As Matilda has already indicated, one of the most difficult things to do after you’ve visited a country is to return and convey something of what you’ve experienced. How do you show a city’s many faces, introduce its inhabitants? How do you tell of the effects a history has on people and of a stance towards life that can actually not be translated into words? In the case of Prague, it is very helpful to have someone like Jara Cimrman.
~ ~ v ~ ~
Petrin Hill, on the left bank of the river Vltava running through Prague, is in many ways a site worth visiting. Climbing the 299 steps of the Petrin Tower, inspired by the Eiffel Tower, gives you one of the most beautiful views of the city. But by going down into its basement, you enter into the psyche of the Czech people. Here, quite unobtrusively, is the museum for the “Genius, who has not become famous”.
Matilda and I almost stumbled onto it by chance and as we went through the exhibition, our amazement over this brilliant man grew in similar fashion as our confusion.
Jara Cimrman (pronounced Djarra Zimmerman), was a scientist, inventor, world traveller, explorer, philosopher, poet, educator, businessman, amateur dentist, amateur gynaecologist, photographer and sportsman, among other things.
Through the many articles on display in the museum, one gets insight into Jara’s often strange personal and adventurous, though often unfortunate, professional life. Personal belongings are supplemented by photos and some of his ingenious, often weird, inventions. Many of these items on display and valuable information would have been lost, had a large sealed trunk in an old country house not been discovered by accident in 1966.
Jara was born sometime between 1857 and 1867 in Vienna, Austria, from an Austrian mother and Czech father. He saw himself always as being Czech. He had an older sister Luisa. Apparently the young Jara had to wear his sister’s clothes (see photo of faded blue dress worn by the boy Jara, on display) since his thrifty parents did not want to spend money on boy's clothes. It was only when he was in his early teens that his malevolent classmates from the girls’ boarding school finally disclosed his true sex to him. He then left school and started his illustrious career.
By entering into the life of Jara Cimrman, one rubs shoulders with the who’s who of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. Amidst all his accomplishments, there is the thread of misfortune and bad luck. To name but a few of his acquaintances, his achievements and near achievements:
- he nearly made it to the North Pole before any other human, but missed the mark by about seven meters, because he encountered hostile natives;
- Cimrman filed applications for 237 inventions of his own, including yogurt and the CD (Cimrman’s Disk). All were denied. 235 immediately. Two at a later stage;
- flowing from their lengthy conversations on the subjects of light and time in Prague pubs, Einstein began using the letter “c” to represent the speed of light in all his calculations in honour of his friend Cimrman's contributions;
- as an apprentice to Edison, Cimrman reworked the electrical contact on the first light bulb, but never got the recognition;
- long before it was envisaged, he suggested to the US government that the Panama canal should be built;
- on display in the museum is a model of Gustave Eiffel’s initial Eiffel Tower. It has four solid prim and proper square legs. It was only by following the advice of his friend Cimrman to spread those legs wider that Eiffel’s final product still stands as a Paris landmark;
- on going to the patent office to register his invention of dynamite, he was informed that he was five minutes too late. It has just been patented by Alfred Nobel.
Against this personal and professional background, the lines in one of his later poems make sense: "From some I have met with ridicule and from others I have mostly also met with ridicule."
Although there are a number of photos on display in the museum, the absence of Cimrman on all of them is striking.
On this 1909 photo of him introducing the breast stroke to the American swimming community - a stroke developed over the centuries by poor shepherds in the Jizera Mountains of Austria-Hungary – only Cimrman's leg is shown in the lower right corner of the photograph. Up to now it could not be determined whether it was his right or left leg.
The bust of Cimrman on display, the only preserved image of him, was partially destroyed in the procedure of hat steaming performed by J. Leainer.
Neither the museum, nor any individual is in possession of photos or images of Jara Cimrman.
He was last seen in 1914, going for a stroll outside the village of Liptakov. He mysteriously disappeared. There were occasional Cimrman sightings reported in various places around the world after that, but none of these reports could be reliably confirmed, and many people presumed him to be dead.
We left the museum dazed. Why have we never heard of this creative genius? What an example of amazing resilience amidst such misfortune. Such a meticulous, beautiful exhibition that left you in a number of ways with more questions than answers. Back at the apartment we Googled him.
In 2005, Czech Television launched a contest to determine The Greatest Czech of All Time. Against stiff competition from writers (e.g. Franz Kafka), composers (e.g. Antonin Dvorak), patron saints (Good King Wenceslas) and leaders (e.g. Vaclav Havel), Cimrman received the majority of votes. The organisers of the competition decided however, that Cimrman was to be disqualified.
The reason? He never existed.
Due to the public outcry that followed their decision, they had to create a separate category for fictional characters. In this category Cimrman was the only entry and subsequent winner.
Jara Cimrman was created for a regular radio show in 1966, during the hey-day of Communism, by Zdeněk Svěrák, Jiří Šebánek and Ladislav Smoljak. In 1967, they founded the Cimrman Theatre in Prague and began producing his supposedly long-lost plays. As a caricature of Czech people he initially was a very useful instrument to aim veiled sarcastic humour toward the Communist powers. Cimrman had a rebellious, almost anarchistic side to him and was often mysteriously in the vicinity of assassination attempts against the Austro-Hungarian rulers of his time. Everyone in the audience however knew that it wasn't about criticizing that earlier oppression that the Czechs suffered under Hapsburg rule. Because the political aspect of the plays lay more in their attitude than their specific references, it confounded the Communist censors. Periodically, the authors would write an offensive line or two into a play to give the censors something to take out in order for the play itself to pass. Still, plays were occasionally banned.
After the fall of Communism at the end of the 1980’s, Cimrman’s creators thought that his popularity would fade as later generations did not share in the circumstances under which he originated. They were wrong. Today he is more popular than ever and people stand in long queues to get tickets for his plays, even though they know the lines and phrases in most of the plays by heart.
The great Cimrman may have disappeared in 1914 but he is miraculously alive and well in modern Prague. He became more than his creators ever imagined him to be, because he manages to express a common historical notion of the Czech nation. That of always being a loser, an underdog. Being the ones to be exploited while others reaped the glory.
“For many Czechs, Jára Cimrman is not only one of many ordinary funny characters. His status in Czech culture is much deeper and complex than it may seem at the first sight, especially for a foreigner. In the view of Czechs, the whole history of the Czech nation represents a struggle with expansive attempts of bigger nations who have always tried to dominate the Central European region and who have considered it their "sphere of interest". No matter in which situation, Cimrman is always depicted as a determined fighter against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, despite the fact that his very name and origin themselves reflect the ethnically mixed nature of the Czech (and Austrian) population. This symbolizes not only a silent resistance of the Czech people against the Soviet occupation but against any form of oppression which have often taken place in the Czech lands. Over centuries of military occupations and autocracies, the Czechs developed a mentality which allowed them to resist even the toughest opponents, not by force which they usually lacked, but rather by using their brain and tactics.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1ra_Cimrman)
Followers of Cimrman – or Cimrmanologists as they call themselves – are constantly adding information that contributes to a fuller picture of him. All this is done and the results conveyed in a serious manner befitting enthusiastic scholars who explore and analyse their hero’s life and work.
This is however not only restricted to the playwrights in theatres. Far from it. Cimrman belongs to the man in the street. Even children. They will tell you that he really existed. Playing the game on his real existence is part of his characterization.
That is why not one sentence in the museum reveals that Cimrman is an invented character. There is no mentioning of his creators or his place in Czech culture.
We are convinced – and it was confirmed by our internet research - that the majority of tourists leaving the exhibition and Prague do so under the impression that Jara was a historical figure. It is also safe to assume that they would not have been guided from their erroneous assumptions by one of the locals.
In one of the few English bookstores in Prague, I asked the assistant behind the counter whether they had any books on Cimrman. He informed me that those written on the subject were in Czech. The lady who had just purchased a book and who stepped aside to make room for me while she was putting her change in her purse, quickly looked up from what she was doing. For a moment she looked at me and as she turned to leave the store, I could hear her laughing softly. She was obviously not going to let me in on the secret.
The heading of an article in a 2007 edition of The New York Times sums it up neatly: Prague’s greatest hero is really a blank Czech. Onto those open spaces the people of Prague are writing away. Creating a character and displaying their soul.
I am so glad that we’ve met Mr. Cimrman.
~ ~ v~ ~
In previous editions of the Restory News, we’ve indicated our high regard for story. For that reason it forms part of the name of our place of silence. We want to provide a space where we can discover and recover our own story, where we listen to each other’s stories, where we tell stories.
Without noticing it, we are all busy making history in the process. History being in essence his story, her story, their story, our story, my story.
It has been so rewarding and enlightening to experience first hand the nourishment and encouragement a story can provide for a country and its people in times of oppression and restriction. How it contributes to an identity. How it helped them survive.
Prague highlighted a few things anew:
· stories are bigger than people
· a good story should never be bedevilled by facts
· there is no such thing as an untrue story
George
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