A State Which Can non Take Itself for Granted is an extract from From Czechoslovakia: The Party and the People. published in June of 1967. by Milan Kundera. Although it focuses upon Czechoslovakia ( the state which can non take itself for granted ) . it is more than a warning to the Czechoslovakian people of Czechoslovakia ; it is besides a prefiguration of the coming danger to all states. Although Kundera speaks straight to the Czech people. the significance of this work is its cosmopolitan pertinence. Kundera begins by rapidly depicting what makes a state.

He summarizes it as an amalgam of a people’s civilization. political system. and history. He notes that though states are a new phenomenon their being is normally taken for granted by that nation’s people. Here is where the focal point upon Czechoslovakia is so valuable Unlike many of its western neighbours. like France. England or Spain. or the provinces that lie to its E. Soviet union or Poland. Czechoslovakia is a more recent state. and so Kundera believes this is why Czechoslovakia in peculiar can non take itself for granted. Czechoslovakia slept through several critical stages in the development of the European spirit.

Although they experienced the Czech Revival in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. which began a light national consciousness. this consciousness has risen and fallen. At this consciousness’s tallness. at the beginning of the twentieth century. it was rapidly broken. Stunted by foreign business and followed about instantly by the oppressing anti-nationalism of Stalin and Soviet Union. Sing Czechoslovakia under Kundera’s lens we see what may be the inevitable consequence for all states. Czechoslovakia was at the clip. and still is a little state. weak in all of the characteristics by which Kundera judge’s states.

But we see many states following Czechoslovakia’s way. Kundera notes that because adult male has reached a point in his development where mass travel has bolstered internationalism “this makes a few universe languages all the more of import. and the whole of life becomes more and more international. and the influence of the linguistic communications of little states all the more limited…” As the English linguistic communication. and its geographical neighbor’s linguistic communications to a lesser extent. becomes more and more of import. so fades the involvement. and peculiarly the natural importance of all other linguistic communications.

Kundera degrees that without Czech civilization. which rests upon the Czech linguistic communication. the Czech people can non populate a “real life” ? That many linguistic communications are melting. and that a smattering are quickly lifting to take there topographic point needs no commendation. but to province that a adult male can merely populate a fulfilling life through their native civilization is more problematic. Kundera attempts to do his point by comparing the devastation of patriotism to hooliganism. He claims that without civilization and historical continuity it does non count whether hooliganism is carried out by legal or extra-legal agencies.

When representatives of the people or the relevant functionaries decide that a statue or a palace. a church. an old calcium hydroxide tree is unpointed and order it to be removed. that is merely another signifier of vandalism” Vandalism so being the devastation of any object which gives individuals value. regardless of whether a adolescent tears down a statue or its devastation is ordered by the province. This call. that devastation of any object that is of value to a nation’s history or sense of nationhood. needfully rests in the accent Kundera puts upon a states value in a individuals life. .

In 1967 the horrors of run-away patriotism where still clear in the heads of all ; Less than 30 old ages before they where over run by the most chauvinistic state of all time born. Nazi Germany. Here his absence of a counter to this point is oddly absent but his thesis non merely sticks but besides can be seen to keep greater cogency cognizing what has occurred since 1967. The knitting together of the whole universe through multi-national corporations and the rapid transit capacities that have evolved with them has easy dissolved the civilizations of many people.

However. it is hard to mensurate whether the value of an independent civilization. the connexion to hereditary lands. the passing of narratives from one coevals to the following and communal beliefs are indispensable facets of an individual’s sense of ego. It is a stretch to travel every bit far as Kundera to state that without a state an person can non populate a truly “real life” . But Kundera’s great anticipation. the anticipation that lends A State Which Can non Take Itself for Granted it’s greatest significance. is that civilization is founded on linguistic communication. and as a linguistic communication fades so does its attendant civilization.