Our Humble Narrator Searches for The American Civil War in The Hills of the Czech Republic

I missed the battle, but not the kielbasa. 

I was late because it turns out there are half a dozen “Lipinas”' in the Cezch Republic, including one 60 kilometers down and off the same highway I knew I was supposed to travel. Among other things, my misdirection shows the dangers of Google Maps. My host had given me specific directions by email, but instead of following them, I typed  “Lipina” ' into Google and did what it told me. The plethora of Lipinas sabotaged me. 

What I had come to see were Czech reenactors of the American Civil War. Turns out it’s a thing here, as well as in Germany, Scotland, and indeed all over Europe. I knew about this particular event because a friend of mine (Jonathan in Brooklyn, drummer for the last band I was in), hooked me up with his father-in-law Jiří, or George as he calls himself in English. George is Czech and father of Jonathan’s wife. George has been into the Civil War reenactment for decades, and has annually hosted a reenactment on and adjacent to his property for two decades. As it so happens, the annual event was just about to occur when I arrived in Prague. I figured I had to come.

As I drove along the clean highway heavy with traffic, probably built with EU money, I asked myself why I was doing this, and I came up with some sensible reasons. I wanted to get out of Prague, lovely as it is, and see the countryside and smaller towns. I wanted to make connections with Czechs. And I wanted to see and try to understand why Czechs would dress up as American Civil War soldiers. It was hard enough to understand in the United States.

But if I were honest with myself, I also had to admit there were deeper questions the visit would raise, even if they weren’t the reason for the visit per se. The American Civil War and its adjacent issue of slavery had tugged at me a long time. Although my family never made a big deal of it, all my ancestors are Southerners, and because of a paper I was required to do in college, I discovered that all four great-grandfathers had fought as young men in the War Between the States. Some of their families owned slaves, in varying numbers. So there were personal reasons to better understand the Civil War, as well as historical ones.

My current theory is that every generation and era examines this huge conflict, and finds its own truths, as well as its own lies. Certainly the old Southern story, which minimized slavery, was false and self-deception. But the current story, which generally paints the war as a moral crusade by the North, isn’t quite right either. Just why was the North willing to invade and conquer its sister states? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to end slavery. “Preserving the Union” is a euphemism for something, and just what that something is is a question for another day.  

On this day, when I arrived at about 2:30 p.m., after parking my massive Mercedes van, the only vehicle I could rent at the last minute, men in battle dress and women in historic-style dresses milled around. There were a fair number of kids. Some teenagers offered to let me fire an authentic breech-loading gun. I did, which hurt my ears. Off to one side, a man on horseback went round and round in a tight circle, with a sabre in his hand. He was practicing some sort of maneuver. Shortly after, a friend playing the part of the enemy stood in the field and the man went at him on horseback, pretending to cut him down with the sabre. The man fell realistically. The pair did that several times. Many but not all of the men had a kind of rangy, unkempt look, which seemed to fit. 

At first the whole thing seemed primarily amusing, but the white canvas A-shaped tents got to me. They were lined up in rows and looked very authentic. For a moment, I felt like I was experiencing what it might have been like in 1863 on a troop site, with a battle ahead. It was moving. 

As for the battle itself, some iPhone videos I watched later suggested I didn’t miss too much. The videos show small clumps of men, firing blanks at each other and falling play-dead. That seemed to be about it. My impression was that the primary purpose of the gathering was hanging out. And food and drink were available.

I was pretty hungry because I had gotten there late and hadn’t eaten lunch. Ladies behind a grill and some beer pumps offered food and drink for purchase, and picnic tables for dining. Their complete menu was beer and kielbasa. I stood in line behind a man who appeared to be in his mid-30s and his roughly 10-year-old son, who were dressed in matching dark blue uniforms with gold braids, including hats. They were Yankees. I got busy playing journalist and asked them what led them to be out here. 

The man said he had always enjoyed watching American “Indian” and “Civil War” movies and television growing up. He grouped those two events and eras together. A friend invited him to a similar reenactment event 15 years ago, and he had been at it ever since. He said he found it satisfying. He became a Yankee in part because there was a perennial need for them: most reenactors want to be Confederates, or “Rebels.” But he was okay being a Yankee, which, despite what some of the Rebel reenactors said, were not the bad guys. As I was to learn, this question of just what the Civil War was about and who was in the right was not just bedeviling me. 

The Yankee and his son and I sat down together at a picnic table and ate our grilled sausages and beer. Good sausage. The Czech kielbasa is different from the Polish variety and to my mind, far better. It comes in several varieties. I was given an obscene length but contrary to my expectations, I had no trouble eating the whole thing. It was served German-style, with mustard on the side and a slice of rye bread. No utensils. And perhaps I shouldn’t be comparing Czech kielbasa with Polish, because it turns out that “Klobasa”, the word I see all over the place, may simply be the Czech word for sausage.

I wandered around more. I talked to some Rebels cooking pork chunks in handfuls of garlic in a black iron pot hanging from a three-legged pyramid and set over an open wood fire. Very authentic looking, except what they were cooking, which they told me was the beginnings of Czech goulash. 

I’m guessing the Confederates outnumbered the Yankees two or three to one. There were Confederate flags everywhere I glanced. I never noticed any American ones. More people wanted to represent the South, I was told. Why was that?

Certainly part of is that, whatever the South’s cause, it was the smaller force fighting to secede and separate from the much larger state. In Star Wars terms, the South was the Republic fighting to leave the Empire.  Imagine Luke Skywalker and beside him a loyal slave, rather than C-3PO (although that’s essentially how C-3PO acts). It’s this romanticism of the rebels that explains why you see Confederate flags flying in the strangest places, like Italy. Still, when I asked for motivations, it was startling how many of the reenactors raised, usually in a casual way, this idea that the South was more right in its cause than not, and was being treated unfairly by history. 

I had not realized this was not just an afternoon affair. Many of them had come not just for the day, but for four or five nights. And they had brought their families. George was telling me that because a bank holiday fell on the coming Tuesday, many people could arrange their schedules to come for a longer period. I couldn’t see sleeping in a canvas tent for four or five nights, but I guess I could see how it could be fun, if you relaxed to it. 

I spent some time looking for George, without any luck. Eventually I wandered into the property across the road, and it turned out to be his. He came up to me with a grin, recognizing me, I guess, as a tall American. He said he had been looking for me earlier, but had given up. He wasn’t dressed up in CivilWar-era clothes. Maybe after so many reenactments, he is like some Dead Heads I’veseen at Grateful Dead concerts, who sometimes leave the concerts and just hang around  outside. They’ve heard the songs so many times, they don’t need to hear them again. (I noticed this at the relatively paltry number of Grateful Dead concerts I attended, about four or five.) 

George had planned lunch for me, and so, even though I had just eaten, I soon was in front of a plate of potatoes and a fried pork steak with cheese stuffing. I polished it off. George spoke English well, as did most of his guests, and I soon learned that George, an attorney by trade, was a smart, educated man who offered  plenty of interesting commentary on everything. We did not discuss the Civil War. After lunch, George took me on a walk up into the hills behind his house, which I believe almost might have been his property, and we looked out over the landscape. We could see forever, and the landscape looked remarkably like the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia, where much of the Civil War was fought. Very pretty. 

One interesting thing George had on his property was an entire pub, which he had built himself. I thought at first it was a real restaurant that he somehow shared a lawn with. But no, it was his personal place. You walk in, and there are tables and a bar, with beer on tap, just like in a real Czech restaurant. George had given it a Titanic theme, so framed posters of everything from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in James Cameron’s hit 1997 movie, to more vintage materials, dotted the walls. George said the Civil War reenactors would congregate here later in the evening, and I wanted to see that. I decided to stay the night. 

I took my little bag up to the room he had given me, and rested a bit. In about an hour, George called me down to dinner, which I didn’t realize his wife was preparing. Kielbasa again! I sat down to another enormous length of sausage, served, I think, with potatoes. I ate it all up. It went down well with mustard and glasses of the red wine I had brought, which they had opened. 

Some hours later after dinner, I found myself in the pub, watching relatively light-hearted revelry. I took up a perch next to a brooding man dressed as a Rebel, with a scraggly beard that hit his character. I asked him my usual question, why are you doing this? 

He had an even more interesting answer than most. He was Canadian, but had lived in the Czech Republic for more than 20 years. I didn’t catch his marital status. He said that although he was “politically liberal” in current politics, he was involved because he was convinced of the righteousness of the Confederate cause, which he believed was not principally about slavery. He went through a list of other factors, most of which I were familiar with. Then he said, “I’m not in this for fun; I’m in this for ideology.” 

Okay, I said, but even if one concedes that, why are you, as a Canadian/Czech, into this? 

“Because justice knows no borders,” he said with some passion. Wow. That’s a quote that hangs there. 

I decided to take a walk, and I went back to the campsite area. It was probably about 10 p.m. I found some guys and a gal playing guitar and singing songs outside a tent. I took the guitar and sang a few myself. I realized I knew essentially no Civil-War-era or appropriate songs.

I could have stayed up longer, but as the clock approached midnight, I went up to my room and went to bed. I left pretty early in the morning, after giving my goodbyes. 

What can I conclude about this affair? I can see the reenactment mostly as just a good time. It’s fun playing dress up. People do it at Comic Cons, and while that’s clearly silly, I don’t think anyone thinks less of them. 

But that there are Civil War reenactors in the Czech Republic also shows the enormous power of American history, even for those who aren’t a part of it. The big events of our history — the American Revolution, the U.S. Civil War, and even events like the roaring 20s and Prohibition, reverberate through the rest of the world. Perhaps these people in the hills of Czechia, in their own small way, are working out the many psychic scars and wounds that remain from that conflict, just as we are at home. I hope George invites me back next year, if I’m still here, and I’ll plan to come. Hell, maybe I’ll even dress up. But which side should I choose?

A Final Word: I welcome your comments.