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Who Exactly Were The Bohemians?
Who Exactly Were The Bohemians?
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Bohemian is defined as: “a native or inhabitant of Bohemia”, but it also highlights two other meanings of the word that are more commonly used today. The first is meaning vagabond, wanderer or gypsy, with the second meaning referring to the practice of living an unconventional life. Writers and artists are often referred to as bohemians because of their will to do whatever they like and live how they want, as well as having their own character quirks that are put down to the fact that they are artistic. They routinely discard the conventions of society. Where does the term come from though, and who exactly were the Bohemians?
The Bohemians literally came from Bohemia, a location that would fall within the Czech Republic today. It was actually a kingdom that contained the Bohemian Forest, and had been named by the Romans as their empire spread to include Bohemia itself In fact, the kingdom of Bohemia had existed for hundreds of years, although its existence was not documented until the Roman conquest. The Golden Age in Bohemia took place in the 13th and 14th Century, but the history of Bohemia, and consequently the Bohemians, is rich and long.
The Bohemians were self-sufficient and hard working people. The kingdom was relatively prosperous, with the gulf between rich and poor being significantly less than can now be found in the poorest countries in the world. That is not to say that peasants were not present at that point. However, it was the class system that was used to keep the lords in power. So if this was what the Bohemians were really like then where does the reputation that they now have in society come from?
During the 19th Century, the Romany Gypsy people travelled from city to city in Europe doing exactly how they pleased, discarding the general conventions of society to live their own lives. The term “bohemian” was applied to them, largely because the French fully believed that they had come through Bohemia in the not too distant past. However, the term stuck and those other carefree and artistic individuals that lived within their own communities in big cities. It was self-expression and artistic values that mattered to them, despite the fact that they often lived in squalor without two pennies to rub together.
Their attitudes and living conditions may have been what earned them the nickname of Bohemians, but for some reason the artists seemed to like it. It gave them an identity and a purpose. They formed their own culture, communities and spawned what is now called bohemianism. There were communities literally all over Europe, and many of those communities still exist. The influence of the bohemian way of life is still prevalent and will no doubt continue as long as art, poetry and music does!
Today, I terms of the wider community, the Bohemians have inspired everything from individual songs to the names of sports teams to a whole fashion trend. Boho chic can be seen gracing the streets as we speak and, in fact, has done for quite some time now.
In terms of the original people, there are still true Bohemians in the Czech republic with the term being used to distinguish those from the old are and those not. There are even Bohemians living in the United States as a direct result of groups of them immigrating in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. They keep the old traditions alive, whilst the rest of the world looks to the other Bohemians for their fashion inspiration!