Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (80 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
BOOK: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City
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Prague of a hundred towers
with the fingers of all the saints
with the fingers of perjury …
with the burning fingers of women lying on their backs
with the fingers that touch the stars …
with the fingers of a windmill and a lilac bush …
with the fingers of the rain, cut off, and the Týn cathedral
on the glove of the dawns …
with the fingers of all the saints
with the fingers of perjury …
with the burning fingers of women lying on their backs
with the fingers that touch the stars …
with the fingers of a windmill and a lilac bush …
with the fingers of the rain, cut off, and the Týn cathedral
on the glove of the dawns …
Karel Teige, who in the late 1920s taught at the Dessau Bauhaus, the institutional headquarters of the German avant-garde, and Nezval, a voracious reader with a photographic memory, were perfectly qualified to make fine distinctions between what was going on among avant-garde writers in west and east, and they provided poeticism with a program that was fully if critically aware of its early links to Italian futurism and European Dadaism. They had a more difficult time separating the Czech poeticists from the French surrealists who came, they said, only after Prague poeticists had articulated their views. Both Teige in his discussions (among them an early and remarkable analysis of the art of photography and the cinema) and Nezval in his lively essay entitled “The Parrot on the Motorcycle” (1925) believed that the poem should emancipate itself, asserting its independence as poem against philosophies and ideologies. The magnificent practitioner Nezval was particularly eloquent in praising the process of untrammeled association, “a woman-alchemist quicker than the radio,” and the creative principle of assonance and rhyme; he was frank enough to admit that the French surrealists who had studied Freud (still unknown in Prague, Nezval wrongly believed) knew more about the subconscious sources of the imagination than their Czech colleagues, but he defended the Czech belief that the music of poetry triggered free association against the surrealist disdain for rhyme, which was understandable only in the context of the French tradition. The poeticists, it became increasingly clear, were but surrealists
in statu nascendi,
and when their group had run out of collective steam and the ideological cohabitation with the revolutionary left had turned difficult, Nezval established a
Czech Group of surrealists and invited the French masters to come to Prague.
in statu nascendi,
and when their group had run out of collective steam and the ideological cohabitation with the revolutionary left had turned difficult, Nezval established a
Czech Group of surrealists and invited the French masters to come to Prague.
It was a great and much remembered moment when André Breton and Paul Eluard arrived in Prague in the earliest spring days of 1935. Breton, the prince of surrealism, before lecturing on the “surrealist object” (on March 31) and the political situation of the arts (on April 1) glorified Prague, a city “of legendary seductions,” saying that among cities which he had never visited, it was perhaps the least foreign to him. Pushing aside geographical, historical, and economic considerations, and seeing it from a distance, it was
la capital magique de la vieille Europe
, the magic capital of old Europe. For decades Czech surrealists and their later friends misquoted Breton by simply ignoring his qualifying adjective
vieille,
telling us that Breton declared magic Prague to be the capital of Europe; even Angelo Maria Ripellino, who should know better, sustains that self-congratulatory myth. To Breton, Prague was the capital of
old
Europe and Paris the first city of European modernity.
la capital magique de la vieille Europe
, the magic capital of old Europe. For decades Czech surrealists and their later friends misquoted Breton by simply ignoring his qualifying adjective
vieille,
telling us that Breton declared magic Prague to be the capital of Europe; even Angelo Maria Ripellino, who should know better, sustains that self-congratulatory myth. To Breton, Prague was the capital of
old
Europe and Paris the first city of European modernity.
Breton wrote home about his triumphs in Prague, where he addressed hundreds of “comrades” (his term) and stayed longer than planned; it is interesting to speculate about what the Czech and the French expected from each other in political terms. Paradoxically, as Mark Polizzotti has shown in his recent biography of Breton, both expected better grades in the books of the Communist Party (the French being able to refer to their famous revolutionary comrades Teige and Nezval, and the Czechs, not untouched by the commands of socialist realism, hoping that an alliance with the French masters would give them more elbowroom). The left avant-garde in Czechoslovakia, as all over Europe, had to confront the question of how to reconcile aesthetic choice with the stern discipline demanded by increasingly Stalinist party organizations; these factions of the 1930s immediately reemerged at the end of World War II. Those who had been critical of the Moscow show trials in 1936 or flirted with cultural policies as defined by Trotsky were later driven to silence and suicide or were, like Záviš Kalandra, sentenced in Prague show trials and executed. Others who adjusted to party requirements more readily were rewarded with important positions in the cultural apparat and rose from honor to honor. Teige (who died in 1951) was condemned to silence after the war, only to be rediscovered by the generation of the 1960s; Nezval, who had broken with the Paris surrealists before it was too late, especially in view of Breton’s admiration for Trotsky, in 1949 wrote a submissive lyrical-epic poem “Stalin,” to repent his sins, and was appointed chief of the nationalized Czech film industry.
After sixty years or more, it has become clear that the Prague Dev
tsil created an ingenious and witty art of imagination and charm, and while some of its achievements, in particular those not bound to the printed page—for instance, the paintings by Jindfich Štýrský and Toyen (Marie
ermínková)—are becoming more widely known, Czech poeticist poetry still constitutes one of the most astonishing and wonderful secrets of Prague, precisely because it is so difficult to translate. Nevertheless, in their own way, Nezval’s vicissitudes and literary achievements raise radical questions about imagination and politics in the service of a party.
tsil created an ingenious and witty art of imagination and charm, and while some of its achievements, in particular those not bound to the printed page—for instance, the paintings by Jindfich Štýrský and Toyen (Marieermínková)—are becoming more widely known, Czech poeticist poetry still constitutes one of the most astonishing and wonderful secrets of Prague, precisely because it is so difficult to translate. Nevertheless, in their own way, Nezval’s vicissitudes and literary achievements raise radical questions about imagination and politics in the service of a party.Ji
í Voskovec and Jan Werich, two students at the elite K
emencárna school, located just opposite the famous U Flek
brewery, were also often found among the habitués of Kino Konvikt, where Charlie Chaplin films were shown regularly. These young men were to create an avant-garde theater of Dev
tsil inspiration, unique in Prague and in Europe; though Voskovec was later sent to Dijon (France) to study, Werich remained in Prague, and the inseparable friends met again when they entered law school, though there is little evidence that they were serious about training to become lawyers. Voskovec was early involved in the ideas of the European avant-garde, and in his essays (which he must have written when he was seventeen or eighteen) he defended futurism and expressionism against Czech traditionalists who still believed in the charms of “fragrant meadows,” rather than in the “mechanical beauty” professed by the younger generation everywhere. In 1926, the two for the first time performed at a student matinee, and a year later, scribbling away at the Národní Kavárna and at the family dacha, completed their
West Pocket Revue
, a witty sequence of satire and parody, which created a theatrical sensation.
í Voskovec and Jan Werich, two students at the elite Kemencárna school, located just opposite the famous U Flekbrewery, were also often found among the habitués of Kino Konvikt, where Charlie Chaplin films were shown regularly. These young men were to create an avant-garde theater of Devtsil inspiration, unique in Prague and in Europe; though Voskovec was later sent to Dijon (France) to study, Werich remained in Prague, and the inseparable friends met again when they entered law school, though there is little evidence that they were serious about training to become lawyers. Voskovec was early involved in the ideas of the European avant-garde, and in his essays (which he must have written when he was seventeen or eighteen) he defended futurism and expressionism against Czech traditionalists who still believed in the charms of “fragrant meadows,” rather than in the “mechanical beauty” professed by the younger generation everywhere. In 1926, the two for the first time performed at a student matinee, and a year later, scribbling away at the Národní Kavárna and at the family dacha, completed theirWest Pocket Revue
, a witty sequence of satire and parody, which created a theatrical sensation.
In 1928 Voskovec and Werich, known as V&W forthwith, consolidated their Osvobozené Divadlo (Theater Unchained, using Tairov’s expression) in a 1,000-seat auditorium on Vodi
kova Street, in the center of Prague, hired the comic Ferenc Futurista, he of the enormous buck teeth, to play minor parts, and were immediately excommunicated by the avant-garde community for having capitalist aspirations. They were fortunate to work with gifted Jaroslav Ježek, half a nervous George Gershwin, half Kurt Weill, who took over the orchestra, strong in the saxophone section, and composed, apart from concerti, V&W songs and haunting blues that have not been forgotten. (Theater history has less to say about the six vivacious if rather muscular Jan
ík girls who provided the ballet.) In the early 1930s, Voskovec and Werich were able to attract František Zelenka, a functionalist architect of note, who did sets and posters for them (he
later organized the theater at Theresienstadt and died, together with his son and his wife, in Auschwitz). The team of V&W, Ježek, and Zelenka created an extraordinary moment for Prague theater, resuscitating the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, as the Soviet producer Meyerhold noted when he came to visit, and combining it with Dada’s disruptive wit, surrealist imagination, linguistic intelligence, and, increasingly, a joyous defense of beleaguered Prague democracy—though, they had, like many others, considerable illusions about the policies of the Soviet Union.
kova Street, in the center of Prague, hired the comic Ferenc Futurista, he of the enormous buck teeth, to play minor parts, and were immediately excommunicated by the avant-garde community for having capitalist aspirations. They were fortunate to work with gifted Jaroslav Ježek, half a nervous George Gershwin, half Kurt Weill, who took over the orchestra, strong in the saxophone section, and composed, apart from concerti, V&W songs and haunting blues that have not been forgotten. (Theater history has less to say about the six vivacious if rather muscular Janík girls who provided the ballet.) In the early 1930s, Voskovec and Werich were able to attract František Zelenka, a functionalist architect of note, who did sets and posters for them (helater organized the theater at Theresienstadt and died, together with his son and his wife, in Auschwitz). The team of V&W, Ježek, and Zelenka created an extraordinary moment for Prague theater, resuscitating the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, as the Soviet producer Meyerhold noted when he came to visit, and combining it with Dada’s disruptive wit, surrealist imagination, linguistic intelligence, and, increasingly, a joyous defense of beleaguered Prague democracy—though, they had, like many others, considerable illusions about the policies of the Soviet Union.
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