Ruptures and traumas in central European consciousness: Czech history as a test case

Abstract

Although the criteria of continuity OT discontinuity in history may not be precise, it is nevertheless possible, and not necessarily with hindsight, to qualify certain events as Nptures in what otherwise could be considered a continuous trend of development, Foreign conquest, revolution or far-reaching reform are recognised as the most obvious causes of such a change. A violent change is bound to produce schisms, contrasting views and evaluations which may be passed from generation to generation. Furthermore, on the one hand a sense of protracted injustice and on the other hand a sense of guilt, coupled with a bitterly divided assessment of major events in the past, may coalesce into a traumatic state of mind in the body social. In the Czech cultural history we may identify three such ruptures with traumatic effects for posterity. Each of these ruptures reflected a particular spirit of the time, a particular issue which was at the forefront of the respective phase of European civilisation. The first was under the aegis of religion, whether Catholic or reformed; the second was under that of nationality, whether sovereign or under tutelage, whether unified or federated; the third which is still with us, concerns the totality of culture, whether liberal and pluralistic on the one hand, or regimental and uniform on the other. In all these instances the process started with an upward swing which resulted in an attempt to build up Czech or Czechoslovak polity and society in the imageof Czechs’ own understanding of the values of the time, an image which always implied a certain kind of pluralism. Yet the surrounding world was not so tolerant as to let a pluralistic society flourish in its midst. The element of distinctness within the realms which lived according to the principle cuius regio eius re&gio had to he eliminated. As this happened by conquest folkwed by imposition of an alien rule and alien social ethos, a gaping rupture occurred in the historical continuity of the nation. Several consecutive ruptures were bound to produce cumulative effects, often with traumatic consequences.