Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech by Nancy M. Wingfield (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 563 and pointsto Bosnia'stroubled history since1918,notinghow all partiesto the occupationfoundthemselves profoundly challengedby a rapidityof changethattheywereunableto control.Ratherthanfailure, he argues,it was the'unevenness ofthedevelopments brought byHabsburgrule[which] createduncertainties, bredtension, threatening thesmooth integration which had alwaysbeen thecultural mission's policygoal' (p. 217).As Okeyshows, thishad more to do withcostsand objectiveobstaclesthanpreconceived discrimination. Similarly, the inventionof Bosnianism,a charge Serbian historiography raisedagainstKalláy,was meantto smoothBosnia'saccommodation totheHabsburgstaterather thanendorsethecontinuity ofBosnian statehood in a modernBosniaksense.Even thoughitis nothischieffocus, Okey'sanalysis oftheemerging Serbian,Croatianand Bosniaknationalisms in thecontext offoreign ruleand imported notions ofnationhood is another greatmeritof thisbook. There is nothingin the scholarly literature on Austria-Hungary's ruleofBosniato comparewiththisstudyin comprehensiveness , forceful interpretation and historiographical mastery. It is a noble achievement. UCL SSEES Bojan Aleksov Wingfield, NancyM. FlagWars andStone Saints: Howthe Bohemian Lands Became Czech.HarvardUniversity Press,Cambridge,MA and London, 2007. xviii+ 353pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes.Index.£32.95. Nancy M. Wingfieldwrites withverveabouta subjectofwhichsheknows a greatdeal. Her discussionof the appropriation of public spaces in the 'BohemianLands'bybothCzechsand Germansattempts tobe even-handed, and largelysucceeds.There is some confusion, however,about Bohemian Germanidentity. Justexactlywho did theseGermansthinktheywere;or morespecifically, whatkindofGermans? In their'flagwars'withtheCzechs theydisplayed all sortsofGermancolours,including theHohenzollern and theReich-German, and sangnotableBohemiansongslike'The Watchon the Rhine'.Certainly, they owednoallegiance totheHabsburgs inVienna,whom theysaw as tolerating a Slavophilegovernment. This book coverstheyearsfromthe 1880sto almostthepresent. Rather thanpresent a plodding narrative, Wingfield homesinon specific incidents or types ofincident. Thus shebeginswithdemonstrations at statues ofJosephII, and showswellhow thatemperorwas reinvented to fitwithcontemporary ideas about German culturalidentity. Next, she tacklesthe questionof protests againsttheBadenilanguagelawsin 1897.(Theseordinances, itmay be recalled,merely calledfortheequalityofCzech and Germanin official usage.As thismeantthatGermanofficials wouldnow have to be bilingual, they wereobviously worth opposing.) The question ofa secondCzech universityin theracially mixedcityofBrnois nextdiscussed. This was a question ofmorethanprovincial import, as Wingfield explains(p. 79): these'pitched nationalbattles'wouldmirror 'largerconcerns, including Czech resentment 564 SEER, 87, 3, JULY 2OO9 ofcontinuing Germanmonopolization ofpolitical powerinBrünn/Brno and competing, evenconflicting educationaldemands'.Therefollow chapters on (amongothermatters) thedifferent nationalcelebrations oftheFranzJoseph jubilees of 1898 and 1908; 'NationalMythsand the Consolidationof the Czechoslovak State';anti-German demonstrations in Praguein 1930because of the language used in 'talkies';and the failedattemptto construct a BohemianGermancommunity during theSecondWorldWar. The 'stone saints' of the titleare St John of Nepomuk (particularly thestatueon thesiteofhismartyrdom on CharlesBridge),and theVirgin Motheratop the Marian columnin Old Town Square. The former was rightly seen as subversive of the Hussiteand Protestant reformations; the latterwas hauled down in 1918because the Czechs wrongly believedthat FerdinandIII had commissioned the columnto celebratethevictory over theProtestant estatesat WhiteMountainand thesubsequent deathsofthe Protestant ringleaders ofrevoltexecutedon thatspot.(In fact,it had been erectedto celebratethe end of the ThirtyYears' War and the Swedish withdrawal from Prague.) Readersshouldbe aware,however, thatthisis an academicbookwhich demandssomeforeknowledge ofCzech orCzechoslovak history. Forinstance, theauthorrefers to normalization - thedreary periodbetweenthePrague Spring in 1968andtheVelvetRevolution in 1989- onlyonceandinpassing (p. 261).Puzzlingly, shespeaksoftheneedafter 1918tointegrate theCatholic community as wellas nationalminorities suchas theGermansand Hungarians intoCzechoslovakia(p. 11).Yet the Czech People's Party,whichwas Catholic,was one ofthePetor Five majorpoliticalpartieswhichmade up the governing coalitionsbetweenthe wars,and duringthe Second World War itsleader,MgrJan ãrámek,servedas Benes'sprime-minister-in-exile in London. All in all, however, Wingfield has written a good accountofthatcrucial and controversial topic,the nationalist covetingand assumption of public spacesin disputed nationalterritory. Richmond, Surrey Maria Dowling Suny, Ronald Grigor (ed.). The Cambridge Historyof Russia. Volume 3: The Twentieth Century. CambridgeUniversity Press,Cambridgeand New York, 2006. xxiv + 842 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Chronology.Notes. Bibliography. Index.£100.00:$185.00. The new Cambridge History ofRussiais an outstanding scholarly resource, and a brilliant exampleofthecapacitiesand constraints ofitsformat. Its three volumesare dividedconventionally: themedievaland earlymodernto 1689, i.e. before PetertheGreat,editedbyMaureenPerrie;theperiodofImperial Russia,fromPeterto 1917,editedby DominicIieven; and Ronald Grigor Suny'scollection forthetwentieth century, whichisthevolumeunderreview here.Closetoninety front-rank historians, mostofthemnatively Anglophone, ...