Einstein and his relationship with the Czechs: He loved Prague, the Czechs found him strange, he hated them
“My Praguers understand me,” the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once reveled. One hundred and twenty years later, the famous physicist Albert Einstein took completely different impressions from Prague. He liked the city, but the locals didn’t like it.
In 1911, Albert Einstein joined the German section of Charles-Ferdinand University as a professor of theoretical physics. He lectured here for five hours a week and devoted the next two hours to practice lessons for twenty students, including two girls. Women with ambitions in the field of science were an unusual phenomenon at the time. But Prague was in many ways one step ahead.
Modern living and a nice cafe
In Smíchov’s apartment in today’s Lesnická Street, where Einstein stayed, for example, electricity was already working and an elevator was installed. The scientist appreciated this very much and did not forget to highlight it in a letter to friends. At the same time, he admired the architecture of the city and continued to enjoy the bridges over the Vltava. In his free time, he liked to visit Café Louvre or the U Bílého jednorožce house on the Old Town Square, where he allegedly met Franz Kafka and Max Brod.
But the Praguers seemed foreign to him; as he confided in letters to acquaintances, “humiliated loyalty was mixed with conceit” in the local people. At the same time, he complained about the German community in Prague, in whose ranks dangerous nationalism was already rampant.
The wife decided to return to Switzerland
On the contrary, Einstein would have settled in Prague if his wife had not insisted on returning to Zurich. They left the city on the Vltava after only 16 months and the famous physicist was a little sorry.
In Prague, he finally found peace on research and undisturbed his general theory of relativity. The annual salary of 8,872 crowns at that time did not mean a successful gauge, but it comfortably supported the family and brings scientists a comfortable financial background, which it still lacked.
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Women, on the other hand, tend to be more social beings, especially compared to introverted thinkers of the opposite sex. Einstein’s wife Mileva Marić was not used to the Prague environment and did not feel in her skin among the locals. In July 1912, the Einsteins said goodbye to Prague.
The physicist himself came here to visit in 1921. At that time he was already divorced and Prague was the capital of the newly formed Czechoslovakia. In the same year, Einstein also won the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, and he could no longer complain about the lack of financial support. On the contrary, he traveled and lectured around the world. With the advent of Nazism, he left Europe permanently.
Resources: ct24.ceskatelevize.cz, zpravy.aktualne.cz