From a Terrace in Prague

by B. Granville Baker

As a boy I was very strong on observing national and other holidays, but cannot recall any celebration of the Saxon defeat at Hastings; it never occurred to me: lack of imagination probably—and another festive occasion missed.

There is, however, something fine in this Slavonic conception of events worth commemorating; they may celebrate victories, but they also observe the anniversaries of great national disasters, "lest they forget."

In the broad space between the Town Hall and the Tyn Church stands an imposing group of statuary. Its centre figure of a simple and convincing dignity represents Master John Hus, the great precursor of those sons of Bohemia who died for their faith. The figure stands facing towards the Town Hall.

This group of statuary has only recently found its appropriate site here in the ancient centre of the city's life—formerly a column surmounted by the "Virgin" threw its slender shadow across the square.

Looking out over the city on the 6th of July the first sight that caught my eye was a display of bunting; flags flew everywhere, most of them the colours of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, red and white with a blue triangular insertion close up to the flagstaff. There is a correct heraldic method of describing this, but to most people, as to myself, it is barely intelligible, and hardly fits in with an everyday account of things seen from a terrace in the capital of a very modern republic, the constitution of which allows of no titles of nobility, and therefore has little use for heraldry.

Titles of nobility have been abolished, and he who under the old regime of Austria would style himself Count von Potts and Kettlehausen is now called plain Mr. Potts. Other titles, those that have been won by individual achievement and cannot be inherited, still remain in use to brighten our drab existence. Most common amongst these is "Doctor"; you may be a doctor of any or many more or less exact sciences; Professor seems to come next in quantity; again you may profess anything you like. This title is run rather close by Rad, or so it sounds at least, which seems to be the old German Rath slightly modified; of these also there is a great and glorious variety. You have Pan (Mister) President for the august being who presides over boards of financial, commercial or industrial enterprise; Pan Inspectors are also plentiful and in highly variegated form. In fact, there is quite an imposing array of titled dignitaries who as true republicans have risen by their own merits. As yet the "leprosy of decorations," as Dr. Seton Watson describes the outbreak of coloured ribbons on manly chests, its spread in inverse ratio to danger incurred, has not assumed undue proportions—but who knows? I must, however, get back to the 6th of July and tell you how the memory of John Hus is kept green.

A glance at the streets on that day shows you groups of wayfarers carrying wreaths, and they converge on the square outside the Old Town Hall where stands the monument to John Hus. The shop windows display portraits of the Czech national hero, which is also reproduced inset in wreaths, and this recalls to my mind the same day in 1918, when I first became aware of what Master John Hus stands for to this people of tenacious memory.

It was a day of pure Italian colour, that 6th of July, 1918, when I set out from among those lovely Colline Euganie towards the front among the Alps. First along broad, well-kept roads, through the plains of Veneto, where trellised vine hung heavy laden, past homesteads, villas of warm ochre hues or red, or pink, and all embowered in rich green foliage. Through the narrow winding streets of graceful Vicenza, across the arcaded market-place of old Verona, past the stately ruins of Montecchio, till the road reached the foothills of the Alps. Then up by hairpin turns, gaining an ever wider view of the vast plain lying in a morning haze beyond which you knew was Venice and the blue Adriatic, then down by winding ways into a valley. An outpost in Italian field-grey uniform, not men of the Italian type, but stocky, fair-haired and square-jawed, their collars decorated with red and white tabs. Every group displayed a wreath, within it an effigy of John Hus, for these soldiers were of the Czecho-Slovak Legion, and they were for the first time in their lives allowed to commemorate without let or hindrance the anniversary of their national hero's death. On this day five centuries ago John Hus had met death at the stake for holding to his religious convictions. Trusting in the word of an Emperor who had promised him a safe conduct back to his own country, John Hus had gone to Constance to defend his faith. Rome proved all-powerful, prevailed against the promise of an Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and John Hus perished, on his lips, they say, the words, "O Sancta Simplicitas!" But his memory lives, and most surely amongst those of simple faith.

We do not observe the memory of those who suffered martyrdom for England's spiritual freedom; by the way, there is in Bohemia a church dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket.