Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/330
July Fourth at Norfolk
Unique was the Fourth of July celebration this year at Norfolk. The American spirit of 1776 jointly celebrated with the spirit of 1914 of Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovakia of old has been imbued with our spirit of ’76. The Czechs of Bohemia, now a part of that new republic, became famous centuries ago when singlehanded they fought against the rest of Europe to uphold the ideals of intellectual, political and religious freedom. The Czechs always fought valiantly to maintain the rights of the individual, on which real democracy rests. That is why the celebration of the Fourth of July by the citizens of Norfolk in unison with three thousand returning Czechoslovak soldiers from Siberia blended in one common accord.
The ancient democracy of Bohemia with its popular institutions was finally crushed three hundred years ago, only to be resurrected on October 28, 1918, the Fourth of July of the Czechoslovaks. It was crushed, as Vickers the American historian of Bohemia has aptly said, because “Bohemia’s early enlightenment and free civil policy in one sense proved its misfortune, inasmuch as the rest of the world was then too barbarous and too cruel either to understand it or to tolerate it”.
It now appears that the “anabasis” of the Czechoslovak soldiers in Siberia would not have been complete without a side-trip by at least a part of them to the United States and particularly to Norfolk. Yet this side trip was not a part of the official program. But fate willed it. On Saturday, June 12th, the United States Transport Mount Vernon, formerly the proud liner Kronprincessin Cecillie of the North German Lloyd quite unexpectedly appeared at Newport News.
Norfolk soon resounded with the melodious marching songs sung by the Czechoslovaks as in full military equipment under command of Major Morávek they made their way to their new camp at the Military Base on the outskirts of the city.
The camp site seems to have been in a state of abandonment for many months. With its unpainted, weather-beaten buildings, its luxuriant growth of weeds, it hardly presents an easy object for improvised artistic adornment. But the Czechoslovaks’ proverbial instinct for the beautiful asserted itself in spite of difficulites to be overcome. In Siberia these boys adorned the exteriors of the plain railroad box cars in which they had to live, with beautiful paintings, mottoes, and designs made of evergreens. They often built beautifully designed summer houses of birch boughs beside their more “permanent” homes, the box cars.
So here in Norfolk they were soon busy improving their immediate surroundings. They built a miniature water-mill, planted out garden spots, out of pebbles they made a large map of their country in the sand, and out of various colored pebbles they have made in front of their barracks beautiful geometrical designs.
On the night of the Fourth of July the Czechoslovaks gave a concert and entertainment the first of its kind that the good people of Norfolk ever attended. It was a revelation to them. It seemed to me that its various numbers portrayed those elements that form the Czechoslovak spirit which made possible the victory of these people in this war and won them their independence. It was a blending of the spiritual and artistic together with the physical development of the individual, making for a union of the intellect with a healthy, strong body. Their own band furnished the music, opening with the American and Czechoslovak national hymns. Then Rev. Kenneth Miller, who was with them in Russia and Siberia as a Y. M. C. A. secretary gave an outline of the Czechoslovak struggle for liberty, comparing it to our own. The boys fondly call these secretaries, “The uncle from America”. The famous violin teacher Ševčík, who has produced such eminent soloists as Kubelík, has a former pupil here in a Czechoslovak uniform, John Muzika, who they say, shoots as accurately as he plays his violin. Muzika furnished two exquisite numbers. Another feature that elicited prolonged applause was the singing by the Military Choir of sixty voices. They sang beside other numbers the old Husite battle-hym, “Ye Warriors of Our Lord”, and the part of the audience which did not understand the words, fully comprehended their spirit.