The Czech paradox

Photo: Diliff (CC) commons.wikimedia.org

This dainty opinion might be accurate in the case of Slovakia (or Slovenia). In Czech terms, the fairy-tale makeover of an Eastern European dump which turned into a Central European paradise had a slightly different objective. Here, Europeanisation was not a goal in itself but rather a means to make true the greatest dream of a few generations of patriots; a dream told for over 100 years in tales, opera librettos, political party programmes and even in beer commercials. This was a dream of a homogenous nation state.

Myths

In 1992 and 1993 Czechs showed Europe that the Czech Republic could be created as a result of a political transaction and without bloodshed. In their case (unlike the Serbs and Croats) the disintegrating power of the European idea (disintegrating “all great national projects of the 19th century”, or rather their flawed remnants, such as communist Yugoslavia or indeed Czechoslovakia) was a factor which facilitated a peaceful transformation from the post-totalitarian regime to democracy, from the dictatorship to the rule of law and order, from an economy based on command and control to one based on the market, from nationalisation to privatisation (and reprivatisation). In a nutshell, it moved from Husák’s “normalisation” to Havel’s normality.    

In order to be normal, this motto (although not written down nor embroidered on flags or chiselled on monument,) is remembered by everyone who lived consciously through 1989. This spell had an enormous driving force, especially in the Czech Republic where it was easiest to believe that change lay in erasing the past four decades and a return to the bourgeois society. From the Czech perspective, the revolution in 1989 resembled Franz Kafka’s story about Gregor Samsa, read in reverse, from the end to the beginning. As we remember, the protagonist in The Metamorphosis, an average public administrator in Prague wakes up one day and discovers he is transformed into a bug or an insect. He dreams about going back to normality, only to die in the end. His family are relieved that he dies and then proceed to get rid of the body. In the autumn of 1989 it seems that Samsa has regained his old form. In the morning he puts on his suit and goes to work; in the evening he goes out with his mates for beer and women.

So, what did the Czechs give Europe? The same as always: a myth. This time it was an extremely attractive one regarding the continuity of Central European history. We can find it in the stories of Milan Kundera and Bohumil Hrabal, the films of Zdeněk Svěrák and Petr Zelenka, the essays and speeches of Václav Havel (his fate, in itself, is one of the most fixed in Central European myths). This myth is present outside and within the country. Every time a Czech grabs a book or goes to the cinema, they are taught a lesson on historiography that is to convey the obviousness of the Western European provenance of their culture and its primacy (at least in this regard) towards its Eastern neighbours, that is Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

Passenger without a ticket

Czechs, by definition, are more western and European (although not necessarily pro-EU), more democratic, more liberal, wealthier and more emancipated than other Central Europeans. This megalomania, which was embodied by President Václav Klaus in the 1990s, to a great extent contributed to the success of the Czech transformation and promoted it abroad, including Poland. Czechs did well because they believed they were heading for success and that they are the only ones who are truly Central European.

The paradox lies in the fact that – and here Snyder is certainly correct – the Czech “advantages”, or the Czech contribution to Europe, facilitate survival in the age of globalisation. If we place the transformation of the post-communist countries in the wider historical and international context, mysterious elements of this social and political landscape fall into the right place. It is especially true in the case of countries located between Europeanised Germany and authoritarian Russia, and which were lucky to join the EU and hence finish the process of European reunification initiated in the 1990s under the auspices of the United States.

At the same time, when Milan Kundera set the tone for the discussion on the fate of several Eastern European countries – that were created after the First World War in accordance with the will expressed by US President Woodrow Wilson, and enslaved after the Second World War by Joseph Stalin – the process of post-fascist Greece, Portugal and Spain’s accession to the European Community was already in place. Citizens of those countries were never asked what they could give or offer Europe, as this kind of question would be inappropriate. After all, without those centres of civilisation and their overseas expansion, there simply would be no Europe at all. At the same time, the countries of Europe’s East are generally perceived as passengers with no valid tickets for the European history train. They are allegedly subjected to inertia and underdeveloped, peasant societies for the most part of the modern era; they are deprived of their own statehood, ruled by foreign dynasties and subject to blind imitation of the West and colonial exploitation under the euphemistic name of modernisation.   

The power of this stereotype is overwhelming. It was not questioned in Kundera’s essays, which evoked cultural criteria (the Latin tradition, the Roman religion, and Habsburg modernism), or the works of Polish economic historians, such as Marian Małowist and Witold Kula. Those works were developed 20 years earlier and were introduced into the global historiography by Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein. Małowist and Kula provided evidence of the significant contribution that Eastern Europe made to the economic power of modern Europe. In the case of the Czech contribution to the European economy over the centuries, wealth was mostly generated from natural metals, particularly silver, which were necessary for trade all across medieval Europe. Silver contributed to the power of the Czech Kingdom, and thanks to the mines at Kutna Hora, the Czech King, Karol IV, was given the imperial crown. In turn, the Hussite Revolution in the 15th century saved the Czech bourgeois and Czech craftsmanship from being dominated by the more powerful German establishments, while strengthening the foundations of local entrepreneurship, which impressively developed during the times of the late Habsburgs. At that time, the Czech lands took on a leading role in the economic life of a 50-million-strong monarchy, while the Czech intellectual elite were responsible for the “rebirth of the nation” and created several promising political programmes, among them the liberal and democratic Czechoslovakism by Tomáš Masaryk.   

Confronting Europe

Czechoslovakism was a peculiar equivalent of Józef Piłsudski’s concept of federalism for interwar Poland, except that the Czechs made it happen. The liberal component of Masaryk’s ideology proved to be the key as it was related to the Americanophilia of its creator and his genuine conviction that the future belongs to democracy. Masaryk’s liberalism turned out to be the best Czech investment of the 20th century and proved its vitality after 1989.

Contemporary Czech liberalism, with its two extreme faces (Klaus’s autarkic one and Havel’s cosmopolitan one), owes its cyclothymic, extreme bipolar disorder to the confrontation with the European idea. It was under great pressure due to the allegedly existential choices (“West or East”): Havel’s support for a European federation or Klaus’s bastion of the nation state. Both found their supporters and believers abroad, which otherwise facilitated convenient identification of those who participate in ideological and identity disputes in Central and Eastern Europe. However in the Czech Republic, the most permanent achievement was revitalising the middle class. Having its support, they ruled for two decades and prospered.

Today, Czechs are the wealthiest society of the former Eastern bloc. Their livelihood is so good that they are no longer fascinated with western capitalism. That is why they were not lured by the mirage of even greater wealth within the European Union of 30 or so countries, whose average size, as Snyder wrote, is today comparable to the area of a Habsburg province a hundred years ago [and even though] contemporary smaller nation states are rarely known by the same name as Habsburg provinces they are more or less in the same situation.

In the EU, Czechs opt for the status quo with no common European currency and no common refugee policy, and with no delusions of European federalism, but with economic liberalism, acceptance of domestic oligarchs and traditional moral permissiveness (for which the greatest threat today seems to be, ironically, the refugee policy of the European Commission). We may call it liberal populism and its prophet is Andrej Babiš, a post-communist billionaire originally from Slovakia. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, he stated that two years ago he met with Emmanuel Macron, who was very impressed with the electoral success of ANO, a political party established and financed by Babiš. If the story is true, then the Czech contribution towards Europe might prove to be even more paradoxical.

Translated by Justyna Chada

Aleksander Kaczorowski is a Polish author and journalist. He is the author of several books, including a biography of Václav Havel titled Havel, which was awarded the Ambassador of New Europe prize in 2015. He is also the editor in chief of the Aspen Review Central Europe journal.

Andrej Babiš, Czech Republic, European Union