This week in our class lecture, we had the opportunity to read and discuss a poem written by Anselm Kiefer, entitled "Bohemia lies by the sea." Throughout the poem one could sense that the narrator is urgently crying out to Bohemians to stand with him, and fight to retain the culture of their lost land. In the beginning, one may have thought that Bohemia was just a made-up place that the narrator simply identifies as his place of peace and sanctity, however it is actually a real place. According to an article on Encyclopedia Britannica, which can be viewed below, the land of modern day Bohemia is now mostly occupied by the Czech Republic nation.
In the modern day, this land is no longer referred to as the Kingdom of Bohemia, but instead the individual nations like Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia identify by themselves. Bohemia, once a unified kingdom ruled by the Holy Roman Empire, is now a segregated land. The narrator of the poem seems to be expressing his desire to be one day reunited with his Heimat, which is a German term that translates as "home" in English but his a much richer meaning in the German culture. Heimat is a place of peace and belonging that brings about a special nostalgic feeling. The writer longs for a wholeness and unity of his once Bohemian people, and this was quite evident in the poem. However, to add another perspective, the video below gives a deeper meaning to the story, as the critiques in the video discuss the elements of the picture. Bringing up points like the material used and texture of the painting, relating them to the artist's emotions and his effort to convey the sense of feeling of the land to his audience, were just some of the strong points made.
After reading the poem and viewing the painting, an audience can get a more holistic view of the author's desperation to find his Bohemia once again. While it may be impossible to somehow reclaim the entire nation as Bohemia, by simply finding people who have experienced such Bohemian culture as the narrator did, it can give him a sense of peace and belonging once again. But the important question of how the segregation of the Kingdom of Bohemia came about must be addressed. In this week's reading entitled "History of Germany 1780-1918: The Long Nineteenth Century; Second Edition," written by David Blackbourn, the idea of "state-building" was introduced. This "state-building" was defined in two ways, however the meaning that more pertains to the discussion of Germany is that which speaks about "the physical expansion of territory through peaceful or non-peaceful" means. During this time period in Germany there was a lot of migration within the land, which resulted in physical expansion as well as cultural expansion and integration. Such integration may have resulted in the merging of East and West Germany, which lead to the identification as one German nation.
This idea of state-building can also contribute to the ideas as to how the Kingdom of Bohemia fell, by looking into the second definition of state-building. This was defined as "the attempt that rulers made to build more centralized and rationalized states within a specific border." This could have possibly been the case with Bohemia, since the land is now segregated into individual nations. However, a challenge can be made to the first definition of state-building, as to whether peaceful or non-peaceful methods were used when the segregation of Bohemia occurred. It could be the case that the Kingdom's dissolution was due to conflicts within Bohemia. Although this may be seen as an overall peaceful resolution due to the prior conflict within the kingdom, the means by which the state-building occurred may not necessarily have been so peaceful. The process by which the lands became segregated may have been controversial perhaps. Also, the end result was not entirely one which resulted in peace, as there exists a Bohemian diaspora out there, for example the narrator of the poem, who may still miss the culture of his unified Bohemian people. This culture, the narrator believes may have been pushed out of the interior land and may now lie as far as the coasts of the sea, if it even still exists. Wherever it may be, he considers that his Heimat and longs for a return to it.
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