Fresh back from a writing assignment up in Denmark.

Glad to be home. Exceedingly glad, actually.

You know, there are few experiences I know of than that tingling sensation I get when landing at Ruzyne, blowing out of the arrivals lounge into the expectant Prague air, remembering what this nation -- and Prague, our enlightened polis -- represents to other Europeans across our now unified Continent, strong and mighty.

Before I wax all poetic on you, kindly allow me to digress anecdotally.

My Danish colleague -- one of the best writing wingmen one could ever hope for, and a XX Chromosomal Unit with Viking roots, to boot -- handed me this title the instant I got off the train at Aarhus Central Station, giggling all the while as she did so. Back in 1988 or thereabouts, Hans Renner -- one of the best Czechophiles on the record from our former occupying neighbour next door -- penned one of the more comprehensive pocket histories on the evolution of the state of affairs in the former Czechoslovakia ever written, in my estimation, the History of Czechoslovakia Since 1945.

Let's review the events of the era (for those of our younger readers on the other side of the Pond who aren't in the know) and the realpolitik extant at the time. The state of affairs here in Central Europe and the internal situation in the former Soviet Union, our former overlords, crucifiers, and unfortunate chief financiers of the time.


** Soviet-inspired Communism was showing its age. Major pressure fissures were threatened to rend Soviet society as the dual reformist policies of glasnost and perestroika -- the latter, especially -- were promising to fundamentally alter the manner in which the socialist bloc would interact, trade, and relate to the West (no one at the time could've predicted the swift rise of the neo-Tsars in today's Russia -- although I'm sure if you dig deeply enough, some fermenting scholar with a major case of bad breath and ear wax in some think-tank in the UK/US likely was positing the future rise of a "Putin" in the not too distant future. I can even recall conversations I'd had about 'round the campfire in upstate New York with my then-girlfriend's father, a prominent Montreal-based Russophile and engineer -- email me offline for the details).

** Czechoslovak Communism vowed to outlive the "insane" breaches of Marxism-Leninism being promulgated by Gorbachev. Meanwhile, back at the Prague ranch, while the Soviets under Gorby were hurtling headlong towards CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) reformation, alcohol prohibition, and gutting itself from the inside, the KSC/CPCz -- the Czechoslovak Communist Party, rather -- was digging in for a protracted ideological battle, vowing to hold onto those COMECON boons and their Tatra tram cars in Smichov until the Second Coming of Stalin. Our quisling hardliners installed during the post-'68 dung storm and Gustav Husak's (go Slovakia, go!) bureaucratic dystopia were going to battle the universe until their very last morsel of knedlik.

** Czech dissidents were being persecuted with even greater viciousness. Professor Renner is keen to cite how this happened not only to the usual collection of Charter 77 Signatories (egs. the eminent Dr. Jiri Gruntorad, one of my favourite local Prague personalities and the manager of Libri Prohibiti in Prague's Senovazne Namesti, Mr. Dienstbier, Karol Sidon, Ivan Klima, former President Havel, etc.) -- as would be entirely expected -- but also to those members of the then-nascent Czech Confederation of Political Prisoners. The authorities were cracking the whip hard. For those of you in P-Town on a furlough, have a look at some of the gonzo footage of the riots on the Wenceslas Square at the Museum of Communism.

While all of this was ongoing, Professor Renner was compiling his work. Silently, but deliberately, compiling his research and seeking publication. In light of the images and soundbites of the day, which expert would have predicted the swift downfall of the hardline Czechoslovak regime in the late '80s? Especially someone living in the West...they were dug in for good...

Back to my Danish colleague...

When she handed me the book, at first I was a bit skeptical.

Throughout the several years I've been shuttling back and forth between the rest of the planet and the Czech lands -- what Renner affectionately refers to throughout his narrative as the Czech "countries" (foreign readers: these are Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia -- the triconstituent components of our modern-day emerging wannabe democracy) -- I've read heaps of books on this subject. Besides, Renner's material was terribly outdated (the cover photo was a B&W winner up on Vinohradska). I had a deadline, and not to mention I toted along three other fat titles I had to plough through for my assignment.

Yet devour Renner's work I did. I positively loved it because:

a) It was extremely well-annotated and outlined. Renner -- or his translator from the original German, I presume -- explained in sharp, unadorned English the nature of the Czech and Slovak landscapes of the period. Within a compact, well-spaced 200 pages, a foreign reader of this treatise will have mastered the rudiments of the Czechoslovak post-WWII political conundrum...and a mind-numbingly vertiginous one it has been.

b) Hans Renner's passion for all things Czech and Slovak shine through brilliantly. For former political exiles and expatriates to the Czech (and Slovak) lands alike who have learned to love their (re)adopted home, the affectations of the people who comprise its citizenry, and the historical imperative of the Czech Cause -- both in Europe and in the world, more generally -- Renner's words warm the heart, despite the heavy academic nature of the subject material.

c) You cannot find this book in any Czech library (I've already searched), nor can you purchase it online for less than $50, shipping extra. And -- gift of heavenly gifts! -- my colleague hands it to me with as much fanfare as a spank on a baby's bottom. And I'm thinking...oh, here we go, another "Czechspert;" this time in the former of a German intellectual. Okay -- namaste! -- I admit it. I was completely wrong. Renner is a maven.

d) You clearly understand the underpinnings of the compromised lines of trust rending Czech society into a thousand tiny fragments. Former Party members who made it their life's mission pre-'67-68 to utterly obliterate (not merely silence, not just gag, but to totally and irreversibly bury!) non-Party members -- those who had been non-Party members since the beginning, not the post-'68 carpetbaggers like some of the bloggers on this site's prestigious A-List. Then, as they were castrated and undermined like vile dogs during the forced normalizace/normalization phase, how they were compelled to kiss non-Party behinds just to be permitted into the hallowed halls of the Czechoslovak Dissident Movement -- with the even mightier display of humanity being the Charter-ists compassion for these vile scum by permitting them into their tight inner circle (not sure I'd have had the same compassion as Mr. Havel et al. had, sorry)...you clearly comprehend why the culture has devolved into the way it is today...it's a society that's healing. Yes, still.

It's always been my ultimate wish -- especially after spending these many years in Prague -- that young Czech Gen Xers, Yers, and, now, Cers expunge and annul the blight of this past pain, this torment, and sordid Czechoslovak legacy that they've inherited by osmosis, surreptitiously, like a Trojan horse.

It hurts to observe it in effect.

To wit, last night's conversation with a colleague who works in the hospitality industry and earns a very substantial crown salary (and kindly forgive the expletives, as I'm quoting directly):

Friend: "You know, Adame, I hate to admit it, but I know my Czech people. We always look for ways to fuck with each other. We always seek ways to screw each other around for money and position and use each other all the time. I can be your friend one day, and when I don't need you anymore, I kick you [out] into the shit."
ADM: "That's rather an old-fashioned attitude, isn't it? Young Czechs don't think that way anymore...at least not my friends and my wife."
Friend: "You wouldn't believe what I still see today. You wouldn't believe your bloody ears, mate."

Ouch!

Yet, despite the seemingly dire prognosis from above, I felt a ray of light after finishing the Renner primer. I got up off my rattan chair in my Aarhus writing warren, even more enlightened about the country and the city which I'm honoured to call home.