Český komplex
Otto Mann
SLOVAK WORD OF THE WEEK
11 May 2009 BY LUKÁŠ FILA Opinion
CHRISTMAS, New Year, Easter, and the Hockey World Championships are
the key events of the Slovak calendar.
In late April and early May the Slovak psyche chooses to ignore the
fact that you can't really have a 'world' championship in ice hockey
since much of the globe has never seen ice, let alone a hockey stick,
that the best players never come to compete because the NHL playoffs
are still far from over, and that Slovakia is probably not going to
win anyway.
Men and women, both ethnic Slovaks and ethnic Hungarians, young and
old all hope the country will, at least in one sense, rule the world.
But the championships also usually remind Slovaks of their "český
komplex" - the deeply rooted belief that Czechs are better at almost
everything.
After the 0:8 beating the Slovak team suffered last weekend, one must
admit that such a conviction is not completely delusional - at least
as far as hockey goes.
Although Slovakia has defeated the Czechs before, and even won the
entire tournament in 2002, the inferiority complex very often becomes
a self-fulfilling prophecy - Slovaks know they are going to lose and
so they do.
However, the Czech complex is in no way limited to hockey:
Oscar-winning films, Pilsner and Budweiser (the real one), Kafka,
Čapek and Dvořák, or Škoda cars are a matter of justified envy.
Lately, it seemed as though the tide could be turning - in the autumn
Slovaks defeated the Czech football team in the world-cup qualifiers
in Prague, the country joined the eurozone, and the Czechs suffered a
huge humiliation when their government collapsed in the middle of its
European presidency.
But the hockey massacre made clear once again that the Czech complex
will live on.
Luckily, this relationship is free of any real hostility, the kind
which can be found when it comes to the other neighbour that ruled for
so long in Slovakia's territory, has a richer history and is better
known outside the region - Hungary. Being defeated by Jágr's team
hurts, but it is what we expected.
Had the Slovak national hockey team lost its shockingly close match
with Hungary, which made it into the A-category championships for the
first time just this year and is now leaving it again, public outrage
and disillusion would have been much greater.
The relationship between Czechs and Slovaks is often accurately
described as that of an older and younger brother.
And as anyone with a sibling knows, few other relationships are as
beautiful - and as complex.
Article URL: http://www.spectator.sk/articles/view/35235/11/cesky_komplex.html