Last time I posted, I wrote about a dream in a Bohemian man's apartment. In my post, I explored what Bohemian means to me, as a style, a feeling, a way of being. In a series I'm watching called Discovery of Witches, with demons and vampires as well, the go to Bohemia in search of an alchemical text. I decided to learn more about what ties the area of that name to the way the term is used today, for a way of thinking or approach to life. (The photo above is Monmartre, according to some the most Bohemian part of Paris.)
Bohemia really is a place, though the borders and sovereignty have been hotly contested. It’s the westernmost and largest historical part of the Czech Republic. The city of Prague appeals to many as stirring that mix of intellectual, artistic and alternative thinking known as Bohemian. It also has some reputation with alchemy and the supernatural in fantasy literature.
One hint that ties it all together for me is the fact that the name comes from an ancient Celtic nation, the Boii. In Paris of the 1850s, Bohemian was used to describe mid-19th-century non-traditional lifestyles and came to refer often to artists, writers, journalists, musicians, and actors in major European cities, tying to Roma people believed to have come from Bohemia. I can see how connections might be made to the Roma, who were often nomadic, rejecting conventional constructs of how to live, as many writers and artists have done. It’s fascinating to track the evolution of a term like this.
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