Oh my, you sound like a guidebook. I´m Czech and of course I like when someone likes my country, but 1) Czechia isn´t just Prague, almost every place is beautiful, 2) this piece isn´t about Prague so why the h*ll do you write about Prague? 3) you use so many longs words that you´re a bit terrifying. 4) Are you AI? You don´t sound human.

@@martavdz4972 Thank you. (1)(2) Having had the opportunity to visit Prague, I must note that my travels have not extended to other cities within the Czech Republic. My experiences in Prague were fortunate, as the individuals I encountered there did not exhibit the cold-hearted demeanor that you seem to possess. (3) You should be terrifying on your own. (4) No, I am a cat, who understands human language.

It appears that you may globally encounter individuals who freely articulate their perspectives and subsequently allow the natural progression of events to unfold without intervention.

Ce qui s'est passé là est vraiment d'une très grande tristesse. Son exil au Canada a dû être terrible pour lui. Pour moi, il reste un des trois grands chefs tchèques, avec Václav Talich et Rafael Kubelik. Tout ce qu'il a enregistré est d'une extrême qualité, sans emphase inutile et toujours avec un sens aigu de la ligne, et son orchestre est merveilleux de légèreté et de clarté (la clarinette chalumeau est unique), même si le son n'est plus tout à fait au top niveau. Mais quel bonheur cependant d'avoir pu conserver ces témoignages magnifiques (Dvorak, Janacek, Smetana, bien sûr, mais aussi Brahms, Mahler, Stravinski, Chostakovitch…).

Sorry, have to disagree on all counts. "Kdož sú Boží bojovníci" is not in the place you mention, it´s played later. I listened to the melody and the closest thing to it I know are Bohemian folk songs from the 18th century or thereabouts. It´s vaguely reminiscent of the folk song Zelený hájové, you can listen to it under the title "Zelený hájové (česká lidová píseň)". Smetana played with a folk song in "Vltava", so he might have done here, too. I don´t think he was trying to create a modern church hymn. For several reasons: 1) The Czech National Revival movement wasn´t creating works in order to rival or parallel historical foreign works at this point anymore. 2) Symphonic poems don´t include church hymns, they just include hints of melodies designed to evoke certain images. 3) Your comment implies that Smetana might have felt Czechs don´t have anything as powerful as "Ein fester Burg ist unser Gott", so he needed to create it. But the point of My Country was the exact opposite: to show that "Czech culture already has historical and folklore basis to build on." 4) We Czechs think that "Kdož sú Boží bojovníci" can rival any majestic song in the world, and I doubt Smetana felt different 150 years ago. Just listen to it by Gabriela Beňačková and choir from "Božská Emma", or by the Prague Castle Guard at "Husitský chorál - Den ozbrojených sil". It blows everyone´s socks off. That was its purpose. The Hussites were the first organized peasant rebellion that actually defeated the Crusaders and led to the election of the first Protestant king in European history. You don´t trump that by a random 19th century composition. It would be like the Swedes thinking the Vikings are outdated and they need something more "modern". Sorry, but it´s a ridiculous idea. Your knowledge of Czech history is very impressive, hats off! But there are nuances you don´t know about that need to be taken into consideration.

@@martavdz4972 4) Indeed it can; and I detest Martin Luther, arch-antisemite and gravedigger of the Protestant Revolution. I'm always open to know more about Czech history. And Daniel Landa's performance of the hymn at concerts shows that it's still something Czechs carry in their hearts. I have Slovak heritage, but I certainly am sympathetic to the Czech national struggle. And have a look at my playlist below. I have a theory that Cathars -->Waldensians & Anabaptists & Jewish revolutionary spirit --> Wycliff & Hus-->German Peasant Uprisings -->German Socialism. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aZZlZaaKp97YgnU.html

The Cathars :Live On kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eN2SYJV5ypfOe40.html

@@AtlantaBill Sorry, I don´t get what your point is? I know about the Cathars, and there were even more movements like this in the Middle Ages. The Hussites were the first movement that actually led to changes in politics.

​@@martavdz4972The Cathars were the earliest of the radical Christians. They didn't rise up, but their friends in the region took up arms for them. They were not all exterminated. Their communities were refuges for Jews and Saracens (Muslims) who were persecuted by the Roman Church. In several European languages, the traditional word for 'heretic' is an obvious corruption of the name 'Cathar'. German Ketser, Dutch ketter, Czech: kacíř, Slovak kacír, Polish kacerz, Swedish kättare, Danish kætter, Nynorsk kjettar, Estonian: ketser. The Cathars were proselytizing; it was a major source of new members since they disavowed having sex for the purpose of producing offspring. They paired up, man and woman, going out to other regions to bring their message to other parts of Europe, Cathar pilgrims being encountered as far as England. There's an Italian scholar who has extensive evidence that Dante Alighieri was a secret Cathar. In the east, their co-thinkers in the Balkans (perhaps their forerunners) were known as the Bogomils.They were almost certainly an influence on the Waldensians, who were known in Poland. I see the nascence of the true Protestantism as a flowering of their martyrdom in Southern France, like the flowering of the martydom of Master Jan Hus. What's more, there's some good literature on the poverty of the nobility at a time when the abbeys were bathed in the wealth taken in from simony. The Church was hated by peasant and nobleman alike, which played a major role in the universal anger at the immolation of Hus. In England in 1382, Anne of Bohemia, so-called because her native Luxembourg was a vassal state of the Czech Crown, was a patron of the Lollards and probably a supporter of John Wycliffe. A follower of Wycliffe named Peter Payne fled England to Prague and defended the Ultraquists, later trying to negotiate peace between them and the Taborites. After a half-century of what are now called the "Bohemian Wars", the ground was prepared for the German Peasant Wars, in whose aftermath tensions festered among the peasantry that eventually surfaced with the rise of European socialism. After every defeat of a revolution, unresolved contradictions remain to fester for generations among the downtrodden. In the Late Middle Ages, the hand of the Devil was seen in the wickedness of Church and Landlord. Such ebbs and flows of historical currents break forth in what seems to be an entirely new moment in history, an entirely new movement, by a process for which I would use the term 'sublation' (Hegel's Aufhebung). What is authentically new is really the actualization of something essentially present in the old. Conversely, the internal contradictions can be driven back down into the unconscious (or the body politic) and continue to fester. There isn't an antonym for 'sublation', but Wilhelm Reich would have called it 'armoring'. Such a negative reaction to the defeat of the Protestant Revolution I believe was championed by John Calvin, the confrère of Luther, who gave capitalism its ideology. So that, on the one hand from the defeat of Protestantism arises capitalism, and on the other its antithesis, socialism. There, in a few words, you have my whole theory. You may get your inspiration on the one hand from one of the many commercials on KZfaq inviting you to get rich, or conversely one of the great revolutionary moments in history such as the one celebrated here. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hp-nmLWQ2J7Zp5s.html