Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/122

 employed in Slovakia in official positions in the post-office, telegraph offices, rail roads, the amount of damage that was done by them can be imagined.

Dr. Šrobár was finally compelled to declare martial law and order has now been restored. Slovaks everywhere are engaged in cleaning out the last remnant of Magyar rule. Bolshevist agitation took no root in view of the social program of the new government; expropriation of large landed estates, separation of church and state, introduction of universal franchise, eight hour work day and higher standard of living.

The outbreak of red revolution in Budapest will find no echo in what used to be northern Hungary. If the Allies are firm and do not yield to this last trick of the Magyars, the Czechoslovaks, if only sufficient foodstuffs arrive, can handle the new danger.

Love for music is one of the chief characteristics of the Czechoslovak people. This fact is illustrated by the saying: “Where there is a Czech, there you hear music.” Their neighbors have observed this; and they observed not only the Bohemian’s love for music, but also his cultivated taste and developed skill in musical art. In his novel “The Pilgrimage to Beethoven”, Richard Wagner relates a story of a young musical enthusiast who travelled from Paris to Vienna to meet Beethoven. In the woods on the Bohemian border he met a group of wandering Czech musicians who played for him Beethoven’s Septet with such profound understanding that he pronounced their performance the best he had ever heard. The same thing might be said with equal truthfulness of the Slovaks, for the Slovak love of music is really a passion.

Scotus Viator in his “Racial Problems of Hungary” tells of an old Slovak peasant woman who complained to a friend that her son was a useless, disappointing fellow. “What’s the matter,” inquired the friend, “does he drink or is he lazy?” “Oh, no,” said the old woman, “but nothing will make him sing. It’s a great misfortune.”

It is not necessary that a man be educated in music; if his mind is emotional enough and his mouth and throat able to produce a sound, then his desire for self expression will find its outlet in the most natural form—in song. The Czechoslovaks have a considerable treasure of folksongs. Some of them are of very early origin. One old folk-song or rather a choral deserves mention in this place. It is the well-known Hussite war-song “Ye Who are God’s Warriors,” often compared with the Marseillaise. It is a spirited song, a monument of the Bohemian Reformation, composed under the inspiration of the heroic death of the great Bohemian reformer, John Hus. It is built of two motives, the first, assaulting, rhythmical, characteristically warlike, is contrasted with the other, melodic, full of faith in the final victory of truth. This choral was used by Smetana as the main theme in two symphonic poems:—Tábor and Blaník.

The secular songs of Bohemia are of a lively, rhythmical, dance-like character; often they are real dances.

One of the most popular folk-dances in Bohemia is the Polka. “The Polka was invented about the year 1830, by a country lass in Bohemia, who was in service with a citizen in a small town. The school master of that little town, happening to witness the performance by the girl of the dance which she had contrived merely for her own amusement, wrote down the tune as she sang it while dancing. The new dance soon found admirers, and in the year 1835 it made its way into Prague, the Bohemian metropolis, where it received the name Polka, probably on account of the half step occurring in the dance; for the Bohemian word Pulka designates “the half”. Four years later, in 1839, this tune which had now become a great favorite in Prague, was carried to Vienna. The Polka had now become rapidly known throughout Austria. In 1840 it was danced for the first time at the Odeon, a theatre in Paris, by Raab, a dancing master from Prague. It found such favor that it was introduced with astonishing rapidity into the