OT: Polka folk

[victor steinbok]

I had the same question so I had to go and check to make sure. It's
hard to say what's "country". It was an autonomous sub-kingdom of HRE
for some time, but also it came to dominate the Czech/Moravian kingdom
and the Bohemian dynasty took over. Then there is the Hussite
issue--essentially "Bohemia" became the moniker for the entire
territory before shrinking back to the more historical borders within
the larger context. Whatever it may be now, it seems every European
territory that has a distinct name (Bavaria, Silesia, etc.) that is
now a part of some larger nation-state was once a separate kingdom,
duchy, or whatever... The vassal relationship used to be complicated
enough to identify places as separate "countries" if they were never
fully independent or dominant.

Speaking of Bohemians, a historical question of a different sort.
Given the specific distribution of quoted material in the OED, it is
relatively easy to conclude that the different definitions of
"Bohemian" (except for the first one ==native of Bohemia) were
sequential rather than exclusive.

Here's a hypothesis--given the "Hussite heresy", it seems subsequent,
somewhat derogatory use (as in, "Bohemian lifestyle" or Bohemian ==
gypsy) may well have simply be based on the supposedly heretical
nature of Bohemians. So "social Bohemians" does not mean living like a
native of Bohemia, of course, or a gypsy, for that matter, but rather
living in a manner contrary to prevalent lifestyles, as exemplified by
the natives of Bohemia from 300-400 years prior.

This may well hold even though the terminology is supposed to have
come from the French (I am not questioning this provenance).

OED etymology:

> The transferred senses are taken from French, in which bohême, bohémien, have been applied to the gipsies, since their first appearance in the 15th c., because they were thought to come from Bohemia, or perhaps actually entered the West through that country. Thence, in modern French, the word has been transferred to ‘vagabond, adventurer, person of irregular life or habits’, a sense introduced into Eng. by Thackeray.

So, even though the French borrowing may have come in waves, the
evolution of the French terminology may well have followed the same
line I described above. So it's not that the term for gypsies would
have become a term for vagabonds and adventurers, but vice versa--the
term for alternative lifeslyte seekers would have applied to the
gypsies. Given that the word "Bohemian" was the terror of Catholic
Europe for nearly 100 years, this is not so far-fetched.

OED defs. below (second part of defs, adj., is similarly distributed)

VS-)


 A. n.

    1. A native of Bohemia.
1603 SHAKES. Meas. for M. IV. ii. 134 A Bohemian borne: But here nurst
vp & bred. 1845 S. AUSTIN tr. Ranke's Hist. Ref. II. 469 He acceded to
the demand of the Bohemians.
    b. A follower of John Huss, a Bohemian Protestant or Hussite.

1579 FULKE Heskins' Parl. 189 The Bohemians vsed this text, to proue
the communion in both kindes.
    2. A gipsy. [F. bohême, bohémien.]
1696 PHILLIPS, Bohemians, the same with Gypsies, Vagabonds that strowl
about the Country. 1823 SCOTT Quentin D. xvi, I am a Zingaro, a
Bohemian, an Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans..may choose to call
me; but I have no country. 1841 BORROW Gipsies of Spain (1843) I. 38,
I arrived at the resting place of ‘certain Bohemians’ by whom I was
received with kindness.
    3. A gipsy of society; one who either cuts himself off, or is by
his habits cut off, from society for which he is otherwise fitted;
especially an artist, literary man, or actor, who leads a free,
vagabond, or irregular life, not being particular as to the society he
frequents, and despising conventionalities generally. (Used with
considerable latitude, with or without reference to morals.)
1848 THACKERAY Van. Fair lxiv, She was of a wild, roving nature,
inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste
and circumstances. 1862 Westm. Rev. July & Oct. 32-33 The term
‘Bohemian’ has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the
description of a certain kind of literary gipsey, no matter in what
language he speaks, or what city he inhabits..A Bohemian is simply an
artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from
conventionality in life and in art. 1865 Cornh. Mag. Feb. 241 There
are many blackguards who are Bohemians, but it does not at all follow
that every Bohemian is a blackguard. 1875 EMERSON Lett. & Soc. Aims x.
256 In persons open to the suspicion of irregular and immoral
living,in Bohemians.
    4. Comb., as Bohemian-like.
1886 Cyclists Tour. Club Handbk. Apr. 5 The Bohemian-like contempt he
harbours for all conventionalities.

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> At 3/19/2010 01:20 PM, Eric Nielsen wrote:
>>Not in the winter, of course, but did Polka bands play on the boardwalk?
>
> Perhaps on the boardwalks on the coast of the (also beautiful blue?)
> Vltava of Smetana's Bohemia.
>
> But was Bohemia ever a "country"?  At most, I think, it was a
> relatively autonomous state in the HRE, although at one point Charles
> IV King of Bohemia became the HRE Emperor.
>
> Joel

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