Written in early May 2007
From Kolymbari, Crete, Greece

CZECH NEWS – A letter to friends and family

After an exhausting but exciting ten days in Prague and the Czech Republic, I have arrived once again in Crete. After sleeping twelve straight hours I am ready to tell you about my adventures with the Czechs.

First I must say “Ahoy!” and “Dobri-den” to Czech readers of this website. An analysis of the website-hits shows that most readers come from the USA, then Canada, and third are the Czechs!

Third place is correct for the Czechs – for they are all friends of Zimmerman. (Or, in Czech, Cimrman – cim-r-man.) This is an insider joke for the Czechs. In a recent poll asking who is the most famous and important Czech, Jara Cimrman was the winner. Only the Czechs were amused. Everyone else was puzzled. I will tell you the story, and then you will understand something very essential about the Czech mentality.

Jara Cimrman was forgotten until 1966 when he was rediscovered by two men – a radio journalist named Zdenek Sverak and a theater director, Ladislav Smoljak. A trunk full of the records of his life was accidentally found in the village of Liptakov. It seems that Cimrman was one of the most extraordinary Czech personalities of all time. Unfortunately, he was always late. He was the third man to discover the North Pole. He had the same ideas of Einstein, but, alas, a few days later. He invented the light bulb, but only a week after Edison. He would have been a great military hero, but the battle was always over when he arrived. He was also the third man to invent ice cream and beer.

Thirteen plays have been written about Cimrman and many unauthorized biographies as well. If you ask any Czech, they will all tell you stories about the adventures and accomplishments of this remarkable man. Still unknown to the world because he was always third and always late.

As you may begin to suspect, Cimrman never existed. He was a product of the imagination of his two “discoverers” and continues to have a life because he has been a part of the imagination of the Czech people for more than forty years. Any Czech will tell you “Cimrman lives!” I saw it written on a wall, written by Cimrman himself.

Now there are plaques in some places saying “Cimrman Did Not Sleep Here” and “Cimrman Would Have Been Here, But He Was Late.” A group of “cimrmanologists” quote long passages from his plays and find new evidence of his many third-rate achievements. Someday, some say, Cimrman will be elected President. But only if the person with the third place in voting will be chosen.

I wanted to meet Cimrman. But I only saw him in the faces of the Czechs when they told me his stories. They could not keep from smiling and laughing when they told me the latest news: It has only recently been learned that this Czech hero is the great-grandfather of Bob Dylan, whose real name is Zimmerman. Now you know.

It is easy to like a people whose greatest national hero does not exist. They are all descendants of Cimrman, the father of the country.

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Often I am accused of exaggeration. Sometimes, I admit, I do embellish a story for the sake of the truth. There is a Czech joke that speaks to this matter. A man says to another man, “I had a blind date with a girl who was so ugly five chickens could perch in a row on her nose.” “No way,” says the other man, “You must be exaggerating.” “Well, OK,” says the first man, “the fifth chicken had to stand on one leg at the end.” A Cimrman story.
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When first I went to the Czech Republic ten years ago, an interpreter had to follow my English after every sentence. Now, most Czechs can understand my English. In fact, in the city of Brno one night I asked an audience “How many of you understand English?” The majority held up their hands. Then I asked, “How many of you do not understand English?” When the minority held up their hands, the rest of the audience laughed – how did these others know what I asked? Afterward, a man who held up his hand as one not understanding English told me, in English, “My group is the humble minority. We understand only slowly.” Relatives of Cimrman, no doubt.

Speaking of language and understanding, last Sunday I went a long way out of Prague to the deep woods of south Bohemia to speak to more than 1,000 Rover Scouts camping together at a special event. They were between the ages of 15 and 18. Boys and girls together, like the Adventure Scouts in the USA. They were all born after 1989 – after the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism. Their parents had to learn Russian. Now they learn English – and did not need an interpreter. They came to an outdoor theater to hear me speak, but I said that I came to see them – the future of the Czech Republic, not the past.

In a question-and-answer period one Scout asked me how many languages I thought a person should speak. My answer: at least four:
First, the language of your own people and culture and history.
Second, the international language of your time – English.
Third, the world language of the human race – music.
Fourth, the language of the cosmos – which has no words, but only the
feelings of amazement and wonder that we are a part of the universe.

It is clear to me that the Czech Scouts speak all four languages well.
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My adventures with the Czechs were many. My new book of essays is at the top of the Czech bestseller list, so I met many, many Czechs at book signings, at theater events, and on the streets.

Over the next weeks I will tell you more stories from my experience with the Czechs. I will have proof of the truth of these stories because a documentary film was made about my trip, and the cameras were always with me. I will tell you about dancing with witches at midnight in a small town; about hitting a pig on the highway; about a little girl who demanded that I tell her a scary story; about a man who looks like me; about Czech policemen; and several other thoughts from notes I made while traveling to five Czech cities.
Perhaps I will also explain how a chicken can stand on one leg at the end of a girl’s nose. Cimrman told me.