On the Czech King Přemysl Ottakar II the Stubborn / Arrogant but certainly Brave

 

Here is a great picture of Premysl Ottakar II one of the most important kings of Bohemia (Czechia) painted by Karel Řepka and posted on the FB group "Český Středověk" (the Czech Middle Ages).

Yes the Czechs had once been a kingdom.  Bohemia (Czechia) had become one of the six elector states of the Holy Roman Empire. Here Ottakar II thought that since his kingdom had become the most powerful kingdom of the H.R. Empire of the time, that he should be elected Holy Roman Emperor. Instead precisely because he was pretty powerful, the other Electors chose to elect a young upstart named Rudolph of Habsburg (the weakest among them) who was a mere Duke at the time to be Holy Roman Emperor.

 Ottakar II got angry, went to war against Rudolph as well as the other elector States of the H.R. Empire and ... died on the battlefield in the "Battle of the Moravian Fields." and history was largely written from there. The Habsburgs came to be one of the most powerful and longest lasting dynastic families in European history with their falling from power only in 1918 nearly 650 years later.

The Czech Premyslid dynasty came to an end though Ottakar's daughter Eliška (Elizabeth) married a young John of Luxemburg who became then the Czech king (King of Bohemia/ Czechia) and his son Karel (Charles) was laterelected as Charles IV as Holy Roman Emperor in the 1300s. Charles IV built (or completed the famous Charles Bridge in Prague as well as founded the famous Charles University in Orague, the oldest university in central Europe.

One thing that I like about the marriage of John of Luxemburg and Eliška of the Premyslids was that it consolidated the two greatest beer drinking peoples under one roof . And perhaps that was "an attraction" for (as remembered by the Czechs) the famously boisterous King John of Luxemburg who like Premysl Ottakar II (pictured here) eventually died in battle: 

With some battle somewhere beginning to go badly John of L was to have said: "Far be it for a Czech king to run from a battlefield..."

Course perhaps the other kings of the time and times since may have learned something from the examples if Ottakar II / John of Luxemburg ... you can't continue to rule if you're dead.

Still leading from the front seems far more inspiring than from the back.

Say what one will of Napoleon. He understood that too. While he did not die on the battlefield, he didn't ask his people to go where he wasn't willing to go himself. He went with his troops all the way to Moscow and later was captured with his troops at Waterloo.

Anyway all thus from a picture of a (to us) famous Czech king from the 1200s.

One final note Dante refers to Ottakar II / Rudolph of Habsburg in the Divine Comedy (Purgatorio Canto 7) He has the two _reconciled_ singing in choir (with the other Kings of history) in front of the Door to Purgatory waiting for all the other souls to pass to fulfill Jesus' saying:

"The first shall be last and the last shall be first" (Matt 20:16)

And final PS -- It turns out that Premysl Ottakar II was born in the same year as St Philip Benizi / the founding of the Servite Order ... 1233 ...

On a Modern Day Mystery - "The Viking of Prague"

About a year ago, a fellow American Servite gave me an article about the discovery of the tomb of a  “Viking” under Prague’s Castle in the 1920s.  I’ve since lost that article but have been interested in the story ever since.

The story shows up occasionally, both the English and Czech press, in good part because it’s fascinating: What was he doing there?

There’s a Wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Castle_skeleton

The most extensive recent article about it in English was written by Nicholas Saunders, Jan Frolik and Volker Hold in Antiquity 39 370(2019): 1009-1025.  

The article was quite good, suggesting at the end that he was probably Nordic, but that at the time, he might not have considered himself as such, or was simply a mercenary or adventurer, who nonetheless was prominent enough to warrant the kind of burial that he had received, at a time, incidentally either before or just after the foundation of Prague’s castle.    

Looking up / following some of the links / references made in both the Wikipedia and Antiquity article, I wrote then the principal author asking him if this “Viking” would be considered something of a 9-10^th century “Heydrich” figure.

My argument was this: 

(1) It is attested in the Fulda Annals of the time (attn non-Czech readers, just use the “translate option” on your web-browser to have the various pages here translated into English) that throughout the period in question, Bohemia and then certainly Central Bohemia was already clearly Slavic, though Bohemia was contested territory between the Frankish Germans to the West and the Slavic Moravians to the East, and pretty much every year the Frankish king sent out an expedition to Bohemia to plunder or otherwise extract tribute.  

(2) In 872 there appeared to be indeed, a famous battle “U Vltavy” [FA] [Wikip]  where a Frankish expedition took on five Czech Princes and possibly a sixth named Gariwey (Bořivoj?).  That Frankish expedition apparently successfully scattered the Czech princes, but after the princes fled to their citadels the Frankish expedition was unable to do more … and subsequently went home. 

Okay, I suggest that (1) _perhaps_ the encampment of the 872 Frankish expedition was on the _up to then uninhabited hill_ on which today's Prague Castle stands (it would seem like an obvious, strategically useful place to setup such an encampment), (2) after waiting some time for the Czechs to surrender after “scattering them at the Vltava,” THE COMMANDER of that expedition DIED either of battle wounds or simply disease, and (3) the Frankish expedition built him a nice “hero’s tomb” there on the hill and … went home. 

Indeed, if one understands the Fulda Annals correctly, raiding Bohemia to plunder and then going home seemed to be the “modus operandi” of the Frankish Germans vis-à-vis the (Slavic) inhabitants of Bohemia of the time.

Subsequently (4) good old Bořivoj the first historically attested to member of the Premyslid (subsequent Czech royal) dynasty, its first Christian leader (certainly St Ludmila his wife was already baptized), and the traditional founder of the Hradcany Castle, _perhaps_ noting the success of building good strong citadels against Frankish incursion, (a) left his existing citadel of Levý Hradec to the Hradčany site, (b) built (or improved) the wall around it, (c) built a nice church dedicated to St. Mary _near_ but _not_ on top of the tomb of the “Viking” / Frankish warrior, and (d) left the tomb untouched so as to both _not provoke_ the Frankish king but also to put the tomb  “under his protection” and thus … beginning the history of Prague’s castle.

 The advantage of this explanation for the presence of the “Viking” at Prague’s castle would be that it would respect the history of region – that it was already Slavic dominated at the time – and yet explain “the Viking’s” presence.  What was he doing there?

 Linking him to the Battle at the Vltava of 872 would explain both the tomb's presence in the midst of a land that was otherwise not Nordic or Germanic or no longer Nordic / Germanic at the time.  

Coda (I hope :-) on the Presidency of Donald Trump

Obviously, I've never been a fan of Trump AS PRESIDENT [1] [2] [3] [4]. To be honest, I kinda liked his show The Apprentice. I'd _never_ fire people like he did, and never have, but I liked the show. But as a leader, from day one he seemed TO ME to be of the Mussolini mold.

Anyway, attached here is IMHO the best article about Trump's dictatorial ambitions. Put bluntly, the OpEd author wrote that Trump was simply _too lazy_ to be a dictator. The closing paragraph reads:

"Subverting democracy requires more effort than Trump is willing to exert. He wants to be a dictator, but he’s unwilling to do the work to become one. Just as he inherited a fortune, he wants to inherit an autocracy. To be a successful strongman, you need a strong work ethic. Trump has only weak ethics."

https://www.latimes.com/.../trump-coronavirus-dictators

Indeed, this Wednesday as he was psyching up his people for his "Beer Hall Putsch" (without even providing the beer...), he told the people, "And I will be there with you." NO HE WASN'T. Was it too far? Was it too cold? Was he just lazy? He just went in and watched it all on TV.

The John Coleman character in the "Big Lebowski," shocked that his friend's rug was pissed-on by Nihilists ("They don't believe in anything") rather than Nazis, said "Well, I'll be damned, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it was an ethos."

Anyway, thankfully it's all coming to an end -- still 5 people died -- without the costs being worse.

Oh yes, and then there's the 350K people who died here of the Coronavirus, while everywhere else, things have been led much better than here. But again, it honestly could have been worse.