Sign-In
Cart
Czech Character Then and Now: A Centennial Mirror of JiřÃ Mahen
Paperback
Eastern European HistoryGeneral Political ScienceGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 1 2024
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.33 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
What if the hardest truth a nation can face is the truth about itself?
In 1924, the Czech writer Jiřà Mahen published a slim, unsettling book called Kniha o českém charakteru - A Book on the Czech Character - and set out to do something unusually brave: to describe his own people honestly. Not romantically. Not politically. Not as national flattery. A novelist, playwright, and Brno's first municipal librarian, Mahen wrote about intelligence without resolve, skepticism without courage, and a people caught between thought and action. Fifteen years later, as German troops occupied his country, Mahen took his own life.
A hundred years on, his questions still cut.
In Czech Character Then and Now, Kytka Hilmarová returns to Mahen's original challenge and tests it against the century that followed - Nazi occupation, communist rule, the Prague Spring, the Soviet invasion, normalization, the Velvet Revolution, the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and the uncertain realities of modern Europe.
Did history change the Czech character? Or did it reveal it?
This is not a sentimental book about national pride. It is a serious, provocative, and deeply informed examination of Czech identity across one of the most turbulent centuries in European history. It asks what has endured, what has hardened, what has been lost, and what remains unresolved.
Inside, readers will find:
- A modern reexamination of Mahen's insights in Kniha o českém charakteru
- A century-spanning reflection on Czech identity and self-understanding
- Historical, literary, and cultural analysis grounded in real events
- An honest reckoning with the tensions between caution and courage, irony and seriousness, survival and principle
For readers drawn to Czech history, European identity, Central Europe, political culture, Slavic studies, and the psychology of nations, this book offers something rare: not comfort, not myth, but clarity.
Some books preserve a national memory. This one tests it.
Also from
Hilmarova, Kytka
Czech Courage in the Russian Inferno: The Unforgettable Life of Bozena Seidlová
Hilmarova, Kytka
Paperback
Vanishing Slavs in an Uncertain Europe: Mucha's Slav Epic and the Last Stand for Slavic Survival
Hilmarova, Kytka
Paperback
Wisdom from the Sky: Czech and Slovak Folk Weather Wisdom Through the Seasons
Hilmarova, Kytka
Paperback
Also in
Eastern European History
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Browning, Christopher R.
Paperback
The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
Freeman, Gregory A.
Paperback
The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.
Paperback
Tidal Wave: The Pilots, the Princess, and the Enemy Ace - A True Story of Courage and Survival in WWII
Makos, Adam
Hardcover
In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires
Florescu, Radu
McNally, Raymond T.
Paperback
The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts
Khodarkovsky, Michael
Hardcover
The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
Freeman, Gregory A.
Hardcover
The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague
Ash, Timothy Garton
Paperback
The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi
Hardcover
Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus' Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption
Pacepa, Ion Mihai
Paperback
Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present
Beckwith, Christopher I.
Paperback
Violence and Occupation: The Red Army in the Balkans and Central Europe, 1944-1945
Majstorovic, Vojin
Hardcover
Walking Since Daybreak: A Story of Eastern Europe, World War II, and the Heart of Our Century
Eksteins, Modris
Paperback
The Rise of Catholicism in Southeastern Poland! -Told Through the History of its 800-year-old parish - A Fred Topor Polish Heritage Series Book: St. S
Grzebień, S. J. Ludwig
Paperback
Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe's Worst Massacre Since World War II
Rohde, David
Paperback
Life Must Go on: The Remarkable Story of Sol Lurie, the Kovno Ghetto, and the Tragic Fate of Lithuania's Jews
Lurie, Bea
Jacobs, Steven Leonard
Hardcover
An Uncertain Spring: Reform, Protest, and Suppression in Croatia, 1968-1971
Dragojevic, Mila
Paperback
Scanderbeg: A History of George Castriota and the Albanian Resistance to Islamic Expansion in Fifteenth Century Europe
Brackob, A. K.
Paperback
German History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Germany and Germania
History, Captivating
Hardcover
A Frozen State: Experiencing Cold in Russian History and Culture
Smith, Alison K.
Starks, Tricia
Romaniello, Matthew P.
Hardcover
Norse Mythology: Tales of Nordic Gods, Heroes, Yggdrasil, Norse Magic & Viking Lore
Kerr, Darby
Paperback
The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999
Snyder, Timothy
Paperback
The Defeat of the Damned: The Destruction of the Dirlewanger Brigade at the Battle of Ipolysag, December 1944
Nash, Douglas E., Sr.
Hardcover
The Yugoslav Air Force Volume 3: In the Battles for Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1991-1992
Radic, Aleksandar
Paperback
Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation
Gross, Jan
Paperback
Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment
Wolff, Larry
Paperback
Sickle and Veil: Communist Gender and Policies Towards Muslim Minorities in Eastern Europe
Simic, Ivan
Hardcover
More than a Grain of Truth: The official true story behind the film Mr. Jones, starring James Norton
Colley, Nigel Linsan
Colley, Margaret Siriol
Field, Naomi
Paperback
Keys of This Blood: Pope John Paul II Versus Russia and the West for Control of the New World Order
Martin, Malachi
Paperback
Eastern Europe!, 2nd Edition: Everything You Need to Know about the History (and More) of a Region That Shaped Our World and Still Does
Jankowski, Tomek
Paperback
From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe Since 1945
Stokes, Gale
Paperback
Barbarossa Derailed the Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941 Volume 4: Atlas
Glantz, David M.
Hardcover
The Last Peasant War: Violence and Revolution in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe
Benes, Jakub S.
Hardcover
The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews
Desbois, Patrick
Paperback
Romanian History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Romania and Vlad the Impaler
History, Captivating
Paperback
Realigning Humanitarianism in the Balkans: From Cold War Politics to Neoliberal Ethics
Brkovic, Čarna
Paperback
A Village in Revolutionary Ukraine: How Bolshevik Rule Changed a People: The Diary of a Common Man, 1918-1928
Velychenko, Stephen
Paperback
The Galician Division 1943-45: Ukrainian Volunteers and Conscripts in the Waffen SS
McCormack, David
Hardcover
Engineering Global Socialism: Ownership, Non-Alignment, and Corporate Culture in a Bosnian Company
Calori, Anna
Paperback
Blood, Dust and Snow: Diaries of a Panzer Commander in Germany and on the Eastern Front, 1938-1943
Schäfer, Robin
Hardcover
The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism
Bartel, Fritz
Hardcover
Europe's Long Century, Volume 2: Society, Politics, and Culture, 1945-Present
Di Scala, Spencer M.
Paperback
Cities of Dust and Mud: Urbanism and Bourgeois Fantasy in the Balkans, 1820-1920
Jovanovic, Milos
Paperback
The Last Palace: Europe's Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House
Eisen, Norman
Paperback
Cold War Brokers: Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility, 1956-1989
László, Szabolcs
Hardcover
The Curse of Empire: Ukraine, Poland, and the Fatal Paths in Russian History
Schulze Wessel, Martin
Hardcover
Tell It to the World: International Justice and the Secret Campaign to Hide Mass Murder in Kosovo
Behar, Eliott
Paperback