Return My Ostrava
  ANXIETY FOR THE SOUL

Ostrava lies on the boundary between Moravia and Silesia, formed by the Ostravice river which flows from the Beskydy mountains and joins the Odra river before continuing on its journey into Poland. The city’s location at the north-eastern tip of the Czech Republic, near to the Polish and Slovak borders, is clearly a peripheral position, and seems illogical for such a large city. The third largest city in the Czech Republic should be at the centre of a large catchment area, not at the borders of three regions and two foreign countries. Peripheral communities, in isolated corners of state territories, tend to be small towns.
And Ostrava was once small too. Up to the mid-19th century, it was a tiny settlement, of negligible importance compared to the Silesian and Sudeten towns and cities which surrounded it. It was transformed into a large city by its reserves of coal and Viennese bankers’ investment in mining and metal production. A hundred years earlier, that was how towns were founded in overseas colonies. Places that were for grand projects, which would not be hindered by any firm structures of civilisation, let alone culture. The decision by the Gutmann and Rothschild banking houses to establish mines and ironworks in Ostrava in order to supply and service the railway being built from Vienna to Krakow was a commercially rational decision, however its implementation was almost as wild and chaotic as that of the American West – where railways also played a major role.
The original workers’ settlements in the vicinity of the mines and factories were known as ‘colonies’, and – like real colonies – they were home to a mixed population, people with their origins in the Beskydy mountains, Poland, Slovakia, Galicia, Ukraine and other countries. It is a sad fact that when they came to Ostrava, these people abandoned their own traditions, culture, and often their religion and language, and plunged themselves into the melting pot of the nascent industrial city. A sense of existential uprootedness – when we are all from somewhere else, but it no longer matters where – became a characteristic feature of Ostrava, just like the distinctive local accent, whose typical stress on the penultimate syllable (originating in the Polish language) affects the length of the vowels, so Czechs from other parts of the country tend to perceive the local dialect as an uncompromising rat-a-tat reminiscent of machine-gun fire.
People living in the workers’ housing had no option but to identify themselves with their new situation. They were in Ostrava to serve the local industries, and so the most important thing for them was the situation at the factory – not whether they were Catholic or Protestant, Czech or Ukrainian. Human life was ever more frantic, and took on the value of a wage – food, drink, entertainment. The true religion of Ostrava’s men was living for the moment – what can I get away with today, because tomorrow I may be ill or dead. And the true religion of Ostrava’s women was anxiety, fear of catastrophic accidents, dread that their husbands would die underground. Here, catastrophe lurked round every corner, because the forces that held people here, the forces that people deal with, are far beyond human dimensions.
And what are we seeking here? We mentioned the word ‘soul’ – the soul of the city. What does that mean? Just a phrase. But a phrase that has been a running theme since the dawn of the modern era, when the city became the home of our culture, and the soul found it increasingly difficult to find its place in this new home. That’s why it is hidden in improbable places, at rare moments. The soul is an endangered species, but without it life is just a mechanical operation.
Mechanical operations and anxiety for the soul – these are both at home in our Ostrava. It could even be said that if the world is gravitating towards an ever more mechanical form of spiritual emptiness, Ostrava is actually a city of the future. But here you can also feel the rarity of each flash of beauty, you do not take for granted any positive manifestation of life. It is not a dark, black city. It is a city of stark contrasts, where you can see things which elsewhere remain hidden.