Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/237



During my first visit to Prague, in November, 1918, I found the city in a fever of excitement over the allied victory. The streets were ablaze with flags, principally the white and red of Czechoslovakia and the stars and stripes. Pictures of President Wilson and of Czechoslovakia’s president, Masaryk, were displayed in the shop windows. It was not unusual to see five pictures of President Wilson in one window.

To-day the streets of Prague are calm, and the city has assumed the normal appearance of an overpopulated central European town. New stocks of food—there was little a year ago—have replaced the pictures of the presidents. The flags are furled, and the people are working.

Prague is always beautiful. The city of a hundred towers forms an interesting diversion after Vienna on the south and Berlin on the north. Czechoslovakia forms the point of the Slav thrust westward into Teutonic Austria and Germany. One notices the change particularly in the architecture and the costumes. Vienna is Latin, Greek and modern; Munich and Nuremburg are heavy German; Dresden is heavy renaissance; Berlin is ugly! Prague is Slavic, with bulbous church towers, which look as if a giant architect had first erected straight steeples, had changed his mind, and with a heavy hand squeezed them down until they swelled into graceful curves.

Prague is picturesque. There can be no more interesting view than from the Hradčany, or Castle Village, over the city. On a turreted gun platform a soldier stands with his hand on the lanyard ready to fire at noon. He looks across a long stone stairway, ocupied by a beggar or two playing an accordion; over the roofs of palaces and gardens; across the Moldau river, winding into the low hills, and he sees not a hundred but a thousand towers piercing the smoky haze that veils the city. At his feet is the Charles bridge, with a double row of saints’ statues, and near by the John Huss church,,, [sic] with its old tower, a square one. There are several bridges, with knots of people stopping to pay the 2 heller (less than 1 cent) toll. One can pick out the dome of the national theater, the spire of the city hall, and the Powder tower. The soldier pulls the lanyard. There is a heavy report which booms over Prague announcing the hour. The smoke from the cannon dissipates among the peculiar chimneys and roofs which form interesting details of the picture.

The national costume of the women consists of many short skirts, flounced, like a ballet dancer’s, reaching just below the knee. The bodice is snug and reveals the characteristic strength of the people. A head shawl, folded simply, falls to the waist. High boots, like those of a cavalryman, complete the picture. The colors are bright and harmoniously arranged by means of elaborate embroidery. A peasant woman dressed in this fashion impresses one with a sense of forceful, almost primitive beauty. Full, plump faces, sad and at the same time pleasant, typically Slav, look out from the tightly drawn head shawl.

Every Czech girl owns a dress of the national pattern, but does not wear it daily; only upon special occasions, at dances or during national holidays. Some wear their gay, attractive clothes during the usual Sunday walk in the parks. Each region and almost each village has its own special costume, distinguished by the colors of the embroidery or by the length of the skirts.

The first sensation of national consciousness, the sensation of having a country of their own, has become tempered by the necessity of building the country into a working whole. Hitherto Austrians administered the state functions; the Czechs had no administrative experience. Experience and knowledge are being purchased at the expense of careful and sometimes costly experiments. The glory of independence is being superseded by the first stages of democratic growth. Czecho-Slovakia, the most promising of the infant war republics, is learning how to walk alone among nations.

A. R. Decker. (In the Chicago Daily News.)