In recent years, the study of Prague as an arena of nationalist conflict has been enriched by new questions from urban studies and cultural geography, turning our attention from municipal politics to the raising of statues and the renovating of city blocks. Within this body of literature, Cynthia Paces' Prague Panoramas offers a new approach. First, her research deals with intersections of nationalism and religion. Paces explains that secular nationalists and Communists, as well as Czech Catholics, invoked figures from the religious history of Prague and Bohemia to underpin their respective understandings of national identity. These competing claims to religious history connect to the second important theme of Paces' work: Nationalist fights in Prague were not limited to those between Czechs and Germans. Within the Czech community, defining features of the national character and correct interpretations of the nation's history were subjects of dispute among liberal and Socialist nationalists, Catholics, freethinkers, Communists, and dissident artists. As Paces argues, the prevailing narrative of Czech history and identity proved to be narrow, not only in its exclusion of Germans and Jews, but also in alienating many Czechs. Focusing on this drawing of lines among Prague Czechs, Paces insists, “enables a deeper reading of the multiple efforts to create a singularly Czech capital in the twentieth century” (11).
The book focuses on how these multiple efforts led to the creation of “sacred spaces,” places where religious imagery was used to forge emotional bonds between Czechs and the city's cultural landscape. The study's central thread deals with competing monuments that briefly shared Old Town Square: the monument to Jan Hus, unveiled in 1915, and the seventeenth-century Marian column, toppled days after the declaration of independent Czechoslovakia. Paces traces the development of the Hus cult from the 1890s, when nationalists first proposed a monument to the reformer, through debates over designs and sites for the statue and commemoration of his martyrdom in 1925, to Communists' later appropriation of Hus as a proto-Socialist revolutionary. Hus was a pliable historical figure, yet the meanings attached to his life had some coherence: He was, for nationalists and Communists alike, an opponent of clerical and noble authority and a defender of Czech national interests. For Czech Catholics, in contrast, Hus was a heretic, and they saw his modern acolytes as proponents of aggressive secularization.
Magnifying the offensiveness of the Hus cult, to Catholics, was the destruction of the baroque column and statue of the Virgin Mary in 1918. The event is well known as an example of Czech anticlericalism and mob nationalism. But, as Paces explains well, the broken, absent figure of Mary had a lasting influence on twentieth-century Czech culture. Catholics saw the defiled icon as a symbol of the state's hostility to the church and held out hope that a restored column would symbolize the nation's return to faith. Meanwhile, secular intellectuals were also haunted by the Virgin's image. Jaroslav Seifert and Ludvík Vaculík portrayed the broken figure of Mary as a disturbing apparition, reminding Czechs of erased chapters of their history. Paces writes, “Similar statues existed throughout Bohemia and Moravia… . But only the missing one captured the imagination of poets and politicians” (227).
Paces branches away from her treatment of these two central subjects to explore other attempts at creating, or recasting, sacred places in Prague: the national memorial on Vítkov Hill, the rebuilt Bethlehem Chapel, the statue of St. Wenceslaus, and various public sculptures erected after 1989. The span of subjects, source materials, and interpretative approaches (from close readings of monuments as cultural artifacts to discussions of gender and nationalism) make for an impressive, wide-ranging history of Prague's twentieth century. But, as can be the case with studies of such scope and ambition, some of these secondary topics are not fully developed. For example, a strength of the book is its emphasis on Czech Catholics in the political culture of the First Republic. However, Catholic voices disappear almost entirely from the three chapters covering the Communist period. At its strongest points, Paces' book shows us that religion remained significant in twentieth-century Prague; at places where the book stretches thin, we see areas where further work can be done.
These criticisms aside, Prague Panoramas is a highly recommended cultural history of the city, ideal for students, as well as for newcomers to the Czech capital. Frequent visitors will also find much that is interesting and illuminating. Rare among academic works, Paces' book shines with a deep attachment to the city. Her research and writing sprang from walks across the stones of Old Town Square. My own, future walks through the city will be enriched, thanks to her work.
