The Czechs in a Nutshell

In recent years, nothing has demonstrated the complexity of the Czechs’ troubled relations with their southern neighbours better (or worse, if you like) than the debate about the Czech nuclear power plant Temelín.

The construction of the plant started under the communists in the early 1980s, and both the dimensions of the giant project and the crazy idea of locating it in the most picturesque and untouched part of South Bohemia, truly revealed classic communist sensitivity. But when the Bolsheviks were finally kicked out of power in the Velvet Revolution, so many billions of korunas were already invested that the new political leadership in Prague decided, after much hesitation, to complete the “monster project” and to put it into operation.

How did the Austrians react? If you consider that Temelín was originally designed with communist technology, that the world still had the Chernobyl catastrophe fresh in its memory and that the Austrians themselves, because of their “anti-nuclear psychosis” had recently decided to scrap their modern and Western-built plant in Zwentendorf, the answer is obvious: with a combination of incredulity and undisguised fury.

Unfortunately, instead of displaying some clever diplomatic footwork, the Czech political elite let historic animosity and emotions take complete control.

If the Austrians are so deadly afraid of nuclear energy, why don’t they protest against plants in Germany and Switzerland? And why do the Austrians disregard their own scientists who declare that Temelín, after some initial problems, now meets international standards? Well, that’s because those stuck-up Austrians still believe they are imperial capos, entitled to boss around the Czechs at their pleasure! But those days are gone! In reality, Austria has fewer inhabitants than the Czech Republic, their industrial output is falling, and they don’t even have a nuclear power plant!

Now, add a unique national referendum that Austria in 2000 arranged only to press the Czech Republic to scrap Temelín, a Czech prime minister (once again the golden-tongued Miloš Zeman) who publicly stated that anti-nuclear Austrians were a “bunch of idiots” (see: Cursing) plus zealous Austrian demonstrators who, several years after Temelín was put into operation, still regularly blocked crossings along the two countries’ 466-kilometre-long border.

Spice the bad, nuclear atmosphere up with lots of grievances from the first years after the Velvet Revolution when Austrian shopkeepers installed signs such as Czechs, Please don't steal in our Store, and you understand why many Czechs regard the Austrians as big-mouthed and arrogant parvenus, while Otto von Habsburg, son of Austria-Hungary’s last Emperor Karl, didn’t hesitate to tell Czech media that “I love all the peoples in the former Dual Empire, well, except the Czechs, of course”.

The funny thing, though, is that a foreigner regarding the two quarrelsome neighbours from outside might confuse them, because the similarities are striking.

Three centuries in a common state with almost identical educational system, cultural institutions and the same bulging bureaucracy have left indelible traces. The architecture of the cities in Lower Austria, the country's most populous state, is almost indiscernible from cities in Southern Moravia and Bohemia. Both Czechs and Austrians pack their joviality and badly concealed hedonism into polite formalities, obstinate use of academic titles and a common worshipping of ingrained conventions (sec: Dancing Schools).

Ethnically, the ties are so close that it’s almost impossible to tell the two peoples apart. Open Vienna’s telephone book to any page, and you'll find it is crowded with Czech-sounding surnames. Thanks to the huge influx of Czech and Slovak workers to Vienna by the end of the nineteenth century, some 200,000 Austrians carry family names with roots in the Czech language. And some world-famous Austrians with apparently German names — Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler and Rainer Maria Rilke among them — were actually all born in Bohemia or Moravia.

Also on the political level, relations are far more interwoven than historical hangover and the unfortunate Temelín affair might suggest.