Central Europe and all that
Sir: I was amazed by the para- graph in the 'Spectator's Notebook' (10 October) in which the writer, after recounting highly unflatter- ing anecdotes concerning the Hungarians and Rumanians, re- peats a story 'justifiably celebrated' from the time of the Hungarian uprising and of obvious prove- nance: 'the Hungarians behaved like the Poles, the Poles behaved like the Czechs, and the Czechs, as usual, behaved like swine'. All this gratuitously, coming from the heart, as it were, of one with nothing better in this perturbed world to write about. He con- tinues: 'In 1968, of course, the Czechs went a long way towards removing that slur upon their national reputation' and con- cludes: 'Incidentally, were you to infer from the above that I possess a certain instinctive prejudice against Central Europe and all that (my italics), you would be quite right'.
As the widow of one who worked closely with Thomas G. Masaryk during the first world war towards the establishment of Czechoslovakia as a sovereign state, allow me, Sir, to utter a strong protest against these irres- ponsible words, doubly shocking when they appear in the SPECTATOR with its 140 year old tradition of nobility of thought. Though no comment on them is necessary, is this the moment in the world's history to insult a people who are fighting desperately for their national and individual survival, not one of whom is able to speak in his own defence? Would it not be better in these troubled times for the writer of this article, in- stead of repeating old calumnies, symptoms of a pessimism born of hate and fear, to look forward positively, with hope and deter- mination? Finally, may I remind him of the old motto which the Czechoslovak people adopted as their own, on the day of their first deliverance. 28 October 1918: Truth Prevails.
Margaret Nosek Littledene, Ellington Road, Tap- low. Bucks
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