Mailbox
In this week's Mailbox: Canadian music on Radio Prague, famous "Sudeten Germans", Czech calendar. Listeners quoted: Franz Koester, Scotland; Richard Hall, Canada; Alex Zhu, China; Ashik Eqbal Tokon, Bangladesh.
We're back again to read from your letters and e-mails and answer your questions concerning our broadcasts as well as life in the Czech Republic. First let's hear a letter from Franz Koester who lives in Scotland.
"Thanks very much for your Radio Prague online service! I really do appreciate having the chance to get a bit of an insight into Czech culture, language and politics. I am a student in Aberdeen, Scotland, originally from Germany, living together with my friend from Prague. I have lived in the Czech Republic for a while and made a start with learning Czech, so I am very grateful for your Letters from Prague and other articles about music and literature and so on."
Thank you very much and good luck with your Czech studies. The following e-mail came from further away. It's from Richard Hall who lives in Quebec, Canada.
"I listen to your program every Monday, Wednesday and Friday while exercising at the gym. Unfortunately this morning the radio in the gym was not on, however when getting into my car to go home I heard a clip of the Sam Roberts CD "We Were Born in a Flame." You made a comment about it being a good album from Canada but unfortunately I did not hear comments made earlier in the program. I am curious because my son James is the bass player in the band, and we have known Sam since he was a child and our neighbour. Naturally we are always interested in hearing comments about the band and their music. If possible I would like to know what was said about the band. Whatever information you can provide I will pass on to the boys who are vacationing and recording a new album in Australia. Thank you for your help."
The best person to answer that question is Radio Prague's Jan Velinger. It was his programme about the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto that finished with the song.
"I'm just crazy about this album 'We Were Born in a Flame' by Sam Roberts, which I only discovered a little while ago who's been keeping me abreast of Canadian music. Of course, it has been out for some time now but I've been looking for any excuse to get it on to Czech Radio. And when I worked on the series 'Czechs in Toronto', that seemed like a good enough reason. Technically speaking, of course, Sam Roberts and the band are from Montreal and that means that in other parts of the series you should hear music from Toronto bands. I have in mind bands who are all the rage now, like Sum 41, Billy Talent and if we have time, maybe a little of Alanis Morissette or Avril Lavigne. But still, Sam Roberts - really good music."
Our listener Alex Zhu from Guangzhou, China, has noticed that we often mention the "Sudeten Germans" in our programmes.
"Can you please tell me whether before the end of World War II there were any famous people among the Sudeten Germans?"
The term "Sudeten" is used in a number of senses. Originally it referred only to an area in North Moravia - the Sudeten Province - but over time it took on the broader meaning of Bohemian and Moravian borderlands with a high density of German speakers. But not all Bohemia's and Moravia's Germans lived in the borderlands, nor were all German-speakers ethnic Germans. For example, there was a large German community in the second biggest city Brno, and German was the mother tongue of a large part of the Jewish community here.
So, if we are to look for famous people among all those who were born in what is now the Czech Republic and grew up speaking German, the list is quite impressive.
For example, the writer Franz Kafka and his friends Max Brod and Franz Werfel who lived in Prague. The composer Gustav Mahler was born in Kaliste near the town of Humpolec. The great 20th-century mathematician Kurt Goedel was born in Brno. The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud was born in Pribor, or Freiberg, in North-East Moravia. One of the most famous economists of the last century, Joseph Schumpeter was born in Trest near the town of Jihlava. The philosopher Edmund Husserl, a leader of the German phenomenological movement, was born in the Moravian town of Prostejov.
The founder of genetics, biologist, botanist and monk Johann Gregor Mendel came from North Moravia and carried out his experiments in Brno. The physicist Ernst Mach was born near Brno. The 1947 Nobel Prize winner for medicine Gerta Cori (nee Radnitz) was born in Prague. And I'm sure we could find more famous artists, scientists and thinkers among the German-speakers who were born or lived in what is now the Czech Republic.
Staying with history matters, Radio Prague's regular listener Ashik Eqbal Tokon from Bangladesh sent us this e-mail.
"I would like to know more about the Czech calendar. The country was invaded many times in history by several powers, but they were never able to chain it for a long time. In that respect I would like to know which calendar system the Czech Republic follows. Is it Roman or some other one?"
The Czech Republic follows the Gregorian calendar which is a modification of the Julian calendar, and was instituted in a papal bull by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It was adopted by the Bohemian nobility at the order of the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II in January 1584. Moravia introduced the Gregorian calendar later that year, in July. So in that year, people in Bohemia celebrated Easter a full four weeks ahead of their Moravian neighbours. It took a while before the calendar was fully accepted in the Czech lands. Even 200 years later the famous Prague publisher Vaclav Matej Kramerius still printed his almanacs with both Gregorian and Julian dates.
And going not so far back in history - here is the question for our monthly competition. This month we want you to tell us the name of a South American statesman of Czech descent.
"We'd like to know the name of the man who was President of Brazil in the latter half of the 1950s. A physician by his original profession, when elected President he launched an immense public works programme, including construction of roads, hydroelectric projects and also the new capital city, Brasília. (A clue: the international airport in Brazil's capital bears his name.)"
Please make sure your answers reach us by the end of March and if you have an interesting, or maybe even personal story to tell about the man we are asking about, please share it with us and all our listeners. The address is as usual: Radio Prague, 12099 Prague, Czech Republic or [email protected]. That's also the address for your questions and comments.
