Notebook of an [Un]Successful Musician

The rather strange title – ‘Notebook of an [un]successful Musician’ needs an explanation. The story of my life is not of major importance and serves only as a guide, how and under which circumstances my humble work – in music and books – originated. Another point of interest may be the changes that have occurred during since the time I decided to be a musician at my thirteen years of age in the middle of the forties of the last century. The ideologies, economy and events of history, availability of information, or lack of it, were in a striking contrast to our present time and all obviously affected me ‘’Tempora mutantur et nos mutantur in illis’ [the times change and we do in these]. I will deal with them in separate chapters.

The level and type of general intelligence, calibre of musical endowments and personal character determine the eventual success and I will deal with those at an appropriate time and in relations to achievements and setbacks in my music making. The latter may be potentially instructive for young people who are so attracted to the beauty of ‘classical’ music that they may consider trying it as a path of an eventuality for their future life.

Coming back to the title, there is the question, how to measure ‘success’. One obvious criterion is the fame and financial reward. Another is reviews and testimonies. Last, but not least, is artists’ ‘commercial’ aptitude to dominate the market in their respective area, whether by their own efforts or efforts by their agents.

In professional sports the undisputedable criterion is measurement by centimetres, seconds and speed, when applicable. In contest sport events [e.g. tennis] the criterion is ‘who is the winner’ and there is a certain degree of subjectivity, if trying to compare the winners throughout the history. In the area of music performance, apart from reviews and testimonies, the recordings are a kind of ‘source’, but they must be taken with a ‘grain of salt’.

One reason is the development of recording technology that makes older ones obsolete. Another reason is the fact that the performances of the ’legends’ of the past not only suffered by these obsolete recording techniques, but also by the fact, that often their recordings were made at the sunset of their professional career. In our age of information explosion, in spite of the above reservations, Youtube music became the most comprehensive ‘gallery’ of the performances of the past and present, democratically confronting the legacy of the famous, less famous and even the losers.

If considering the [un]successful contribution to music in my case, there are reviews of my recitals, LPs, CDs available at my www page. Another is my humble legacy on Youtube in over two hundred fifty recordings, mostly in the ‘Featured videos’ category and over twenty long programmes comprising some major works, such as 20 twentieth century flute works [four programmes], 18 eighteenth century flute works, unaccompanied flute [four programmes], flute and piano, flute and fortepiano, flute and harpsichord, sSonatas by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Haendel , Haydn, Martinu, Feld etc – sticking like leeches [at the time of writing] – to the first columns among thousands, even hundred of thousands, of entries of the genre.

On the other hand, the fact that my work – as an aArtistic dDirector of the 2007 and 2008 ‘International Bona Fidae International Flute Festival Hlucin’, Czech Republic – and as a performer in some eleven recitals, costed me in unpaid fees and travel expenses for the above some quarter of a million of the Czech cCrowns. This is one example of the more ‘unsuccessful’ side of my endeavours, compared with the alleged 10,000ten thousand dollars concert fee of my famous colleague Sir James Galway [according to the Norman Lebrecht’s book: Who killed the Classical Music].

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The family and the beginnings

The DNA of our ancestors affects our own and for this reason I will briefly mention mine, as far as I know or remember. My family’s unproved legend says that the Bruderhans[es] migrated from Bavaria to the Czech Kingdom sometime in the seventeenth century.

In the later years of his career, my grandfather was the head of a high school, or a gGymnasium [how the eight year selective European high schools were named]. His main area of teaching was languages, especially French. During summers he regularly took part in conventions organized in various European cities for his peers. He was proud that after giving a lecture in Bruxelles he was deemed to be French born. He was also proud to receive medals, presented to him by the Serbian Queen at a reception. He was the youngest of ten children and the only one in the family given the chance to receive a uUniversity education. As a country boy, he deeply hated favouritism and anyone asking for favours would often receive the opposite. He was not good at accepting subordination, especially when young. He did not hesitate to fight against the unjust prerogatives of his old colleagues.

Life was not always easy for my father, who studied at the same gGymnasium where my grandfather taught. Often, after some minor conflict with a colleague he would ask my father,: How are you doing in that and that subject?, because, as a result of the skirmish, my father might expect a tough ‘viva voce’ exam from the teacher in question. Fortunately there were no misunderstandings with the professor of mathematics, because that subject was my father’s only ‘Achilles heel’.

Both sons – my father Zdenek and my uncle Karel – studied at the Prague Charles University [the third oldest in Europe] – my father mMedicine and my uncle Llaw [he was a jJudge]. The brothers were very different – the somewhat macho Zdenek as a university student practiced boxing and fencing, not collective ball games and generally had no problems dealing with people of all walks of life. Karel was very shy, with difficulties in making the acquaintance of new people. He was very mindful about his appearance. As a side activity to his position as a jJudge, he led courses in ‘Tanec a spolecenske chovani’ [Social dance and etiquette].

There was little contact between the brothers and their sister who lived with her family outside Prague. The relationship between my father and his sister’s future brother- in- law became frosty, after the prospective ‘uncle’ asked my father unsuccessfully to perform an abortion on his sister. After WW TwoII, the husband S. became very much involved in the Communist Pparty, not from persuasion, but possibly by having ‘butter on top of his head’ – a Czech expression when you do something that may be used against you.

This may have been the case of S., as there were some questions about his past during WW TwoII. Anyway, there was an attempt to assassinate him and as a result some culprits were executed. That was a definitive ‘Berlin wall’ between the brothers and their sister. Only once two of my cousins came late in an evening to stay overnight. They left early in the morning, so I do not remember what they looked like. Later my poor aunty ended her life by jumping from the window of the third floor of her flat. My uncle Karel and his wife Zdenka decided not to have children and he allegedly said,: I do not want to create other beggars.. It was not the case that a district jJudge would be a beggar, but compared with the heroes of Galsworthy novels [his favourite author] to a degree he was.

My mother Bozena was orphaned at twelve years of age and grew up in the family of her uncle Dr. Josef Pesek, a history professor at a gGymnasium. With two of her cousins she was close and our families remained in close contact. The husband of one of her cousins [also named Bozena] Rudolf Riedl was director of the main Prague gas-works and later pProfessor and rRector of the tTechnical uUniversity. The husband of the other cousin, Vlasta, was Jindrich Sedlacek, head ophthalmologist in a big ‘Vinohrady’ hospital. During the WW TwoII [shortages, clothing rationed] there was the practice of inheriting clothing, especially overcoats, among children. As the eldest and tallest, I was always the first in line. So the cousins from Pesek side were substitutes for cousins from the Bruderhans side. Dr Pesek had a very big orchard and was very knowledgeable in pomology. The Sunday lunches in Kostomlatky with the people of the Pesek clan belong to my happiest memories.

My father was a GP and like his father, enduring subordination was not his strong side. This is a DNA characteristic of the Bruderhanses – not interested in commanding people, but also not taking orders from others. This resulted in my father, my sister and my son all choosing to be self-employed. In my case, later as a professional musician, it was inevitable that playing in an orchestra or teaching implied dealing with someone in the position of authority. My greatest ambition was to be as good as possible, even better than my superior, to make it difficult for him to ask me to do something that I disagreed with.

Our family occupied a big flat, in which two rooms were designed for my father’s surgery. My mother, my sister and I spent the summer months in the country, later during WW TwoII in the mill of our relatives, whilst our father visited us for the weekends. These stays gave us children the opportunity to learn about the life and work of people in the country – starting with the first haymaking up to the autumn potato gathering. In between, we could see the delivery of calves and piglets, among others.

During the World War Two I entered the primary school in 1940. At six years of age the first stress appeared – not by being exposed to the company of boys [to which I was used before], but being forced, as a left handerd, to learn not only using my right hand, but also to fulfil the strict demands of some calligraphic appearance of our handwriting – indeed unimaginable today.

The artistic endowments my sister and I inherited from my father – an enthusiastic amateur painter, whose portraits were of professional standard, not only in capturing the appearance, but also the ‘psychology’ of people. My father’s musical endeavours were limited to his singing a few arias from ‘Onegin’ and Dvorak’s ‘Rusalka’, as well as some czardas played on his violin during the late parties in our flat. I am not sure, if he was able to read the music, or whether he captured it by ear. Later, in his forties he started to learn violin from the Malat Violin School between 10 ten to 12 twelve p.m., after finishing the accounting for his day work as a GP. My father’s productions were the first musical impressions I remember.

I do not know whether there were some talents [some modest painting efforts of mine already at five years of age were documented], or whether sending children ‘to piano’ was part of the extra curriculum activity deemed to be appropriate for the middle class children. I have a vivid memory of an upright piano being brought to our flat and my parents asking the fateful question,: Wwould you like to learn piano? to which I dutifully replied:, I would.. I do not remember my first piano teacher, if I may call him so. He was an acquaintance of my parents and by profession a singer in a choir, not exactly qualified to teach piano playing properly – and since his ‘lessons’ were of circa ten minutes duration, he was soon discharged from his duty. Our next teacher was a peripatetic lady who gave lessons to my sister Bozena and me.

I cannot remember the piano lady playing much for us, but she provided us with the syllabus of selected pieces and studies, correcting mistakes and suggesting better fingerings than mine – she called me a ‘juggler’. From my eighth year, when I started, up to about ten years my mother insisted that I fulfilled the daily duty of 50 fifty minutes practice, even during the summer. As a young boy before age ten I accompanied my father in playing some easy pieces from the album ‘Der Himmel voller Geigen’ [the sSky full of violins].

Primary school during WW TwoII was of only four years duration, compared with previous times when it was one year longer. After primary school the first choice available was to continue the normal education, or to take the exam to be accepted into a gGymnasium. In those four years we were expected to learn reading, writing, spelling and simple mathematics. Those who had serious problems were sent to special schools. I have two very unpleasant recollections from the three full days of the entrance exams into the gymnasium. The first one happened to my good friend Otik. During the physical part of an exam we were sitting in a circle on the floor of the gym. When asked to move back, the rubber sole of Otik’s shoe squeaked and a nasty interrogation followed. d: Who was that? Poor Otik was given a tick for misbehaviour. Another unpleasant experience occurred during my oral German exam. One tall, haggard, nasty looking old man with a ‘Hakenkreuz’ on his lapel was probably irritated by the combination of a typically German surname with a typically Czech first name. Instead of giving some easy questions [e.g. name a few vegetables] he started a German conversation with me, requiring fluency after just two years of German compulsory learning in year three and four of a primary school. I passed the entrance exam as a supernumerary for that gymnasium, but was fortunately accepted in another one. At the ‘cClassical’ gGymnasium Latin was the third language in addition to Czech and compulsory German, the latter exchanged after WW TwoII by compulsory Russian.

At thirteen I decided to be a musician, after deliberating whether to choose between the visual arts and music. Being in the top three in our class in drawing was not a great deal, when I saw the portraits, perfectly capturing not only the visual, but also the spiritual side of my father and our neighbour dentist, made by my eleven year old sister Bozena. I felt there was not a chance for me.

After this decision my greatest concern was, whether I was talented enough for a musical profession, as I had no comparison with other kids of my age. None Neither of my parents had an idea what music studies and the profession entailed. We as children had freedom, but also an instilled responsibility by our parents:. Do what you like, but remember, what you are doing, you are doing for yourself.. As regards to my career choice, my mother’s wish was:, Do what you like, but you must have mMaturita [mMatriculation] – then, you may even be a chimney sweeper.. Her concern with my music orientation was,: I would not like you finishing playing in bars like our neighbour.. My father’s advice was,: Ddo whatever you like, but don’t be a dDoctor.".

It may seem strange today, but I do understand what he meant. As a self-employed GP he had sole financial responsibility for the family, and the costly life insurance, which was also meant to be a source of income in retirement, totally disappeared after WW TwoII and later by the CCommunist regime during the financial collapse in the early fifties. His work was rather tough – he started at 8 eight a.m. and after a one hour break for lunch and a short nap, he continued from 2 two p.m. After the afternoon session with his patients in his surgery, he continued to visit his patients. People in Prague were living in high, usually five level houses in rented flats, so, due to the compact population, the distances were short walks for my father. However, flats in the higher levels in these houses [without lifts] gave my father an opportunity for exercise. Worse for him, when he finally had his dinner after 8 eight p.m., patients were whining,: Doctor, I have been sick since the morning – could you be so kind and see me now? My father was often made furious by the disrespect of people who did not bother to ring during the day, enabling him to fit such visits during the afternoon. Remember that in these days the GP had the sole responsibility for his patients and if he neglected to visit and something drastic happened, he would be in trouble.

After the 1948 Ccommunist putsch, the medical profession was a kind of target as being ‘bourgeois’. The GPs were required to be employed by the government, either in a medical centre or as dDoctors in some big factories. Such a factory was Motorlet, building engines for aeroplanes. There my father worked from 6 six a.m. to 2 two p.m. and after that shift he continued, four afternoons a week, with his private patients. The possibility of a small private practice disappeared a few years later when the dDoctors’ equipment was confiscated. The poor dDoctors were called to a meeting and asked,: Doctor, do you give your equipment to the state voluntarily? to which the doctors who preceded my father in the alphabetical order, sheepishly answered,: Yes, I do.. When my father’s reply was a strong NO!! he was told, : wWe are sorry, dDoctor, but we have to confiscate your equipment.. My father’s reply inspired all dDoctors who alphabetically followed, to reply No.". So my father started to work towards his pension at forty-nine years of age, whilst his work as a private GP counted for nothing and with twenty- five years of paying life insurance gone.

I should briefly mention my gGymnasium studies. In contrast to my father, who had a very good memory enabling him to memorize the kilograms of books required by the medical studies, memory was not the strong side of my intelligence, so languages and learning poetry by heart was not my cup of tea. I do not know whether the wiring of my brain was affected by my very slow stressful birth, when the umbilical cord was five times winded wound around my neck. Anyway, I enjoyed subjects which had a structure and system, like mathematics, physics, botany and to a lesser degree chemistry for its abundance of formulas – and in the subjects of history and philosophy I was in the cCredit category. In the languages – to Czech, Latin, Russian, ancient Greek was added – I had mostly a hHigh pPass. In gGymnasium you had to pass all the subjects – there was not a choice, like in Australia, to ‘drop’ subjects you do not like. If you failed one subject, you were required to do a ‘repair’ exam after the summer break and if again you were not successful, to repeat the year.

Thus, students got an all-round education and ability to study at any tertiary institution, sometimes subject to entrance exams. After the Ccommunist putsch in 1948, many professors became kind of heroes in resisting ideological pressures. After the 45 forty-five minutes lecture they often said, :i In the remaining 5 five minutes let’s see what Marxism says.". This occurred in subjects where the ‘ideology’ was dangerous, such as philosophy, history and even literature. The situation in these subjects was so strange that there were few new textbooks printed and the professors had to dictate or write the material on the blackboard. Much worse were the few students who, after 1948 February suddenly discovered their love for the new regime and became a real danger not only for us, but also for the professors. One such example was a student who was famous for throwing the benches from the third floor. Very shortly afterwards he declared his love for communism after allegedly reading a few books of Marxist ideology.

My ambition was to become a high credit student, which meant that I would be less disturbed and had time to think about music, that was in my head. I was clearly determined to become a musician, not aiming for the university studies. This does not mean that I was not diligent. In spite thatAlthough we were given freedom, our parent instilled in us responsibility and pride to become independent. I consider my parents’ supporting me as a kind of ‘moral contract’ which must not be broken. There was such trust between my parents and me, that in the ‘Septima’ [seventh year of gGymnasium studies] my parents said,: Go to the pParents’ nNight yourself! The professors were rather astonished when I appeared and asked them,: Any problems?? What might seem as parental neglect was proof of their trust in my responsibility.

When I later had at the beginning of my second year of cConservatorium studies serious problems with my embouchure and my teacher said, M: may be you could make somewhere and sometimes the second flute, but only may be [more about it later] these were for me traumatic, mostly for my strongest feeling of fulfilling the ‘moral contract’. I enjoyed the system and structure of the subjects and was in ‘danger’ of receiving distinction for my ‘mMaturita’ [mMatriculation]. In spite of excellent results, especially in mMathematics, this danger was averted because ‘I was not active enough in the classroom".’.

Czerny’s four volumes of ‘Fingerfertikheit’ were followed by Cramer’s 50 Fifty Etudes [very good music considering the genre] and in the middle of my teens I proceeded to Czerny’s ‘Kunst der Fingerfertigheit’. These were the skeleton of my technical piano studies. Mozart and Beethoven were added to by some ‘girly’ Chopin. Later, when I took the repertoire programme entirely under my control – to Bach, Mozart and Haendel some Czech music [Smetana, Vitezslav Novak] was added and researches in the mMunicipal mMusic lLibrary – such as Prokofievf ‘Skazki Staroj Babusky’, Schostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Hindemith Suite 1922, Rhapsody in Blue and Jezek’s Bugatti Step complemented my repertoire diet.

My self-guidance was more exploratory than disciplined. I had more than average finger dexterity so I executed, among others, some Beethoven sonatas such as Waldstein, Appassionata and Op 90 in e. I memorised and enjoyed playing two Bach English suites [in g and a] as well as Haendel keyboard suites. Since my piano playing/learning did not have a solid technical foundation – here I mean the proper use of the body – problems with some stiffness of my right forearm appeared and in spite of some impressive speed achieved in the ‘Kunst der Fingerfertigheit’, I realised that piano was not a path for a successful career.

Decisions, decisions, what to do? My earliest acquaintance with orchestral instruments came from playing piano in our student gGymnasium sort of salon orchestra which was able to manage ‘Caliph from Baghdad’. Brass instruments were out of the question not only from aesthetic point of view, but also by my inability to produce some reasonable sound and I did not like the clarinet which was the instrument of my best friend, Pavel Maxera. A violoncello with only one string was the victim of my unsuccessful attempts, so I did not try to get the remaining three strings.

Two months before my fifteenth year I borrowed a four-keyed piccolo of the old fingering style from which I managed to produce some squeaks. After some two months of experimenting, I entered the Prague Music School where I borrowed a Boehm system wooden flute and apart from taking flute lessons, I also took classes in so-called ear training, meaning singing the exercises and clapping the rhythm.

My flute teacher was Jan Balik, a seventy- five year old former principal flute of the National Theatre opera orchestra, an esteemed musician who also taught flute at the Prague ConservatoriumConservatory during the flute Pprofessor Rudolf Cerny’s absence. He was the last composition pupil of Dvorak. He and his fellow student Cerny were some sort of martyrs during their studies with the German professor. The reason – after the fifth year of their flute studies they bought the Boehm system flutes for their final year.

These were the times when flautists changed from playing the old style flutes to the Boehm system, which meant re-learning the fingerings. When Balik and Cerny proudly brought their new flutes to the lesson after the summer holidays, the old professor ignored them entirely for several weeks and after that finally said,: Das ist keine Flote, das ist eine Trompete [This is not flute, this is the trumpet]. The poor boys, sacrificing their summer break to learn the new Boehm system, had to relearn playing again. This was not the end of their martyrdom, because after several years playing, the Boehm system flute was de rigour. Cerny solved the re-learning problem by taking a job as a timpanist in some Poland opera, so he had time for the change.

Poor Balik, after winning the audition for pPrincipal flute of the National Theatre two months before the summer three week break, was told,: Mister Balik, after the summer break please play the Boehm flute. Jan spent ten hours practicing daily during these three weeks and after returning from these ‘holidays’, the first opera waiting for him was Beethoven’s Fidelio. Flautists know that the flute solo in the ‘Dritte Leonore’ is a test piece given in flute auditions.

Prague ConservatoriumConservatory started its teaching in 1811 as the first cConservatoryium in central Europe and fourth in the whole of Europe. It concentrated solely on orchestral playing and the number of pupils in the first intake was to form an orchestra. The next student intake was three years later for forming a new orchestra, whilst the older group continued its further learning for another three years. In later years, students were accepted annually and piano and signing was added, but the intake of new students for orchestral instruments also reflected the expected needs of orchestras.

Jumping forwards, I was the only flautist accepted in 1952 in the cConservatorium with some five hundred pupils [incl. dance], a single cConservatorium for some five million Czechs. As students did not pay for their tuition, the orchestras’ needs were decisive, since the government was paying. This is a different situation from today, where the number of education institutions is mushrooming, subject to students who are willing to pay, or teachers’ unions able to milk the gGovernment for money. With tongue in cheek, I say that after armaments industry and drug trafficking, postsecondary education [at least in some countries] is the third most profitable industry.

Before embarking more on my flute studies, after my original squeaks on the piccolo, I will talk about the ideologies experienced consecutively and aiming to become the guides for our life. The first was the so called ‘National Socialism’, or shortly Nazism, brought by the occupation of our country during the ‘Protectorat Boehmen und Mahren’ 1939 – 1945. Not only showing off the superiority of the Germans, but the fact that the name of any shop, document etc. had to be first in German. The events during the war – the occupation and executions – confirmed the saying ‘what goes round, comes around’. The expulsion of Germans from our territory on the grounds of their ‘collective guilt’ was the repercussion, to these days a matter of discussion, whether this way of ethnical cleansing was in the tradition of a country which was the oasis of democracy in the middle of Europe before WW TwoII – to expel Germans with only fifty kilograms of luggage.

The ‘perfidious Albion’ and ‘sweet’ France took part in the1938 Munich Pact and agreed that parts of our country, existing for millennia, were taken by Germans [Sudetenland], parts of Slovakia by Hungarians and even the Poles took the opportunity to take a part of North-East Moravia. This happened in spite thatdespite Czechoslovakia had having the defence treaty with both England and France! Imagine if in our time of the massive migration, an immigration minority would request some territory from the host country to be joined with the country, from which they came!! After Poland took ‘Kladsko’, a lot of jokes appeared. Just one example: ‘How do the Polish say water tap? Curacek zazdenyj [a prick bricked in]’.

Concurrently, the religion came, provided in schools by Catholic education, which was not compulsory, but was an alternative to the subject of ‘civic education’, compulsory for those, who did not take part in Christian studies. In my experience, fanaticism is the strongest deterrent. This was the case of my father. His religion teacher, a haggard old man, was not only his teacher, but also a priest who during a confession was able to extract from seven year old kids such sins as fornication, after which he ordered a confession: ‘tthree times Pater noster, three times Hail Mary and three times Ave Maria – but if your mind wanders just for one second, you have to start from the very beginning again’. Obviously, my father was very frightened by the prospect of ending in hell, but after my grandpa told him something like ‘forget such rubbish’, he was liberated.

In my case, the hysterical plump lady teacher of religion at our primary school, who dragged the boys to pray beneath the crucifix fixed on the wall and was threatening us with hell, was not the right person to convince us about Jesus’ love. Since I had similar concerns as my father had before, my grandpa’s advice was passed on to me, liberating me from these worries as well. Apart from the fanaticism of my religion teachers at primary school, the intrusiveness of requiring regular confessions at gGymnasium by our teacher/priest was another very strong deterrent for me as I am a very private person.

Even a non-believer cannot ignore the Old and New Testaments as the cradle of our culture and roots. Recently, the meaning of the ‘forbidden apple’ came to my mind:

‘The life of animals and vegetation in Eden was guided by the instincts and laws of the nNature. By offering Eve and Adam to eat the apple from the forbidden tree, the Devil offered them understanding of what was good and what was evil and endowed them with the developed brain able to think. What the Devil did not reveal, was that he also endowed them and their off-springs with the ability to love and hate; by this the Devil hads begun his game with the God. The first event already occurred in the Adam and Eve family – the Eve’s love of industrious Abel created CKain’s jealousy and finally fratricide. The fights between God and the Devil – manifested in our deeds – have been the counterpoint in our history from the time since expelled from the Eden up to today. If our thinking is blurred by hatred, we see only one side of a cube or in the best case only two.’

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Theme and Variations.

One

Jumping forwards about seven decades, religion interests me very much as a concept of behaviour within a tribe which may be common to many religions; by promising new territory – in accordance with the nature’s law of fighting for territory and survival of the fittest; by providing someone who could take the decisions for those, who are afraid of their own liberty in making decisions for themselves. Some religions establish a supreme [abstract] God, forbidden to be pictured [in Judaism and Islam], or replaced by his deputy, Messiah Jesus Christ. This God replaces the physical strength of the leader of the animal hunting flock. An interesting question is what [if anything] happens after our death, provided that we believe into after-life after our physical death. This belief is a very efficient control – by offering rewards or punishments [heavens, hell, reincarnation, karma] for good or bad behaviour.

Christianity is very interesting in this historic development – originally the teaching of Jesus, his disciples and group of oppressed ‘"proletarii’" around him professed the most positive characteristics: compassion, forgiveness, sharing, with rewarding these by an afterlife in the God’s kKingdom. I do not know, whether the concept of hell was part of Jesus Christ’s original teaching. From persecuted victims Christians become an official cChurch for the Roman Empire by Milan edict in 313 by Emperor Constantinus. In the later development of Christianity, bad behaviour was punished by torture in the hell ad infinitum. This became a very powerful tool – for taming the supreme secular rulers [Canossa] and by ‘"ora et labora’" [pray and keep working] for controlling the lower classes.

The God requires obedience and often promises acquiring new territory, whether through its respective prophets [Moses, Mohammed], or Christians with a bBible in one hand and arms in the other, conquering in the name of God European, American, African and Asian tribes, offering new ideology, culture and technology. The fight for power, territory and later for wealth was reason for wars within Christianity. At the beginning of the 15th cCentury the Catholic Church owned one third of land in Bohemia [then the capital of the Holy Roman Empire], which triggered the first division by criticising the Catholic church at the floor of the Charles University [the third oldest university in Europe].

Master Jan Hus was the leader of the attempt to purify the Catholic Church by demanding adhering strictly to the teaching of the bBible, not by creating a new cChurch. The subsequent Catholic armies’ crusades and burning Jan Hus at the stake at 1415 the Constance Ccouncil