Bratislava

I have to admit, I almost dropped IR at the beginning of the semester. It wasn’t that I knew (yet) about how intensely cut-throat NYU’s IR program is; rather, I was acutely aware of the fact that I have zero background in international relations and that this class would be an honors seminar.

Why didn’t I chicken out? Once class started, I realized that the material is fascinating and our professor somehow manages to be both brilliant and hysterical at the same time. Maybe this is a generalization, but I find that academics of a certain caliber sometimes seem a bit intimidating. Especially here where I (and many of the other student’s I’ve talked to) feel frequently that our professors are overqualified to be teaching US. The pros and cons of such sentiments could and probably shall be analyzed for pages…but my point here is that my IR professor is certainly that caliber, but his jokes and easy conversation style break that illusion of perfection and allow us to know him (to an extent) as a person as well as an academic. This is important: one cannot be inspired by the achievements of a machine, but a remarkable human being is…well…remarkable. And inspiring.

So back to me being wide-eyed, totally clueless and excited to learn. Once the class started, the decision to stay in it came easily. Before that, however, (and I know this sounds shallow) I stayed because the syllabus listed a field trip to Bratislava to meet with think tank contributors. The promised trip was this weekend, and it didn’t disappoint.

We left Thursday…in a big green van that said “Official Pilsner Ambassadors.” Way to sell out, NYU. What if I like Staropramen better than the Pilsner monopoly brands? Hmmm???

I’m just kidding. It was still really funny to know that everyone watching us get into the van—not knowing that we’re NYU students in a government class—were seeing young Americans about to be chauffeured around and drinking excesses of the big commercial-brand Czech beer. If only they knew the truth…

We got to Bratislava, Slovakia with just enough time to drop our bags at the hotel before going out for dinner with our professor and his wife (who is originally from the city). They took us to Chez David for dinner. Don’t be fooled by the kitschy website; the hotel has one of the only remaining authentic Jewish restaurants in Bratislava’s old Jewish quarter, and the food is delicious. It was a funny dinner party of the three other students in the class, one journalism student who joined us, one wonderful RA, our professor and his wife, the bus driver, and myself. Made for interesting conversation.

After dinner we walked up to the Slovak government building and to Bratislava castle (hrad). In front of the castle was this statue that we had talked about in class: that of “King Svätopluk of the Slavs.” Historically, most details of the statue are incorrect, from its placement in the middle of the castle’s processional entrance to the presence of stirrups on the saddle to the handle of the sword to the highly controversial crest on the shield (it resembles a crest used by the Slovak regime that was Nazi-sympathetic). Pictures are here and here ( Hint: scroll down to September 23 after clicking the second link). Interestingly, a week later my professor came into class and announced that the statue had been removed and no one knows what will happen with it next. Which, from the rough translations I could find of Slovak articles on the topic, seems correct. I guess we had good timing.

Turning one’s back to the statue meant looking out over the city at night, and the view was stunning. From there we climbed down the hill and found a bar (where there was a musician singing “American Pie”?) for a Zlatý Bažant before turning in for the night. I love low-key nights, and it was somewhat refreshing to be going out with a different group of friends.

Our second day started with breakfast at the hotel (pension? It was cute and small…too much so to feel like a ‘hotel’). Then we headed into town for a very busy day. First we met Martin Bútora and his wife Zora Bútorová in a building run by Open Society (George Sorros’ project). We were fortunate enough to have the chance to hear lectures from both of them on the changes in the social and political situation in Slovakia since the end of Soviet occupation. Zora also had copies of her newest book, so I’ll be reading that on the road back to Prague.

We broke for a quick lunch before our second set of lectures. Embarrassingly, I forget the name of our first lecturer, but my notes from his speech reference both Freedom House and Slovak Foreign Policy Association (he works in their research center). The lecture dealt with trends in the political history of Slovakia and it was loaded with statistics and dates. Really informative, but I couldn't keep up well enough to take thorough notes. At this point, I might know more about the transitional governments in Slovakia than those in the Czech Republic...

Our second lecturer was Tom Nicholson, a Canadian writer who moved to Slovakia and now works with their top news publications. Which leads me to another embarrassing admission: I really enjoyed listening to a more American-style lecture from a speaker with no accent. I know that sounds terrible, but I wasn’t the only one who misses English speakers sometimes. And the lecture style is just different (though I enjoy and learn a lot from both). This isn’t to say that all lecturers speak the same in either place, but speakers from the American continent tend to rely heavily on anecdotes in their teaching…something my European professors don’t do as much unless they are referencing specific court cases and the like. Anyway, Nicholson was a really engaging speaker. He talked a lot about the corruption in the Slovak government over the past 20 years and he explained a bit about how things stand now. He also had some crazy stories about being an investigative journalist in a country where top politicians and secret police collaborate(d?) with thugs.

On a side note, I found this article that his wife contributed to, and I really enjoyed it. Some of the cultural differences she mentions are things I encountered here but at this point had started to take for granted.

Once all our lectures were finished, we headed outside to take a tour of the city. There is a somewhat amusing side-story attached to that transition. We had been street-side on the third or fourth floor of a building for our lectures. The windows faced the square where we were supposed to meet our tour guide, and the windows were open. One of the boys in the class had arranged with friends of his who were going to be in Bratislava that they would also meet us in the square. They could then tag along with us for the rest of our day. As we gathered ourselves after the lectures and prepared to leave, his friends arrived in the square and he spotted them out the window. He ran over to it and hollered down to them, attracting the attention and irritation of everyone else on the street…because you just don’t do that sort of thing here. About that ‘loud inconsiderate American’ stereotype that the rest of us have been trying to disprove…well…

The friends were nice kids though. They were en route to Vienna, and it was fun to have them along. Our tour guide led us all around the town center, pointing out sculptures and buildings along the way and always suggesting “And when you return to Bratislava in [insert month] you can…” One of the sculptures was a giant chess board. Another was of Pavol Hviezdoslav, the poet. The main center is actually pretty small, so the tour was great for helping me straighten out my sense of direction. And for making us hungry, because after the tour we crossed the UFO bridge (no, really.) and ended up at a Hungarian restaurant for dinner. The food was so good! Also, our professor and his wife picked out the wine to go with the meal (they had done this the night before as well). I don’t know much about wine because I’m too young to take any serious classes on wine-tasting in the US, but this was delicious. Which makes sense because we were right on the Hungarian boarder and the Hungarians are known for their wine—though this was a Slovak wine.

Again, we had a pretty quiet night after that. My room mate and I got up early-ish the next day so that we could walk down to the city center and take pictures. Then we met everyone for breakfast, checked out of the hotel, and all climbed into the Pilsner-Urquell van. On the drive, my professor told us about our destination: the Gabcikovo Dam.

Here’s my version on the history of the dam:

Hungary: It’s the end of the 70s and we’re still under Soviet rule.

Slovakia: That means we have to play nice with Hungary because they’re our fellow workers.

Hungary: We should build two dams on that bend of the Danube that we share so that we can generate electricity.

Slovakia: Sure. We own both sides of the river where the first dam will be, but you own the far bank where the second dam will be.

Hungary: You mean the near bank…

Slovakia: Whatever. Let’s do it.

Hungary: Yeah. Let’s do it.

…

Hungary: It’s 1989. We don’t have to share a government with Slovakia anymore.

Slovakia: But we still want to finish the dam. Because we started building it and our new government thinks it would be a good achievement for them.

Hungary: We don’t want the dam anymore. You can’t build that last third that’s on our land.

Slovakia: You promised!

Hungary: That was before…

Slovakia: Well if we divert 80% of the water just around the second dam, we can build both halves on Slovak land and finish the project without you.

Hungary: You can’t do that!

Slovakia: Watch us.

Hungary: UN! They’re stealing our river!

Slovakia: You broke your promise!

UN Court: You’re both acting like children. Slovakia, stealing rivers isn’t nice. Give 20% back. And Hungary, you shouldn’t have gone back on your word. What did you expect to happen.

Ta da. It’s strange because you look across the part of the river that Slovakia diverted and the level of the water is even with the level of the roofs of the houses in the nearby neighborhood. Imaging having a forest behind your house one month and part of a major river behind (and above) it the next. Kindof nuts.

We walked around the dam area a bit and then went into a gallery that’s open on a small artificial island. It’s called Danubiana Muelensteen Art Museum, and if you’re ever in the area it’s worth a visit. Inside, they had an exhibit of Jozef Jankovic’s work. A very poor Google translation of his Wikipedia page is the best bio I can find, but if you'd like it it's here. Here's my picture of his most famous sculpture. Outside, they had a sculpture park with contributions from several artists. As it was a beautifully sunny day, Vendula and I spent quite a bit of time out there posing with a large mosaic sculpture.

After finishing at the gallery, we said good-bye to our professor and his wife. As we drove back toward Prague, we got a little restless…so we stopped at Devin Castle to walk around and enjoy the views. Vendula told us about how the castle is situated in a place where the Danube was the edge of the Iron Curtain. Apparently, families who had been split up (ie some members were free in Austria and some were stuck in Slovakia) used to plan picnics. The Slovaks would go to the castle and the Austrians would go to the river-side, and all involved would bring their opera binoculars so they could wave to each other. I can’t imagine.

We tried to get food at the castle, but they didn’t have anything so we got back on the bus and stopped twice more: once at a gas station and once at an Ikea (where we did find dinner finally).

Home at last. All-in-all, a very worthwhile trip. I’m pretty amazed my professor puts something like this together for each class he teaches, but I’m very glad he does.