The Greatest Czech Who (N)ever Existed
In 2005, Czech Television decided to run a poll to ask the public who they thought was the "Greatest Czech of All Time," the Czech person who had contributed the most to the country of their birth and had the greatest impact. According to all reports, the clear winner--above Charles IV, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Václav Havel, and every other person you may have heard of--was Jára Cimrman. Cimrman (roughly pronounced "Zimmerman"), who lived around the turn of the 20th century, was a writer, philosopher, mathematician, inventor, and general polymath "Great Man" type. However, Czech Television disqualified Cimrman because of one small wrinkle: he's entirely fictional.
Now, before you all bemoan the silliness of the general public and start citing the classic "Boaty McBoatface" precedent, I think there's more going on here that just the public taking the piss. Or, rather, I think that taking the piss is so Czech that it merits exploration.
Anyone who's lived in a different culture has learned pretty quickly that, while tragedy is often universal, humor is highly parochial. Almost everything about Jára Cimrman proves this maxim.
Jára Cimrman is a sort of communal creation, originally invented by Ladislav Smoljak, Jiří Šebánek and Zdeněk Svěrák for a satiric/absurdist meta-fictional radio show in 1966. (Yes, such a thing existed under communism). In one episode, there was an interview with a "musicologist" who claimed to have "discovered" a trove of documents relating to the forgotten polymath genius Jára Cimrman while doing that most Czech of activities--renovating his cottage. The idea of this legendary figure grew, and his creators, with some changes, founded the Jára Cimrman Theater in 1967 and premiered a play--written by Svěrák but credited to him and Cimrman--that same year.
Cimrman is largely a theatrical figure, both in reality and in his fictional biography, and over a dozen of 'his" plays have been "discovered" and performed. The structure of these plays is always the same: the first half is a series of speeches, recreating the public meetings that were prevalent during Communism. The second act acts out--often deliberately badly, in true Cimrman style--the ideas discussed the first act. Think Monty Python's skewering of British middle-class self-seriousness combined with every theatrical farce dating back to Shakespeare's "Mechanicals" in A Midseummer Night's Dream and you'll get a good sense of the tone. This scene is from the recently formed English-language Cimrman Theater.
In the plays--that he is reported to have written--Cimrman is said to have achieved and done many wonderful things during his life, including being the first man to *almost* reach the North Pole, inventing yogurt, and carrying on a very long (one-way) correspondence with George Bernard Shaw. Indeed, Cimrman has a Zelig-like quality of having been part of almost all of the great events that occurred during this lifetime, from the invention of the telephone (it is said that when Bell made his first call, he discovered he had three messages from Cimrman) to the building of the Panama Canal.
Okay, Erik, I can hear you saying, this is all very clever and amusing, but why is it *significant*? How is understanding Jára Cimrman helpful for understanding the Czech national character, and vice versa? Unsurprisingly, I have a theory.
The genius of Cimrman is two-fold: the "he did everything first but kind of crappier and/or was nearby and vaguely helpful when important things happened" conceit and the whole meta-fictional element, which is reflected in the two time periods of his life. Fictionally, his "life" tracks that of the rise of Czech nationalism that lead to the creation of a free Czechoslovakia in 1918. He was created, however, in the 1960s, in the period leading up to the Prague Spring.
See, the Czechs are simultaneously a people who are very proud of their past and the contributions of Czech scientists, statesmen, etc., but they're also incredibly cynical and are well aware that, in the terms of European and world histories, the plight of the Czech people is often forgotten--this is the nation that was literally sacrificed to Hitler by Western Europe. As a result, there's a sort of "Things aren't what they used to be, and they sucked then, too, and tomorrow will be even worse" mentality that can be pervasive--the Czechs are great complainers, as they admit, and can find a gray cloud behind every silver lining. What better way to both parody and personify that than with Cimrman, a figure from the heyday of Czech nationalism, the great revival of the Czech culture, but who was kinda shit at everything?
Secondly, he was created under Czech communism, a system that was all about creating and celebrating national myths *and* about silencing dissent. All criticism of the regime had to be cloaked and coded, but writers like Havel and Milan Kundera--and the creators of Cimrman--found ways to criticize and satirize without doing so explicitly. The ridiculous first acts of Cimrman plays that show various nobodies giving tedious speeches are a direct riff on the party meetings of the day. Moreover, the meta-fictional element to the Cimrman character--part of doing his plays and discussing him is sticking to the fiction that he and his exploits are *real*--echoes the "the truth is what we say it is" element common to all authoritarian regimes. The coerced reality of Cimrman's existence reflects the constant barrage of lies and half-truths the Czech and Slovak people were fed on a daily basis. Cimrman, by copying that to claim very silly and stupid things, shows such pernicious and dehumanizing tactics for what they are.
Cimrman, then, combines these strains of the Czech culture and, in one figure, unifies them into a pleasing artistic--and very funny--whole. Voting for him to be the Greatest Czech was both taking the piss and a tribute to the long and noble Czech tradition of...taking the piss, a way a repressed and silenced people have consistenly found their voice.
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| The only likeness of Cimrman taken from "life"--created by Cimrman himself! |
Now, before you all bemoan the silliness of the general public and start citing the classic "Boaty McBoatface" precedent, I think there's more going on here that just the public taking the piss. Or, rather, I think that taking the piss is so Czech that it merits exploration.
Anyone who's lived in a different culture has learned pretty quickly that, while tragedy is often universal, humor is highly parochial. Almost everything about Jára Cimrman proves this maxim.
Jára Cimrman is a sort of communal creation, originally invented by Ladislav Smoljak, Jiří Šebánek and Zdeněk Svěrák for a satiric/absurdist meta-fictional radio show in 1966. (Yes, such a thing existed under communism). In one episode, there was an interview with a "musicologist" who claimed to have "discovered" a trove of documents relating to the forgotten polymath genius Jára Cimrman while doing that most Czech of activities--renovating his cottage. The idea of this legendary figure grew, and his creators, with some changes, founded the Jára Cimrman Theater in 1967 and premiered a play--written by Svěrák but credited to him and Cimrman--that same year.
Cimrman is largely a theatrical figure, both in reality and in his fictional biography, and over a dozen of 'his" plays have been "discovered" and performed. The structure of these plays is always the same: the first half is a series of speeches, recreating the public meetings that were prevalent during Communism. The second act acts out--often deliberately badly, in true Cimrman style--the ideas discussed the first act. Think Monty Python's skewering of British middle-class self-seriousness combined with every theatrical farce dating back to Shakespeare's "Mechanicals" in A Midseummer Night's Dream and you'll get a good sense of the tone. This scene is from the recently formed English-language Cimrman Theater.
In the plays--that he is reported to have written--Cimrman is said to have achieved and done many wonderful things during his life, including being the first man to *almost* reach the North Pole, inventing yogurt, and carrying on a very long (one-way) correspondence with George Bernard Shaw. Indeed, Cimrman has a Zelig-like quality of having been part of almost all of the great events that occurred during this lifetime, from the invention of the telephone (it is said that when Bell made his first call, he discovered he had three messages from Cimrman) to the building of the Panama Canal.
Okay, Erik, I can hear you saying, this is all very clever and amusing, but why is it *significant*? How is understanding Jára Cimrman helpful for understanding the Czech national character, and vice versa? Unsurprisingly, I have a theory.
The genius of Cimrman is two-fold: the "he did everything first but kind of crappier and/or was nearby and vaguely helpful when important things happened" conceit and the whole meta-fictional element, which is reflected in the two time periods of his life. Fictionally, his "life" tracks that of the rise of Czech nationalism that lead to the creation of a free Czechoslovakia in 1918. He was created, however, in the 1960s, in the period leading up to the Prague Spring.
See, the Czechs are simultaneously a people who are very proud of their past and the contributions of Czech scientists, statesmen, etc., but they're also incredibly cynical and are well aware that, in the terms of European and world histories, the plight of the Czech people is often forgotten--this is the nation that was literally sacrificed to Hitler by Western Europe. As a result, there's a sort of "Things aren't what they used to be, and they sucked then, too, and tomorrow will be even worse" mentality that can be pervasive--the Czechs are great complainers, as they admit, and can find a gray cloud behind every silver lining. What better way to both parody and personify that than with Cimrman, a figure from the heyday of Czech nationalism, the great revival of the Czech culture, but who was kinda shit at everything?
Secondly, he was created under Czech communism, a system that was all about creating and celebrating national myths *and* about silencing dissent. All criticism of the regime had to be cloaked and coded, but writers like Havel and Milan Kundera--and the creators of Cimrman--found ways to criticize and satirize without doing so explicitly. The ridiculous first acts of Cimrman plays that show various nobodies giving tedious speeches are a direct riff on the party meetings of the day. Moreover, the meta-fictional element to the Cimrman character--part of doing his plays and discussing him is sticking to the fiction that he and his exploits are *real*--echoes the "the truth is what we say it is" element common to all authoritarian regimes. The coerced reality of Cimrman's existence reflects the constant barrage of lies and half-truths the Czech and Slovak people were fed on a daily basis. Cimrman, by copying that to claim very silly and stupid things, shows such pernicious and dehumanizing tactics for what they are.
Cimrman, then, combines these strains of the Czech culture and, in one figure, unifies them into a pleasing artistic--and very funny--whole. Voting for him to be the Greatest Czech was both taking the piss and a tribute to the long and noble Czech tradition of...taking the piss, a way a repressed and silenced people have consistenly found their voice.
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