Located at the very center of Europe, Prague has been on the frontline
of international political, intellectual, religious, and cultural
conflicts for more than six centuries. Invaded and occupied by the
Habsburgs, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Nazis, and then Communist
Russia, the city's identity is shaped by a long experience of foreign
domination and a strong sense of martyrdom. A treasure house of Gothic,
baroque, and modernist architecture, Prague is also a city of icons and
symbols: statues, saints and signs reveal a turbulent history of
religious and cultural conflict. As Kafka's nightmare city and home of
the Good Soldier _vejk, the Czech capital also produced two of the
twentieth century's emblematic writers. Richard Burton explores this
metropolis of theatrical allusion, in which politics and drama have
always been intertwined. His interpretation of the city's cultural past
and present encompasses opera and rock music, puppetry and cinema,
surrealism and socialist realism. Looking at Prague's world-famous
landmarks and lesser-known sites, his reading of the city through its
writing and iconography is both perceptive and challenging. - The city
of artists and writers: The Castle and Kafka, Ha_ek and Kundera; music
from Smetana to the Plastic People of the Universe; modernism and
cubism; political theater and the playwright-president Václav Havel -
The city of tyranny and resistance: Jan Hus and anti-Catholic revolt;
subjugation and the rise of Czech nationalism; Germans, Czechs and Jews;
"Prague Spring" 1968, Charter 77 and the "Velvet Revolution" of November
1989 - The city of magic, murder, and myth: Medieval alchemy and
astrology; the myth of the Golem, the ghetto and anti-Semitism; living
puppets, robots, and a tradition of defenestration.
