The intelligent woman’s guide to her own destiny

Many books have been written on the optimal organization of politics, society, and the state. In ancient times, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle dealt with this subject. John Milton, John Amos Comenius, and Thomas Moore wrote fantastic works such as Paradise Lost, The Labyrinth of the World, Paradise of the Mind, and Utopia. In his work “The Ruler,” Niccolò Machiavelli attempts to examine the mechanisms of political organization and power. We should also not forget the propaganda works of Marx and Hitler, such as “Capitalism” and “The Theory of the Main War.
One can also find many meditations that answer questions about politics and contemporary history and bring connections to the present.

If you want to understand contemporary Czech history, especially in the 20th century, in the context of the 300-year-old Habsburg monarchy, you can certainly do so by reading the interestingly titled book by former Culture Minister Pavel Tigrid, The Intelligent Woman\’s Guide to Destiny. It is a somewhat prosaic story, but it accurately reflects all the important contexts and aspects of contemporary Czech history.

Lucy, a young woman living in 1980s Czechoslovakia and considering emigrating to the West, is vacationing in then Yugoslavia when she meets an elderly intellectual who emigrated to the West long ago. The two discuss the Czech Republic. What happened before totalitarianism, what mistakes the creators of the First Republic made, and what bizarre phenomena occurred in the 1950s?

The book is probably in every library today, but its publication in Toronto, Canada, made it difficult to reach Czech readers. The book is worth reading because it holds up a very stark but realistic mirror to Czech history and thus offers certain lessons to all who are not indifferent to the fate of their own country.