A Postcard from Prague by Katherine Webb

This close to Christmas, and newly returned from a short break to Prague for Christmas markets and beer, I had, of course, intended to write a post about King Vaclav the Good, aka Good King Wenceslaus, the real life figure and later saint who inspired the famous Christmas carol. Vaclav was a C10th century duke of Bohemia, the area now encompassed by the Czech Republic; whose remains are interred in Prague's St Vitus's Cathedral.

Vaclav was born in 907AD, and came to power as young man of only around 20 years old. A devout Catholic, Vaclav's pagan mother and Christian grandmother fought it out behind the scenes, embodying the struggle for the hearts and minds of the Bohemian people that was raging at the time. Known during his lifetime as a fair and charitable ruler, who founded many churches and monasteries, kept Bohemia free from foreign powers and did a great deal to firmly establish the Christian faith in Bohemia, Vaclav the Good was murdered in 935 by his brother Boleslav the Bad, who then seized power. So, it goes: philanthropy, Good; fratricide, Bad. Clear?

An interesting figure, and just as interesting is the way his legend spread, his sainthood was bestowed and he was posthumously re-titled as a king. A Czech legend that a sleeping army lies beneath Mount Blanik and will awake, to be led by Vaclav, to defend Bohemia in its hour of direst need, bears obvious strong similarities to the English legend of King Arthur.

A gratuitous shot of the huge Christmas Tree in Prague's Old Town Square. A few times a day they make the lights 'dance' to Rossini's William Tell Overture - bonkers.

But whilst I was there, I found out about something even more interesting than Saint Vaclav: Prague's Old-New Synagogue; one of the oldest surviving synagogues in Europe. What a fascinating, atmospheric building. Originally called the New Shul (synagogue), it became known as the 'old-new' when others were founded in the city. It was built in the latter years of the C13th, around 1270, and remains the most important synagogue for Prague's Jewish community today.

The Old-New Synagogue

The synagogue survived various pogroms and fires throughout Prague's history. Its walls are thick; and, sadly, many of its legends reflect a history of persecution. For example, the attic is said the house the remains of a golem (an animated clay man) created and brought to life in the C16th by the famous Rabbi Loew (Judah ben Bezalel, to give him his full name), to protect the Jewish people. Another legend has it that the synagogue was protected from the several fires that swept through the ghetto by the wings of angels, manifested as doves.

The serene, atmospheric interior of the synagogue

The curtained holy arc, containing the Torah scrolls, with the 'eternal light' (ner tamid) suspended to the front

Close to the Old-New Synagogue is Prague's Jewish cemetery, another deeply affecting place. The Jewish community was granted so little space within the city that burials had to take place on top of burials, in a crowded jumble. The level of the ground was eventually built up, so that, in some places, people could be interred ten storeys deep. This must have been so hard to cope with for a community for whom the dignity and purity of the burial ritual is so important.

Graves, some dating back to Medieval times, packed cheek by jowl, with the old Jewish Ceremonial Hall in the background 

The stump of an old tree, which had grown through some ancient graves, pushing the stones out of place 

You can see here, quite clearly, how the ground level was raised to try to create space for people

The history of Prague's Jewish community, like that of so many in other areas, takes a deeply tragic turn in the C20th. Transported to an internment camp outside of Prague, at Terezín, many tens of thousands of Czechoslovakian Jews died during the Nazi occupation in World War II; either by being executed or from the hardships they endured. Over 150,000 other people were held at Terezín for years before being transported to death camps in occupied Poland.

Prague's second-oldest surviving synagogue, the C16th Pinkas Synagogue, now houses a museum. The names of around 78,000 Jews killed by the Nazis are inscribed inside the walls in commemoration, and there is also a deeply moving collection of drawings made by Jewish children being held at Terezín. Most of the children's names are followed by three dates: Date of birth, date of internment, date of death.

The Pinkas Synagogue in 1909, before the restoration of the Jewish Town in Prague

Though I was only in Prague for two days, and the primary purpose of the visit was to explore the Christmas markets, eat the street food (I am now worryingly addicted to sausages and pickled cabbage) and drink the mulled cider, it is a place of such visible and fascinating history, it can't fail to make an impression. And it certainly does Christmas in style!

I wish all the History Girls, and our readers a peaceful, very happy Christmas, and a wonderful 2017.

Serendipity and the Shivers, by K.M. Grant

Serendipity plays as great a part in a novelist’s life as planned research. I was reminded of this through a contribution to the elegant, provocative and completely independent (no advertisers, no sponsorship) Scottish Review, an on-line newspaper edited by the inimitable Kenneth Roy.

The contributor is Michael Elcock, born in Forres, who made his career in Canada. In the winter of 1986/87, he and his wife, Em, visited Prague and saw a ‘subjugated, fearful people living in a cold, grey city devoid of spirit’ but Em managed to get the last two tickets for the Christmas concert in the Dvorakhalle, the Prague opera house. This is what they witnessed:

‘The magnificent old Bohemian concert hall, with its crystal chandeliers and plush seats, was packed. The concertmaster came onto the stage in a magnificent red jacket, and spoke to the children in the audience. A lady beside us translated. “All the children have brought bells,' she explained. “The concertmaster is telling them that they must not ring their bells until he gives the order. On no account.”
The musicians played magnificently. The choir sang beautifully. The children rang their bells with an attention to the concertmaster's instructions that would have been rare in western Europe; only when the conductor told them to and at no other time. When the concert was finished the concertmaster came to the front of the stage and stood for a moment, looking over the audience. Then he made an announcement in a soft voice. An audible gasp went through the hall. Even though we spoke no Czech we could feel an electricity in the great old hall.
We turned to the lady beside us, our translator. “We are going to sing the Czech national anthem,” she whispered. “We are not allowed to sing it; not since the Russians came, not since the Germans before that. It has been banned for years.”
The orchestra began to play and everyone stood, and we stood with them. The voices rose until the crystal rang in the chandeliers overhead. We did not know the words, but that didn't matter. The music was uplifting and ethereal and as we looked around we could see that there were tears running down all the faces. It was a remarkable thing and we were there.’




I haven’t witnessed anything quite like that. As for many History Girls, my shivery moments have mainly come through seeing or touching something old, thus feeling, rather than seeing, history. I had a major shiver, for example, during a visit to the Parker Library at Corpus Christi, Cambridge, where my older daughter and I were allowed to turn a medieval page or two and see the elephant in Matthew Paris’s Chronica Maiora in the flesh, as it were.  If you see it, you'll see it's very fine.





Music, though, produces shivers in a different league. I wish I’d been present at the first performance of Beethoven’s First Symphony. The dominant to tonic chord sequence, not even in the expected key must have been a real shocker. I like to think I’d have recognised the composer’s genius straight off, but would I? Perhaps I’d have been appalled since I don’t think, despite my best efforts, I’m actually very good at novelty. I’ve only just come round to patent shoes and block colours. Nevertheless, whether I liked Beethoven’s innovation or not, I’d certainly have had that shiver, and been glad I was there. I also wish I’d experienced Queen in one of their early concerts, perhaps in Liverpool in 1979. Missed opportunities make me shiver, too.

Queen, 1979 album cover

But one opportunity was not missed. In March 2000, my husband and I went to an extraordinary performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations played by Murray Perahia at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall. What was it about that concert? I don’t really know. The music was familiar, the pianist too. Yet it was a shivery thing from start to finish. People who went still ask ‘were you there?’. As a result of these shivers, I began to listen to the Variations rather compulsively and, inevitably, to set them into a novel. And even that’s not quite enough. In a dotty way, I now want to master at least the mechanics, an ambition more doomed to failure than the HS2 project. I’m not, of course, expecting to be able to shiver with delight at my playing, nor even to experience a connection with Bach, who would certainly shudder at my awful technique. Just to feel the shape of some of the Variations under the fingers will be enough. My vague and bumpy progress can be found on my blog, and very vague and bumpy it is too. Don’t worry, though, if you happen to be a neighbour or a passer-by: our piano has a silencing facility. I know a shiver of horror when I see one.