Gottland: Mostly True Stories From Half of Czechoslovakia Read Online Free PDF Page A

only the kind who paint human beings, the kind who want something.”
    (Despite Bata’s narrow views about art, the next four Salons that he organized did enliven the artistic environment; the shows were viewed by 300,000 people.)
    “Aha,” says Jan, remembering that he is talking to writers, not painters, “you too should avoid pessimism. And get on with drawing up a credo for the working people.”
1937: THE ELEVATOR
    Jan is probably feeling handsome and desirable: the construction of two academic institutes is nearly over, and work on what will be the tallest skyscraper in the republic is just starting. It is to have sixteen floors and will be 254 feet high. It will be Bata’s office block.
    Another eleven years will go by before the British writerGeorge Orwell publishes the principles of life under the watchful eye of Big Brother, but Jan is ahead of world literature. He comes up with the idea of creating something that has never existed before: his own mobile office space which follows his employees about the building. He situates it in a glazed elevator which moves up and down the tower block. This cabin is 16 × 16 feet, and has a sink with hot running water, a radio and air conditioning.
    He doesn’t have to leave the elevator, nor does he have to take the stairs. For instance, his office stops on the thirteenth floor, the wall of the building moves aside and from his mobile throne room, Jan Antonín Bata can see the people at work.
    He says it’s for their good too: they don’t have to give up a lot of time to come see the Chief.
    If the need should arise, his office can appear on another floor in moments.
CIRCA 1937, CONTINUED: THE BEST
    Jan Bata founds a “School for the Best,” drawn from the School for Young Men. At mealtimes, the students can only speak in foreign languages, and the tables are set as they are in five-star hotels (Jan has just come back from a two-month journey around the world). They study in tuxedos, and remove their top hats only when they cross the school’s threshold.
    On the other hand, after classes they dress in ordinary laborer’s clothes and go to work.
    Despite Jan’s successes, old Mrs. Batová (meaning the late Tomáš’s wife, who is not old, but people call her that todistinguish her from Jan’s wife, who is also called Marie Batová) never stops referring to him as “that cretin.”
    Jan, who only completed elementary school, receives an honorary doctorate from the Higher Technical School in Brno and insists on being called “Professor.”
MARCH 12, 1938: PATAGONIA
    He talks too much. Caution is the mother of wisdom—so said the Good Soldier Švejk ‡ —but like Švejk himself, Jan Bata never abides by this saying.
    The day after Austria is incorporated into the Third Reich, sensing the fate that is to befall Czechoslovakia in the near future, he wakes up with an idea. In a short while from now, the imminent power struggle will begin. Even Warsaw regards Czechoslovakia as an artificial creation, doomed to destruction.
    In his own newspaper,
Zlín
, Jan Antonín Bata publicizes his idea—to move Czechoslovakia to South America.
    “Brazil is as large as the whole of Europe and has forty-four million citizens, while Europe has four hundred and eighty million. Why seek land for development in cramped Europe? Why not there instead? Better to move out. The last war cost the world eight trillion Czech crowns. Transferring ten million people to South America would only cost fourteen billion crowns. And for one hundred and forty billion they could build themselves beautiful farms. Why do somethingso stupid and harmful to people as to have a war? Patagonia in southern Argentina would also be highly suitable for us.”
    Bata is counting on the Germans liking this idea. They’d be relieved if the Czechs were to move out. (During his trial after the war, in communist Czechoslovakia, this will be the pretext for accusing him of betraying the nation.)
    “But a nation and