La Vie Boheme

Taking advantage of the weekend (and my friend's car) we decided to spend my second day outside of the city. We headed to an area of the Czech Republic called Bohemia, which is dotted with small, quaint towns, built around a town square.

I had first imagined that all of the towns in Bohemia would be artistic and hippie-ish, like tons of mini-versions of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. In my mind, this was the only plausible explanation of why we refer to hippies as "bohemians" and that the big dance number in Rent was "La Vie Boheme."

So I was a little more than surprised when we arrived in the first town of Tabor and its main attractions were a church, a castle and an analog clock that displayed the full 24 hours. Certainly interesting, but not the mecca of creativity I expected.

As it turns out,the real deal behind Bohemia's rep is much more complicated. Tabor and some of its neighboring cities in the 15th Century were strongholds for a radical religious movement that was a departure from Catholicism that pre-dated even Lutherism. This put Bohemia at odds with the Catholic monarchy that was ruling in Prague. The king, realizing his weakness in being able to rule the areas outside of Prague, decided to disempower Bohemia by playing what amounts to a massive practical joke.

You see, the Romas (commonly known as gypsies in the States), are a nomadic group of people who have strong connections to dance and song. Knowing that Romas were a disliked group within Europe (who have historically suffered discrimination), the king used his legislative power to issue Romas travel papers indicating that they were from Bohemia.

In this way, he created a PR nightmare for the people of Bohemia. From then, and apparently for centuries afterward, everyone came to associate the people of Bohemia with gypsies.