Czech poetry into the German tongue. The friends regularly met at the Slavic café at the corner of Währingerstrasse and Berggasse, not far from Sigmund Freud’s later home; Nebeský and Kuh wrote articles and essays in support of a Slavic-Jewish rapprochement which were published in Czech and German periodicals in Prague and Germany; and Kapper’s contribution to the cause was a slim volume entitledeské Listy(
Czech Pages
, 1846). This is the first book of Czech poems written by a Prague Jew; and later critics discussed it from different political perspectives but rarely was it read as a lyrical confession of a young man who did not know where he belonged. Kapper’s ambivalence clearly emerges from his allegiance to his Czech, not Bohemian, homeland (
eská vlast), where the romantic outsider, as Jew, seeks intimacy and consolation among the carefully trimmed Slavic linden trees; in Czech nature, he finds the “Zion of his desire, the Canaan of his thought,” while the Czech foliage whispers and the Czech rivers gently flow. Yet he knows himself that his praise of the Czech landscape
does not articulate all his feelings; in many poems he pushes aside the props of third-rate national poetry and longs for the biblical land of his ancient origins, with its fierce sun, roses of Sharon, and mysterious cedar trees in the mountains. One set of motifs clashes with the other and, ultimately, young Kapper honestly accepts the pain of his divided self: “I am the son of Jews! I love my country, and yet I am a foreigner.”
A few reviews were friendly, yet, unfortunately, it was Karel Havlí
ek himself, the most intelligent of the liberals, who in a longish article turned against Kapper’s poetry and, more essentially, against any Jewish writer claiming allegiance to the Czech nation. It was not, he wrote, a matter of religion but of “origins and nationality,” of belonging to a particular “tribe.” Jews are of “Semitic origin,” and Germans, Englishmen, or Spanish could become Czechs more easily than Jews, who, coming from a totally different tribe, “only accidentally live among Czechs” and “occasionally understand and speak Czech.” Havlí
ek’s argument comes close to being racist; if a Jew wants to become a Czech, he has to “cease to be a Jew” (Havlí
ek does not explain how to do that, in view of the immutable tribal origins), and he cynically suggests that Jews wishing to give up their nationality and language should join the Germans and write in their language, as they do elsewhere. Literary questions are subordinate; Havlí
ek admits that Kapper has succeeded in writing a few interesting stanzas, but he cannot stand what he calls his “screaming style,” with its overdone images so disproportionate to the banal thoughts. The realist Havlí
ek was never willing to tolerate big political phrases instead of the far more necessary patient social action of the moment, and if the sentimental and loquacious patriot is but a Prague Jew, tant pis. It is a pity that Havlí
ek did not write about Kapper again, when he returned, two years after the revolution, to the Jewish question, a much wiser and perhaps more isolated man among his compatriots, and welcomed the legal emancipation of Jews as an integral event in the emancipation of all nations of mankind. Perhaps he had come to see that Jews cannot be denied those civic privileges that Czechs were so urgently claiming for themselves.
ek himself, the most intelligent of the liberals, who in a longish article turned against Kapper’s poetry and, more essentially, against any Jewish writer claiming allegiance to the Czech nation. It was not, he wrote, a matter of religion but of “origins and nationality,” of belonging to a particular “tribe.” Jews are of “Semitic origin,” and Germans, Englishmen, or Spanish could become Czechs more easily than Jews, who, coming from a totally different tribe, “only accidentally live among Czechs” and “occasionally understand and speak Czech.” Havlíek’s argument comes close to being racist; if a Jew wants to become a Czech, he has to “cease to be a Jew” (Havlíek does not explain how to do that, in view of the immutable tribal origins), and he cynically suggests that Jews wishing to give up their nationality and language should join the Germans and write in their language, as they do elsewhere. Literary questions are subordinate; Havlíek admits that Kapper has succeeded in writing a few interesting stanzas, but he cannot stand what he calls his “screaming style,” with its overdone images so disproportionate to the banal thoughts. The realist Havlíek was never willing to tolerate big political phrases instead of the far more necessary patient social action of the moment, and if the sentimental and loquacious patriot is but a Prague Jew, tant pis. It is a pity that Havlíek did not write about Kapper again, when he returned, two years after the revolution, to the Jewish question, a much wiser and perhaps more isolated man among his compatriots, and welcomed the legal emancipation of Jews as an integral event in the emancipation of all nations of mankind. Perhaps he had come to see that Jews cannot be denied those civic privileges that Czechs were so urgently claiming for themselves.It was impossible to argue against Havlí
ek’s authority. Kapper continued his medical studies and received his Vienna doctorate in 1847. He settled as a young physician in a small town of Croatia, traveled a good deal in Serbia and Bosnia, and quickly returned to revolutionary Vienna in the spring of 1848. He joined the Academic Legion, treated wounded students in the courtyard of the university, published bad German poetry saying that political action, not empty verse, was the order of the day,
and wrote regular reports for important German newspapers. In 1853 he moved to Dob
íš, a small town not far from Prague, married the daughter of the exiled radical Moritz Hartmann (earning himself the close attention of the Austrian secret police), edited a German yearbook of literature, and became so bored that, in 1859, he joined the Austrian army in Italy as a volunteer and worked in a field hospital in Verona. A year later he tried to settle in Bohemia again, this time in Mladá Boleslav (Jungbunzlau), and within a short time he succeeded in provoking most people there, the Germans because he supported Czech candidates in any election, and the Jewish traditionalists because he was never seen in the synagogue.
ek’s authority. Kapper continued his medical studies and received his Vienna doctorate in 1847. He settled as a young physician in a small town of Croatia, traveled a good deal in Serbia and Bosnia, and quickly returned to revolutionary Vienna in the spring of 1848. He joined the Academic Legion, treated wounded students in the courtyard of the university, published bad German poetry saying that political action, not empty verse, was the order of the day,and wrote regular reports for important German newspapers. In 1853 he moved to Dob
íš, a small town not far from Prague, married the daughter of the exiled radical Moritz Hartmann (earning himself the close attention of the Austrian secret police), edited a German yearbook of literature, and became so bored that, in 1859, he joined the Austrian army in Italy as a volunteer and worked in a field hospital in Verona. A year later he tried to settle in Bohemia again, this time in Mladá Boleslav (Jungbunzlau), and within a short time he succeeded in provoking most people there, the Germans because he supported Czech candidates in any election, and the Jewish traditionalists because he was never seen in the synagogue.Other books
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