The Czechs in a Nutshell

As expected, the Velvet Revolution in 1989 didn’t make the Czechs less thirsty. On the contrary, they started to booze even more (particularly women, who currently represent almost one third of all treated alcoholics). A similar development was also witnessed in Portugal after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974: the newly-acquired freedom created an exhilarated atmosphere, which enhanced neither temperance nor limitations.

In the Czechs’ instance, this post-totalitarian euphoria has manifested itself in a virtually omnipresent sale of alcoholic beverages and a deep-rooted conviction that unlimited access to booze is one of democracy’s most basic pillars.

When a member of the Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies in late 2003 got so drunk that he didn’t manage to press the correct voting button, the media questioned whether the people’s elected representatives really needed five on-site bars and restaurants serving alcohol for a price next to nothing. They were immediately put in their place by the Chamber’s President, who maintained that “he would be ashamed” to receive foreign visitors and not be able to serve them a stiff drink.

To be fair, the Czechs’ long and rich boozing traditions have also brought about some positive results; for instance, in developing a medical treatment for alcoholism. Prague was, in 1952, allegedly the first city in Europe to open a detention station to take care of dead-drunks who were picked up at public places. A few years later, a strong-willed and unorthodox medical doctor, Jaroslav Skála, opened a clinic for alcoholics at the Apolinář Hospital in Prague.

Contrary to the Western attitude, where boozers are treated with meek understanding and friendly therapy, the now-legendary Doctor Skála introduced a three-month cure with a draconian regime resembling the Foreign Legion. Patients were forced to start every day with a jog, and they had to earn themselves points by exemplary behaviour to gain even the smallest privileges.

To establish disgust towards alcohol, Doctor Skála even gave his patients pills that caused strong vomiting. The smelly bucket in which the poor fellows had puked in was used the next day when the patients washed the floor to earn privilege points.

Notwithstanding its masochistic elements, the Skála Therapy has proved surprisingly successful. Bar the forced vomiting, it is still applied by most of the institutions that offer alcoholics medical treatment in this country. Consequently, foreigners who develop a drinking problem during their stay in the Czech Republic have two options: either do as most locals, i.e. choose the untroubled attitude and keep on boozing as long as your liver lets you. Or join the smaller but often quite prominent group of graduates of Doctor Skála’s anti-alcoholic survival course.

Austrians

When the Lower House of the Austrian Parliament in December 2003 voted to accept the enlargement of the ELI, it was in reality a formal matter. After all of the international hullabaloo caused by the right-wing populist Jörg Haider and his Freedom Party the Austrians certainly wouldn’t tease Brussels by blocking the former communist countries from becoming “a part of Europe”.

Yet they took great care in giving the Czech Republic significantly fewer votes than any of the other eight candidate countries. The Czechs, for their part, shrugged their shoulders as if nothing had really happened, but off the record officials admitted they were scared to death that the Austrians would be more than delighted to cause serious troubles with their EU accession.

All in all, this is a fairly accurate picture of the relations between the two neighbours: the Czechs and the Austrians (in sharp contrast to the Hungarians and the Austrians) simply love if not to hate, so at least to provoke each other. Bi-national brawls take place with impressive regularity, and as soon as the consequences of one clash start to be forgotten, a new one breaks out. However, both partners realize that they can’t move apart, and that they have lots of common interests. Thus, despite the not very amicable feelings, they try to behave pragmatically and at bright moments even pretend that they are good friends.

Photo © Terje B. Englund

If the Czechs’ somewhat ambiguous relations to the Slovaks, Hungarians and Poles seem strange to you, then the reason for their distaste for Austrians seems almost as straightforward as that for the Germans.

Except for the peculiar name that the Czechs use for their southern neighbours — Rakousko is not of Slavonic origin, but probably derives from the name Raabsburg, a fortress by the Rabe river — millions of Czechs immediately associate Austria with niceties such as “national suppression”, “hypocritical snobs”, “arrogance” and “eco fascists”. If you, just to be balanced, ask them to also mention something positive, they’ll probably come up with “chocolate cake” or “the Alps”.