Jozef Tancer. (source: Jozef Jakubčo)
Jozef Tancer, Germanist and Comenius University International Relations Vice-Rector, says that people can very quickly lose their maturity, sophistication, language education, as well as the desire to travel and accept foreigners. A few years ago, his research involved people who remember a trilingual Bratislava, who lived during the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938) and were used to a demanding curriculum. Today, his students are exposed to ideological rudeness and vulgarity on the part of the elites.
He thinks that as an institution, the university does not do enough to express its position when something dangerous is happening in society. However, since he considers politics a topic that should not be lacking in academia, he talks about it with students using literature, remarkable language phenomena, even Immanuel Kant's theories, which are more relevant to other historical moments than when they were first conceived. He sees that Bratislava is attractive especially for students from Iran, India, and Bangladesh, but he still perceives ways to be attractive to those who are our partners in the European Union.
In the interview you will read:
what standard of living teachers had along with their bonuses
how quickly a high standard of living and sophistication can disappear from society
what kind of world the studying of German literature opened up to him
how German writers and university teachers dealt with ideology
how ideology interferes with our language
what he thinks about the fact that students today are unable to organise themselves and express their opinions
why politics should be a fundamental university topic
origin of the students interested in studying in Bratislava
what we can offer scientists and students from around the world
Where did high quality secondary education during the First Czechoslovak Republic come from?
There is the opinion that the level was higher than it is today. I wouldn't dare to say so. I would rather say that education had a different profile back then, as did secondary school professors, who were expected to not only be good teachers, but also to be scientists and to publish papers. Schools had a different approach to education. Memorisation was much more prominent, students had to read much more and acquire encyclopaedic knowledge. Today, an educated person is no longer required to know the history of literature, music and fine arts. We read less and that includes classical works of world literature. On the other hand, more attention is paid to ensuring that children are creative and able to think critically. So the schools of today are not worse than they were in the past, they are simply different. Let's not also forget that secondary and higher education during the First Republic was relatively elitist. Children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds were under-represented.
I find it remarkable that secondary school students read Goethe in German.
That's true, it's remarkable. But you have to understand that the goal of learning a foreign language back then was not to speak it, but to read in it. A modern foreign language was learned in the same way as Latin or ancient Greek. Secondary school students could read in English, German, French, but they couldn't speak it. They only learned to speak it when they went abroad.
The people you talked to said that they took private French and English lessons. Was the goal to learn to read as well?
No. That was to learn how to use the language.
How and where could they use it back then?
Well-off middle-class families travelled a lot. In the winter, they didn't go skiing in the Low Tatras, they went skiing in Davos, in the French Alps. In better-off bourgeois families, it was common to give a so-called Maturareise to a child after passing Maturita, the school leaving exam. Their destinations were Italy and France, and they were ready language-wise. It was part of what it meant to be an educated person, just as we would say today about English. In addition, French was the language of diplomacy and cultural elites.
Can you imagine what kind of lifestyle you would have had if you had been the vice-rector back then?
Above standard. In the Comenius University archives we have the employment contracts of professors during the First Republic. The first professor of German studies, František Kalda, earned 51,600 Czechoslovak crowns in 1933. At that time, this was about four times more than the average salary of a qualified worker or clerk. I assume that vice-rectors earned even more than that. If we were to base our calculations on today's average monthly salary of about €1,400, then Professor Kalda would earn €5,600 a month by today's standards. As part of their salary, professors received various allowances for clothing, books, and travel. A university professor could therefore devote himself exclusively to scientific and teaching activities. They did not need a side income, as is the case today.
We mentioned private teachers of English and French. Why did they come to Czechoslovakia?
It was life. Teachers of Italian, French, and English often married here. They were often women, because during the First Republic middle-class women were mostly unemployed, and this was an opportunity for them to earn some money. They included, for example, the wife of sculptor Robert Kühmayer, who made the Duck Fountain on Šafárikovo námestie square, who was from France. Russian nobles also lived here who, thanks to their upbringing, knew languages. My favourite example is Elsa Grailich, a social democrat and suffragette, born in 1880. As a journalist, she was in contact with various feminists from Europe, and thanks to her knowledge of languages, she corresponded with them. She was Austrian, but lived in Bratislava until 1969. Officially, she had almost no pension, and she made a living by teaching English, French, and German.
The communists who came to power after World War II swept away not only the bourgeoisie, but also sophistication, replacing it with a culture of rudeness. How long does it take for respect for nobility, art, and multilingualism to disappear?
Just a few years. The culture of art and multilingualism disappeared from Bratislava between 1939 and 1948. Jews were deported and murdered, Germans expelled, Hungarians resettled, and townspeople were pushed out to the countryside.
And those who remained were afraid to use languages. Did they have to be?
Yes. The official state culture, the new written and unwritten rules were such that people adapted to the regime. There was only one language in communism. Almost no one consciously cultivated multilingualism. Many multilingual families told themselves that they didn't want their children to have problems. If they knew Slovak, it wasn't difficult for them. But if there was a grandmother left in the family who didn't know Slovak, she had to be set aside so that she wouldn't be noticeable. Something that is cultivated for generations can be destroyed very quickly. Fortunately, the memory of multilingualism remains in the family's memory for several generations, which was especially true for large cities like Bratislava or Košice. The Eastern Slovak families of those who went to America to earn money are a similar thing. Today, their great-grandchildren just get up and go too. They have it in their family's memory. If something like that is missing, people sit at home and wait for the state to take care of them. I find that even students who come from families with a linguistic past are much more motivated than their classmates who don't.
You are an expert in German literature. How did your relationship with it evolved?
