The Heritage of Wenceslas

Abstract

While working on the portraits of the Czech saints I made pilgrimages to their graves, to the places where they lived. During these pilgrimages, that often led through paths along Czech rivers, many memories, dreams and thoughts passed through my mind. In conclusion of the whole work I feel obliged to offer the reader the contents of my meditations from my journeys in search of our saints, for they led me to the springs of the Czech land. I offer them to you, I do not force them on you, because personal beliefs should not be forced on anyone. Luckily it is not even possible. It was clear to me that to a certain extent I was writing a historical book. Yet I felt more and more that, apart from considerable amateurishness (I am not a historical expert), I only partially follow the method used for writing historical works. At a certain point I have always left the usual paths and set out in an unusual direction of explanation. The tension between the usual view of a historian and my viewpoint forced me to think about history and historiography. I realised that in order to understand history it is not enough to know all the facts and to be able, with the aid of a chain of causes and results, to explain the mechanism of the course of history. What is important is for us to understand and feel how we o~rselves stand in the history of our nation, how the whole of historical experience is inscribed in us. Only in this way can we understand what is good for us and what harms us, what is our own, what we should' do, what we should express. This great self-recognition, which we gain by again and again considering our lives and the life of the nation, can very often make things clear to' us in details that seem apparently unimportant, yet symbolically plain. It seems to me that our saints point out remarkably well what Czech history is really about. I thought further about what our heritage is.