“All the famous Czechs were Germans” is a saying you’ll sometimes hear when you ask about the prominent personalities of Czech history.
It usually refers to the period before WWI, when Bohemia and Moravia were part of the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Germans lived side by side with Czechs (in varying degrees of harmony) in Bohemia and Moravia from the 13th Century until the end of WWII, when they were expelled by presidential decree.
Sigmund Freud is probably the most famous historic figure to whom the saying refers. Despite being born in Příbor, North Moravia, in 1856, he is usually associated with Vienna and London before the land of his birth. It’s true he spent only his youngest years there before being whisked off to Vienna by his family, but most scholars agree that Freud’s early years in the Czech lands (and his nanny Monika Zajicova) were heavily influential on his later theories.
Gregor Mendel was another important thinker from a small town in North Moravia. Born in Hynčice in 1822, Mendel went on to study mathematics, physics, philosophy and ethics at the Olomouc University, before entering a monastery in Brno and laying the foundation for the science of genetics by experimenting with pea plants in the garden there.
Oscar Schindler’s influence on the world was more localized, but no less important, especially to the descendants of the Jewish workers that he saved from Nazi concentration camps by declaring them essential workers for his Krakow factory. As the war turned against Germany and the Russians advanced, Schindler moved his entire operation including about a thousand Jewish workers to a village in the Czech-Moravian highlands, not far from his hometown of Svitavy. Where, incidentally, there’s an excellent museum in his honour and a commemorative statue near the house he grew up in.
Gustav Mahler and Franz Kafka are two more prominent figures in German culture. Mahler was an important composer and conductor who was born near Jihlava in 1860 and Kafka is one of the most influential writers of the early 20th century. In much of his work the gloomy atmosphere of his native Prague is tangible enough to almost be a character of its own.
So Mahler, Freud, Mendel, Schindler and Kafka are the reasons this phrase came into existence, but is it really true?
Were the most famous Czechs all Germans?
If someone asked you to name five famous Czechs, which names would spring first to your mind?
It usually refers to the period before WWI, when Bohemia and Moravia were part of the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Germans lived side by side with Czechs (in varying degrees of harmony) in Bohemia and Moravia from the 13th Century until the end of WWII, when they were expelled by presidential decree.
Sigmund Freud is probably the most famous historic figure to whom the saying refers. Despite being born in Příbor, North Moravia, in 1856, he is usually associated with Vienna and London before the land of his birth. It’s true he spent only his youngest years there before being whisked off to Vienna by his family, but most scholars agree that Freud’s early years in the Czech lands (and his nanny Monika Zajicova) were heavily influential on his later theories.
Gregor Mendel was another important thinker from a small town in North Moravia. Born in Hynčice in 1822, Mendel went on to study mathematics, physics, philosophy and ethics at the Olomouc University, before entering a monastery in Brno and laying the foundation for the science of genetics by experimenting with pea plants in the garden there.
Oscar Schindler’s influence on the world was more localized, but no less important, especially to the descendants of the Jewish workers that he saved from Nazi concentration camps by declaring them essential workers for his Krakow factory. As the war turned against Germany and the Russians advanced, Schindler moved his entire operation including about a thousand Jewish workers to a village in the Czech-Moravian highlands, not far from his hometown of Svitavy. Where, incidentally, there’s an excellent museum in his honour and a commemorative statue near the house he grew up in.Gustav Mahler and Franz Kafka are two more prominent figures in German culture. Mahler was an important composer and conductor who was born near Jihlava in 1860 and Kafka is one of the most influential writers of the early 20th century. In much of his work the gloomy atmosphere of his native Prague is tangible enough to almost be a character of its own.
So Mahler, Freud, Mendel, Schindler and Kafka are the reasons this phrase came into existence, but is it really true?
Were the most famous Czechs all Germans?
If someone asked you to name five famous Czechs, which names would spring first to your mind?
