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Carolina (English) No 228B-Special
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STUDENTS' E-MAIL NEWS FROM CZECH REPUBLIC
Faculty of Social Science of Charles University
Smetanovo nabr. 6
110 01 Prague 1
Czech Republic
e-mail: CAROLINA@cuni.cz
tel: (+42 2) 24810804, ext. 252, fax: (+42 2) 24810987
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
C A R O L I N A No 228 *SPECIAL*, Friday, December 20, 1996.
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PRAGUE AMERICAN
Impressions of Prague by Students of Journalism
Fall 1996
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Editorial
Four students, under the instruction of Milan Smid, have compiled
our thoughts on Prague during a three-month independent study of Czech
media. From September to December we have recorded our reactions and
observations while adjusting to life in an emerging democracy as well
as our insights on its culture and history.
Erik Diehn, former editor-in-chief of The Eagle at the American
University, is a senior studying journalism and political science. Our
man on the street, Dana Cruikshank, is a junior in the School of
International Service at AU. The culinary consultant and resident
philosopher, Daria Vaisman, is a junior at the University of
Michigain. Stacy Olkowski, conquering her vertigo, is an AU senior
studying journalism and anthropology. We wish to thank Professor Smid
for his patience and hard work, as well as you, our reader, for
exploring this amazing place and time with us. Any reactions, comments
or criticisms will be kindly recieved via e-mail.
Try Stacy, Dana, or Daria at so5176a@american.edu,
dc6757a@american.edu, dhv@umich.edu. Meanwhile, enjoy!
LIFE IN PRAGUE
HUMBLE
by Stacy Olkowski
Everyday brings a new, more humbling experience than the last.
Living in another culture without any proper language skills beyond
the "hello, thanks, goodbye" basics allows me to view myself, not only
as an everpresent tourist, but as someone running from the tag "stupid
American." And yet the faster I run, the harder I fall.
I'm trying, I swear. Even though it may take a while, I give the
correct amount of hellers at the potraviny. I have handed over my 200
crown fine - more than once - for not having my metro ticket stamped
in the right place.
At the local restaurace, I've ordered in Czech, even though you
didn't understand me. I've even smiled and said dekuje when I pay the
"tourist tax" that leaves you smirking.
Through ignorance I am learning. I am trying to accept bureaucracy
as a way of life. I've stood in line for 2 hours at Muzeum metro for
my three-month tram pass, prepared my speech, "studentsky listek,
prosim" only to be denied for lack of the proper stamps and
signatures.
So I am living in a state of awakened ignorance: my limits are
shoved in my face everyday and I smile while you shake your head as
I walk away, clutching my Dobra Voda, tripping over your cobblestones
and my mistakes, happy to be here and grateful that, for once, I'm
blending in a little more each day.
JUDAISM FROM ANOTHER ANGLE
by Daria Vaisman
My Jewishness is like Persephone in the underworld: randomly
assigned, put persistent in dark spaces. I'm technically a Jew, but
a mixture of arrogance and laziness pushes me closer to agnosticism.
So what was I doing in a sleepy Prague synagogue on Yom Kippur? Guilt,
mostly, also a desire to identify with the familiar in a world of
variables, a situation usually reversed. Also, my mother asked me to.
There were four of us, none religious, all sentimental. We
decided on the reformed synagogue thinking it would correspond to our
American definition of reformed--a quick service, a few group songs,
and a hearty kiss to whatever family is dispersed in the audience.
What I didn't expect was to be separated from the men and placed
deliberately behind the poles and in the background.
The services lacked the casual social air that characterizes
Americanized Judaism. Instead, the solemn men were clad in orthodox
regalia, faces as tense and vibratory as sheaves of wheat, chanting in
appalling symbiosis. This service was not meant for us, it seemed, for
the women and the uninitiated, an overlapping sub-group.
The synagogue had the cold smell of history, and it was gilded
and lavish enough to seem more like a church than the normally spartan
synagogues. We couldn't tell when the services were officially over,
and I thumbed through the Torah in my hands for any synopsis of
activities.
Eventually, people started shuffling out quietly, with their
heads down. To the Prague Jews, this Jewish stuff is serious business;
it has to be. After previous regimes annihilate your predecessors,
your parents even, you feel not only a desire but an obligation to do
it right.
I asked a man on the way out if he came here often. "Yes," he
said, "every week."
He had seen the state of Judaism in America and didn't like it.
"Too reformed," he sniffed.
"But what about male/female segregation?" I asked. "What about
the hypocrisy in Conservatism?"
"We do it like this out of respect," he said. "For tradition."
Here is one of the greatest cultural gaps between the American
and Czech Jews. Whereas he cites a respect for what was and what is
remembered, we have a respect for the future and the possibilities of
what will be. We do everything quickly and loud. He would be appalled
to be a part of our concluding services with its scuffle of chairs,
its bread-thick swarm of voices, and the exhalatory peals of children.
These holidays, even when they are mournful, bring us a sense of
joy and of coming together. In Prague, even the joyful times contain
elegies within.
When I was in Russia in '92, I had also gone to services, though
I don't remember for which holiday any more. The synagogue was
cavernous, intimidating, and flanked by secret police and thousands of
frenzied observers pressing in. No one had bothered to pick up the old
Torahs off the floor, and people were ripping them apart in a rush to
get closer to the Rabbi. They were like newly freed animals who,
removed from their cage, continue to walk in circles while looking up.
They were like adolescents in a delirium to discover what they didn't
know before.
The Czech Jews are past this; they're calmer, introspective, and
patient. The oppressed have a duty to maintain their oppressed status
once the chains are gingerly lifted. For them, it is a duty to
remember, and above all, to preserve.
DUNKIN' DONUTS
by Dana Cruikshank
On September 20, 1996, the largest Dunkin' Donuts in the world
opened at the foot of Wencleslas Square with little fanfare or
advanced notice to the public.
It wasn't necessary. The sight of its trademark purple and orange
logo has been enough to draw a steady crowd into the 197 seat
establishment. The operation has already been declared a success by
Central European Foods (CEF), the Warsaw based investment group which
holds exclusive rights to the Dunkin' Donuts name in the Czech
Republic, Poland and Slovakia. According to CEF officials, the 13.5
million KC (500,000 USD) enterprise is just the beginning; similar
outlets will soon spring up in various cities throughout these three
countries soon.
Ascending the escalators in the Palac Koruna Building, the scent
of fried dough and coffee that reawakens part of the mind and sends
the other into what can only be called reverse culture shock. Its not
that the shop seems out of place, indeed Wencleslas Square is living
up to its nickname as the Czech Times Square more and more each week.
No, the sensation is more the realization that a place is more
American than America could ever want to be.
Business is brisk. Despite the fact that the place sprung up
virtually overnight, word of mouth spread through the extensive Prague
expatriate community like wild fire. Not that customers are forced to
stand in line for long. No, a fleet footed army of fast-food employees
holds firm, dispensing donuts and slinging coffee, the glare of the
fluorescent back-lit donut cases held at bay by those curious brown
polyester visors. And even the most gruff German tourist is saluted
with a bright "Prosim".
Perhaps half the customers appear to belong to the growing upper
middle class, intrigued by the store's cleanliness, and drawn by what
one woman described as "American Pasteries". Yet as a displaced
American munches on his or her "French Crown" , one experiences the
other half of reverse culture shock, the realization that American
society has borrowed the best of other cultures and then repackages
and sells it back to those societies, who can never get enough of it.
Yet as one overhears the conversations of happy Czech families,
children with powdered sugar on their coats, fathers laughing with
large styrofoam cups of black coffee in their hands, one has to wonder
if John F. Kennedy didn't misspeak when he proclaimed "Ich bin ein
Berliner". He knew nothing bridges two worlds like a good jelly donut.
LIFE STYLE
CZECH FOOD - HARD TO SWALLOW?
by Daria Vaisman
If personality is a delicate balance between genetics and
environment, then food, like climate, is an undeniable factor of Who
We Are. Mussolini--possibly the first public figure to realize food's
influence on attitude--decreed that the Italians should stop eating so
much bread. Why? Because he thought it was making them stupid.
Now consider Czech food--heavily unbalanced, heavily yang--bread,
pork and beef as opposed to chicken and fish, cabbage, dumplings. Even
the vegetables are congealed with creamy concoctions. The food is
dense and muddy, blander than Hungarian, more serious than German,
less dignified than French. It's the food of Communism--uniform,
easily duplicated, the honest food of physical labourers. The emphasis
is on what is filling and not on what is beautiful or tasty. That
would be blatant consumerism, superfluous: All art forms under
Communism were subjected to realism, to the most common of all
denominators, and culinary aestheticism was no exception.
But the Czech social topography has changed; it's still changing
as democracy begins to define itself. A result of this is a shift in
national eating habits and preferences. I've met vegetarians who stick
to the Hare Krishna place in town when eating out. And most of the
under-30 set make faces like lemons when I ask if they enjoy their
national dish (pork, dumplings, and cabbage.)
What's strange about most European countries is that the native
food is more than mere suggestion--it's the food eaten in restaurants
and at home, reflecting the homogeneousness of the culture. America,
schizophrenic, has no food to bind itself to its people; it's
a bastard hybrid of every "ethnic" possibility.
A friend recently said to me: "There's a difference between
symmetry and balance. Maybe Czech food is so heavily yang because the
people require it." It would be surreal to imagine the thick-necked
workers nibbling on carrots and fruit before hitting the mines. The
concept of food as caloric intake and energy accumulator has
dispelled. The current options in the Czech Republic are partly
a reflection of increased accessibility, but also a reflection of the
new attitude, in which everything is possible.
Czechs, they question. The status quo (samizdat writers). Morality
(Kafka). Statutory age limitations (Forman). But culinary inquisitors
they are not. No spice. No nuance. No selfish food meant only to taste
good and not to fill the warm bellies of the field labourers. But
still, there are the petulant cacti lurking in the desert known as
Czech cuisine...
What to Eat...
PALACINKY, the francophiles respite, a Proustian harkening to
sidewalk creperies. Pancakes, woefully unfilling, wrapped around fruit
and ice cream, smothered in chocolate and cream. This is restaurant
dessert at its finest.
KNEDLIKY are the unavoidable dense matter that expands like yeast
in the body. But they're great for vegetarians and all those already
too familiar with "the other white meat". Sliced potato or bread
dumplings--potato is better, but the bread (houskovy knedliky) are the
ones usually reincarnated into soups and goulashes. Addictively
tasteless food for the chewy nights ahead.
Where to Eat It...
CUKRARNAS are a lyrical ode to the possibilities of bread and
sugar. Dainty puff pastries, burekas filled with poppy seeds, cheese
curds, jam. Bread that tastes like fresh air and reminds you of the
country. Chocolate covered waffles with unidentified red bits mixed
in. Creams. Macaroons. All types of desserts which leave stains on
brown bags. A good starting point is the bakery on Vrsovicke Namesti.
(Don't be put off by the Soup-nazi style of service.)
Czechs don't go to restaurants to eat. Food is merely a way to
engage the mouth between sentences. Are there any options for the
seasoned sandwich eater besides McDs and KFC? The grill stands,
conveniently and appropriately clustered in the cheesiness of
Wenceslas Square, fill the filling-fast-food dearth. The rotisserie
chicken is more flavourful than most of the restaurant variety, and
you can choose the amount of bird you want. The sausages are thick,
paprikad, sublime. No pretensions here--your meal is presented to you
on corrugated cardboard, with a pickle for accent. You proceed onto
the makeshift tin tables, standing and eating as the grease slowly
drips down your arm and onto the table below...but avoid the
saran-wrapped sandwiches--they're morgues of ham and vegetables
already gone on to a better life.
The pineapple juice boxes are great here--a combination of apple-
juice-like concentrate and the heavy syrup left over from canned
fruit. Less phlegmy than the ubiquitous orange sludge that is to
Tropicana what survival is to living.
PRAHA TEMURA is actually a Japanese restaurant, but it deserves
to be mentioned as the only place to get sushi (that I know of) in
Prague. You ring the doorbell, wait, and are led into a sort of glam
den of the ives--you feel like Bond, or just really, really important.
You wait for your super-fresh (and super-expensive) food while sipping
on hot sake and playing with the owner's lupine, emotionally disturbed
dog. There are many options here, not all financial pain--udons,
sobas, curries, miso, the works. The adjoining Japanese cafe serves
lunchtime soups to the business set.
For another anti-Czech option, check out Sate Grill. It's walking
distance from my dorm (and that's American, not Czech standards),
simple, and casually satisfying in that way Chinese and Italian food
can be. There are very few options on the menu, which makes it hard
not to order everything on it. The Indonesian noodles, rice, and
paprika chicken are the kind of dishes that make you eat fast, exhale,
and crave a cigarette after the meal. A bonus is the dessert--a
Sam-I-Am green palacinky filled with a coconut mixture and doused in
vodka sauce.
FEATURE
FROM WHENCE SPRANG KAFKA
by Erik Diehn
Almost seven years ago, the people in this part of the world
decided they were pretty much fed up with Communism, and in one quick
fell swoop, a bunch of students, workers and tired old grandmothers
gave 50 years of excessive bureaucracy and food shortages a quick
boot. And there was much rejoicing.
A lot has changed since then. Prague became, almost overnight, the
"Paris of the '90s," a place for disaffected Americans seeking
adventure to come and prosper on cheap rent and cheap beer. Instead of
a generation of writers and artists, though, this city's version of
Montparnasse was filled with a bunch of hippie drop-outs who did
little more than play guitar and sell cheap trinkets on 900-year-old
Charles Bridge.
Of course, other Americans and Europeans brought a little
pragmatism and capitalism, so the former capital of a backwards
Eastern Bloc nation is today a thriving commercial metropolis, all the
way down to those annoying leeches who hand out fliers for parties at
the local sports bars. Yes, this city has come a long way, baby.
It's not New York, though, not overnight. There's still vestiges
of the world left behind just around every newly-cleaned street
corner. The Czech Republic, after all, is the land of Kafka and
Kundera, a place where confusion and absurdity have been elevated to
an art form.
In fact, for most Americans these days, a stay in Prague is not
the Golden City, beer-hall rampage they first expect, but usually
turns, at some point, into a modern day version of "The Trial." Five
years ago, we were hip, cool and all the rage, but five years of
whining, wincing and driving prices up have put public opinion of
American expatriates about on par with the popularity cockroaches
enjoy back in The District.
It's easy to understand, frankly: we Americans are loud,
obnoxious, generally ignorant, slow and utterly annoying. There's very
little we can do about that fact, I'm afraid -- it's just in our
blood. You can spot an American from five miles by a cursory glance at
the shoes and the hair, and you can hear them shortly afterwards.
Czech money looks like it comes straight out of a Monopoly box, and we
spend it like we've just landed on Free Parking.
Thus, as an American in residency here, I've started feeling the
bitterness, and everyone on this program has been hassled, cajoled, or
bumped around -- not with any kind of hatred, but as if the Czechs are
collectively watching us run around the little maze they've
constructed, laughing as we sniff out the happening ex-pat bars.
You see, we're usually the ones on top: we've got the cash, the
mobility, the domination of the world's entertainment market. When
we're here, though, no plethora of political rantings, flashings of
the American passport or signings of traveler's checks can save us
from the twisted maze that is The Czech System.
The Czech System, that gray gloomy netherworld born of European
empires and carefully nurtured through years communist mismanagement.
You have to live it to know it, and if you don't know it, you pay the
price.
Take, for example, the public transportation system here. It's
basically efficient, rather clean, and goes just about everywhere.
When you walk in to a bus or tram or Metro car, you look around for
a gate, but there is none -- people just seem to waltz on in, get off
and never drop a red cent for the experience.
Be warned, though: those Czechs all have one-year passes hidden on
their persons. If you just want one ticket, you buy it from an
inconspicous-looking newsstand -- if you can pronounce the word
"prestupni jizdenky" -- and punch it in a little yellow box discreetly
hidden on interior of the vehicle in question.
Yes, you can effectively ride for free. From all outside
appearances, you can take the system for a ride, jumping on and off
and, as they say here, "riding black." Don't.
Scattered throughout the system are overweight, balding men
dressed in black or blue Member's Only jackets, greasy looking guys
that move slow but pop right up on you. They can smell Americans from
three cars away, and just as you're laughing about how ridiculously
cheap this country is, they pounce.
A badge is flashed, you stumble and mumble and bitch and moan, but
in the end, you pay this man 200 koruny. Don't try to sob or talk
about how you didn't know the rules. He hits us because he hears us,
and he knows we have the cash.
Oh, and just because you buy a ticket doesn't mean you're safe.
The ticket has to be punched -- and in the right spot. My friend Brian
was fined simply because he'd inserted the ticket wrong-end first into
the machine. "Sorry," the inspector tells him. "We have rules here.
You must stamp right end, or it's like you don't have a ticket at
all."
"But where's that written?" Brian moans. "I don't see that on the
ticket! I punched it! I bought it! Why do I have to pay?"
He grins and gives that famous Czech shrug, that one action that
says, "I don't know any more than you do, but as long it's working for
me, I'm not gonna say a word."
Other students bought passes for 15 days and thought they were
safe. They've all paid, because THEY DIDN'T SIGN THEM. In D.C., anyone
who signs the back of his Metro card might as well slip on the pocket
protector and drag out the high-water pants. Here, though, failure to
bring out that pen at the right moment means -- you got it, 200
crowns.
Two hundred crowns isn't much; at the current exchange rate, it's
about eight bucks. On the other hand, you could've saved all that just
by knowing the rules.
But that's life in Prague, and you get used to it. The beer is, in
fact, still pretty cheap. Instead of getting a glimpse of wonderous
SIS annex when I step outside during a class break, I've got a baroque
cathedral staring me in the face.
When you're on the Metro, though, they don't take lame excuses and
they don't take American Express. So sit tight, buy that ticket, and
don't ever, EVER let them hear you speak.
PROFILE
TRAFIKA JAM--A TALK WITH JEFFREY YOUNG
by Daria Vaisman
Jeffrey Young pulls off his hat and fumbles with a cigarette,
leaning in with a smile. He's the kind of person who can bestow
a casual benevolence on any situation. As we sit in The Globe, the
center for agreeable ex-pats and their buoying ideas, people swagger
up with their hearty hellos, making themselves heard above the
cappachino maker's complaints and the faint strains of Portishead's
"Nobody Loves Me." His literary magazine, Trafika, is like this magic
kingdom--an amalgam of can-do-ethic and no-rules-apply vacation
mentality, proof of the capabilities of persistence, a liberal arts
education, and savvy intelligence.
He came during Prague's "second wave", 1992, "with the energy to
do something." He started out doing interviews, book reviews, until
meeting up with three people involved in translating. Trafika
emerged--" It was the right idea, right place, right time." They
relied on "initial love" to help them out in the beginning, though
before Trafika had really taken off it was already established. As
Young says, "We were already manufactured. We had to live up to this
definition that was already on us." There were the comparisons to "The
Paris Review," The Globe to Shakespeare and Co. There were grants
coming in from NY (after aggressive PR work). There was a review in
The Washington Post for the first issue. As part of the "Prague
Mystique," Trafika was interviewed 50-60 times in a 12 month period,
but Young resents the rush of dubious interest: "Journalists are very
savvy people, and they were producing an image. It's like--get out of
my world--what are you doing?" There was a lot of stress on the
magazine--"basically, we had to rush to keep up with ourselves."
But Trafika, despite the possibility of burning out, continues
to shine as a graceful anomaly in the current selection of foreign
journals in Prague. It is defiantly apolitical in a country whose
greatest writers are also its greatest political activists. The
writing in Trafika has a detached, meditative, philosophical
style--viscous, as if you were reading it underwater. Young calls upon
Trafika's "old man aesthetics" as the basic for its "radical
conservatism."--"there are no images in it, just words. gentle words.
austere. We had a desire to just flush out all the pollution. It was
enough of an effort just to negate." Indeed, Young jokes that
Trafika's motto is "text, not context." "I have no interest in
political correctness. It's about the art--I just wanted to read
a well-written story."
The new movement in literature is to focus on the words
themselves, rather than using literature as a means to get to some
ideological slant. All good writers are also philosophers, but
preserve the aesthetics that classify them as writers--plot,
characterization, an ear for language. Taken to an extreme, it becomes
a Cliff Notes for the distracted generation--a lyrical survey
course--or, as Topol calls it, "philosophy for housewives."
Trafika's main strength is that its playfulness of ideas comes
from the original source, unfiltered. It lays itself out to you. Not
all the writing is wonderful, but it is honest without being
inartistic. As Oscar Wilde said--"the only rational method of art
criticism I have ever come across was printed over a piano. It said:
'Please do not shoot the pianist: he is doing his best.'" Young is
such a critic, publishing only those writers "that we believe
in--feel close to in some way, who don't really have a way to be
published in English. We're an arena for someone's space of the world
that's human, sincere."
As Trafika #6 is in the process of publication, after recovering
from an office theft and problems with funding, Young is hopeful about
its future. The forthcoming issue will also include photography and
other visual stimuli ("we've negated, now let's create"), so that "the
object is a vehicle for all of the art beside it."
CULTURE LIFE
LIBRI PROHIBITI: FILLING THE GAPS
by Dana Cruikshank
History is the memory of the state. Culture is the memory of the
nation. But what happens to the memory of a people when its state and
culture were dominated by a foreign, totalitarian regime? For the
people of the Czech Republic, this becomes a particularly impassioned
question. After successfully reviving its language and culture from
the brink of extinction at the hands of the Austrian crown, it entered
a further struggle against Soviet domination just fifty years later
after the second world war.
Some of the finest examples of Czech culture originated as banded
materials, from Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Solider Svejk to the Garden
Party, written by Vaclav Havel, the former dissident who is now
president of the republic. But what of the thousands of other works
that were circulated through out the intellectual underground, or
performed in clandestine readings and performances? As these works
never officially existed, what prevents them from being forgotten
after their progentit ors fade away?
Part of this answer lies in a very non descript apartment building
on Prague's Senovazne Square. On the second floor, cramed into a few
small rooms, the Libri Prohibiti, or Library of Banned Books attempts
to fill these blank spots in twentieth century Czechs life.
The majority of the library's collection consists of Samizdat
magazines. The exact number of these publications that were circulated
is impossible to determine. Most are flimsy, cheap looking collections
of faded carbon typed pages, some with healter-skelter illustrations
and logos. Samizdats were frequently published by students and
distributed among the youth underground in Prague, the Czech Republic
and abroad. Despite their appearance, the samizdats provide
a fascinating look int o dissident culture. At the risk of arrest and
imprisonment, young poets and writers would print their works which
the norms of Socialist Realism forbade. Most issues would also include
some familiar banned literature from both exiled and famous writers
such as Jerzy Kosinski or Franz Kafka.
The library also contains original copies of important dissident
documents, including the Charta 77, and numerous proclamations and
important records kept in secret by the Committee for the Defense of
the Unjustly Persecuted. The correspondence between exiled artists and
their contacts who remained in the Czech Republic have also been
preserved with extreme care, along with student dissertations which
were banned or otherwise rejected and hidden from official view. The
library's collection of audiovisual material, including recording of
non-conformist music, and secret video tapes of such events as the
1989 Student's Day massacre, which lead to the eventual overthrow of
the communist government here round out this impressive tribute.
The library was founded in 1991 by the The Society of the Libri
Prohibiti. Among its over two hundred members, the Society can claim
such notables as Havel, Ivan Klima, and numerous other pillars of
Czech life. Though a private organization, the library does receive
some assistance from the Ministry of Culture and has cooperated with
the Czech Foreign Ministry in compiling an accurate summary of the
Czech exile community.
Primary among its stated goals is to help scholarly research of
this period of Czech history. And with its rather advanced computer
system, donated by private interests, and its extensive collections,
it no doubt succeeds. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the average
Czech may not even be aware of its existence, upon entering the
comfortable reading room of the library, with its formally banned
sculptures and paintings providing an appropriate backdrop, perhaps
five or so researchers can be found, pouring over samizdats, or
watching videos of banned rock musicians from the sixties. One wonders
if they are not only doing research, but are also caught by the spirit
of dissent, of its casual rebellion.
But perhaps one of the unstated goals of the library is to
irradicate this term dissident. Zdenek Urbanek, the famous dissident
writer, himself a member of the Libri Prohibiti Society, spoke of this
term at the place where so many of his once banned works are now
housed. It was the regime, he explained, which dissented against that
which was normal. It was the so called dissidents who maintained what
was natural-the expression of art and the open mind.
MOVIE: KOLJA
by Stacy Olkowski
Kolja, the Forrest Gump-esque Czech film of 1996, depicts the
life of a bachelor musician who marries a friend as a legal favor and
inadvertently comes into the possession of a 4-year old Russian boy,
his stepson.
Directed by Jan Sverak and starring his father Zdenek Sverak and
Andrej Chalimov, Kolja beats the whirlwind tale of Mission: Impossible
as its teary-eyed successor. By the end you'll want to bring home
little Kolja, stuff him full of palachinky and tape a Russian flag
- maybe not in your window as the movie suggests - but at least above
his bed. As the number one film in the Czech Republic this year, Kolja
will also make a stab at an Academy Award.
As a cultural marker, Kolja shows Czech resentment toward
Russians, thus hinting at a subplot: all Russians aren't bad. It takes
a Russki child in knickers to show that people aren't born as the
enemy, and a Czech Don Juan to justify it.
AFTERTHOUGHT
DEFENESTRATION
by Stacy Olkowski
Defenestration, the curious practise of throwing one's
enemiesthrough a window, began in the early 15th century. New Town
Hall, on the present-day Charles Square, was the site for the first
act of defenestering.
This art, instituted in 1419, was a successful and widely
practised form. On the whole, it wasn't a singular act. Consider the
first defenestration, led by Jan Zelivsky, a Hussite priest. He and
a bunch of angry protesters stormed the place, demanding the release
of some heretics. A group of Catholic councillors threw stones at the
unruly horde so the crowd stormed the building. The councillors were
sent flying from the heights.
There must be an easier, cleaner way of "defenestering". Consider
the technical difficulties. First, you have to lure the potential
victim to a considerable height. Assuming that this despicable person
holds similar feelings for you and has the notion of what's in store
for him, this may pose a problem.
There is also the difficulty of physically lifting and heaving
someone through the window. The window must be open, which, from the
looks of it, is probably painted over, nailed shut or in another way
sealed up. It should also be large enough for your enemy to easily
sail through.
The next question, exactly how do you go about this? Get your
enemy in front of the window. Pick a fight. Argue. Be irrational. Tell
him how you feel. "I'm so angry I could... eh...ummm..." He'll catch
on pretty quickly.
The possibility of successfully completing the lift-and-chuck
method by surprise attack is rare. Go for the full body push,
remaining wary that as your enemy witnesses your wrath hurling at him
he might grab on, taking you with him. Now, if the physics are
aligning properly and the situation is crying for you to defenester,
give the old heave-ho. Remember to step over the mangled mess you made
when exiting the building.
Defenestration probably wasn't a repeat offense. In terms of
reputation, your foes might tend to stay away from you near the
obvious open window, as well as skyscrapers, elevator shafts and
building roofs. Even friends would claim that it's best not to make
enemies in high places.
Prague, October-December 1996
