Czechmatediary

The second part of the history of Czechs in Ohio is here (you can read the first part here) and even though I do not live in Ohio myself, I was engrossed in reading (and translating!) it:

‘So Gustav Adam, the first Czech immigrant to Ohio, was dead and what happened then? The Czech immigrant torch overtook Jindrich Hladik from Prague and a few Czech Jewish men such as Leopold Levy from Smetanova Lhota u Pisku, Bernard Weidenthal from Vestice u Tabora and Zikmund Stein from Prague. Levy had a fabric store  and Stein opened up a little pub on  Seneca Street, while Hladik owned a food market. In 1849 inhabited Cleveland also a 22-year-old Abraham Weindenthal whose offspring became excellent journalists.

In 1852 arrived to Cleveland 16 new Czech families and their beginnings were not pretty. Since the women were accustomed going to the town bare-foot and with scarfs tied around their heads, the locals thought of them as Gypsies. (more…)

Everyone has heard of Cleveland, the second most industrial city in the USA. But not everyone knows that all of its machinery was built  by the Eastern European immigrants, including the Czechs.

Ohio in the 18th century was inhabited only by Indians, while the land itself was fought over by the French and the English. While those two nationalities were fearlessly fighting for the land, the Moravian christian missionaries (Moravian Brethren) were fighting for the Indian souls. Besides Christianity the missionaries taught the Indians about hygiene, various useful crafts and farming. About 100 years later the main Indian colony located on the Tuscarawas river was visited by a famous Moravian missionary, David Zeisberger. David befriended the Indian chief of the Netawatweese clan who adviced him to ride down the local river to find a new home for himself. (more…)

I meet a bunch of very interesting people through this blog. Just the other day I was contacted by Jan Hanzal who lives in the Czech Republic. Does that name sound familiar? No? How about if I mention the names of some great Czech movies like “Tri veterani“, “Slavnosti snezenek“, or “Prazska petka“??? Do those ring the bell? Well, Jan Hanzal was one of the camera men who shot those movies! Isn’t that cool??

Anyhow, ever since 1991 Jan has been working on his own projects, one of which is also an exciting multimedia historical project called “The Dark Star Quest“. Please read this introduction and make sure that you send it to other people who you think would be interested in it!

‘ The preparations for multimedia project “The Dark Star Quest” begun in May 2008, following the steps of the historical messengers sent out by Czech king Jiri of Podebrady in 1465. Roughly forty quest members, lead by Sir Lev of Rozmital and of Blatna, had the task to visit and gain the approval of the European Christian monarchs and rulers to begin the creation of the European Community. The proposed concept of this remarkable and futuristic idea can be considered as the image model of our current European Union.

On November 25, 1465 the Quest began its journey from part of Prague and from part of Blatna castle, across Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Slovenia and Austria to return to Czech the spring of 1467. (more…)

Hi folks!

In case you are STILL looking for Christmas presents here is an option :0):

CZ: Ahoj lidicky, jestlize STALE hleadate ten pravy darek pro nekoho k vanocum, tady je napad :0):
(more…)

One of you guys discovered this great video presentation on the transformation of Czechoslovakia since the end of the Cold War and its impact on international business. The presentation is done by a professor (Peter Petrik) who was born and raised in Czechoslovakia (today Slovakia) and who not only knows his history very well but can also give you some personal insight on it.

CZ: Jeden z vas, ctenaru, objevil vyborne video zabyvajici se transformaci byvaleho Ceskoslovenska od konce studene valky a jaky tato transformace mela efekt na mezinarodni obchod.

From Behind the Iron Curtain to Membership in the European Union from Slovak on Vimeo.

This one will make you laugh. The attachment bellow is a short article taken from a Czech magazine for children, written in 1960 (during  deep communism). Here is the translation:

“When you, my little pioneer, are going to be 30 or 35 years old, you will wake up into the world which will be completely different from today. The communist comrades in the USSR and in our country will have available many automated factories, agricultural jobs will be done through various industrial ways and we will work 6 hours a day. At this time our discovery crew will be reaching the deepest parts of space. All these great things will have a great impact on our everyday life: 250 million tons of steel, the abundance of all appliances, free public transportation, free food at the school and factory cafeterias, living in huge appartments free of charge, free or very inexpensive vacation trips and so on. This in not a beginning of some science fiction story in our magazine, it is a realistic 20-year program of the Communist party, something which is talked, written and thought about all over the world. The capitalist fame is quickly fading. After all, in 10 years the USSR will exceed the United States 2 and half times and in 1980 we will be ahead of the US in 10-folds. It is so beautiful to live in such world! (more…)

Jana, one of the avid readers of this blog, recommended to me a great Czech article about one’s psychological changes that come along with emigration. What a great topic since many of us are dealing with exactly that! This geographical transition can be the most difficult time in one’s life. In order to cope with a new environment one has to be ready to take risks, face many loses and be ready to possibly change some of his life attitudes and values. The author describes also the technical terms of the process where the first phase is called the getting-to-know-your-new-environment phase through which people usually sale with no problems. Most new things we come across during this time are exciting and interesting. This phase may also change into a so-called ‘honeymoon phase’, an euphoric feeling when one feels like he has arrived to some kind of a heavenly Promised Land. (more…)

My Czech friend Pavla recently prompted me to write about the times when we had a yearly gas mask training at school. It was mandatory, so that we would know what to do in case some capitalist ‘pig’ decides to use the mushroom cloud on us. I don’t remember about it much since I was still kind of young (and my memory is terrible). I do have a vision in my head of putting those weird things on and then walking in the school hallways, feeling like a fool (especially if some cute boy walked right by). Since my story is not that interesting I called on to my Czech friends to help me write these memoirs . This is what they remember about those weird days:

CZ: Moje kamaradka Pavla mi nedavno poradila, abych napsala memoar o tom, jak jsme ve skole cvicili s plynovymi maskami (nebo-li tzv. branne cviceni). Nebyly to proste blaznive casy, kdyz si na to ted vzpomenete? Ja si toho z te doby moc nepamatuju (jenom to, ze jsme ten den tise chodily s dlouhymi choboty po chodbach nasi skoly), ale par mych kamaradek si toho vybavuje vic. Posudte sami - je to fakt zabava:

1. ‘Well, I don’t remember too much just that we had a gas-mask exercise once a year. The teachers handed us our masks which we had to wash with alcohol as a type of disinfection before we put them on. Of course, everyone had to have his own personal mask, which was fitted specifically for his skull. Before the correct mask was chosen for us, our face was measured with a specific measuring tool which kind of looked like pliers. (more…)

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Do you know, what the first official Slovak organization in the US was? It was  Jednota (or The First Catholic Slovak Union of America), founded in Cleveland as early as 1890. Early after that The National Slovak Society (Narodni slovensky spolok) was founded in Pittsburgh. This time the organization was nondenominational and it still exists today. Its founder, Peter Rovnianek, had such a patriotic spirit that he also established a new Slovak community in Arkansas (about 300 people) and gave it a clever name - the Slovaktown (it looks like the town doesn’t exist anymore, however, since I tried to google it and I got only the ‘historical’ map of the place). (more…)

“Ta nase pisnicka ceska, ta je tak hezka, tak hezka…” (”That Czech song of ours is so beautiful…”).These are the words of one of the most famous Czech songs of all times. In fact, the catchiness of the tune made it almost an unofficial hymn of the Czech people - the old sing it and the young ones do too. It was created by Karel Hasler, a talented Czech composer, singer and an actor  known from his early teens through the early 40’s. Hasler paid dearly for the words of this song but his spirit lives and will live forever. Not only through his countless songs and a famous Czech candy called “Haslerky” but also through his son whom he had never met - through Tom Hasler. Tom recently contacted me via Czechmate Diary and enlightened me on his amazing life story. He  was born to a German mother, Karel Hasler’s fiance, a month after Karel was brutally tortured/murdered in the concentration camp. When Tom was 7 years old, he and his mom emmigrated to Australia and from there to the United States where he lives up to this day. (more…)