Czech pizzeria has the answer: It won't serve immigrants and wants to "Stop Islam"

The Grand Italia Ristorante Pizzeria in the Czech town of Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou posted the slogans "We don’t serve immigrants" and "Stop Islam" to its Facebook profile at the start of September. After members of the public responded to his messaging, restaurant manager Tomáš Ševčík then posted the following:  "Yesterday I was called a Nazi because I expressed my opinion about the problem with refugees – we got 200 negative reviews, insults and threats. When I looked at the profiles of those posting I couldn’t believe it. They either work for a ‘nonprofit’ or are foreigners and don’t understand at all what is going on – this is just a gimmick so we’ll be afraid of them. I don’t mind foreigners, what I mind is this invasion OF ILLEGAL REFUGEES WHO BELIEVE THEY ARE ENTITLED TO ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING."  

This is about far more than just the currently acute problem with refugees, however. It seems that a group associated with Ševčík has been involved in an original ethnographic research project begun several years ago by the museum in the Czech town of Jilemnice, which is located in the foothills of the Krkonoš Mountains.

One of the most surprising conclusions drawn by their research is the finding that pizza is originally a traditional Czech food. In that region, it is said to have always been no less popular than their legendary kyselo (sour mushroom soup).

Evidence of this, for example, is said to be a record discovered by Ševčík himself in the local chronicle at Horní Branná dating from the 18th century. Czech scribe Werner Erich Schmaltke is said to have written down the following there:  "Everyone knows that besides kyselo and local specialties such as pida, which is not much known elsewhere…"

Schmaltke does not describe pida any more concretely than this, but awareness of it apparently gradually spread throughout the country and another interesting mention of it was found by the research team from Hrušovany and Jilemnice in the writings of another Czech chronicler, Hubert Jaschke, who lived in Kvilda in the Šumava Mountains. Jaschke is said to have written:  "Today we had a rare visit, Master Hubert Schmelzer came from Vrchlabí and brought us their local specialty as a remarkable gift – a pie that they make from buckwheat flour and mollusks and call pida. On the tables of poor sojourners one finds just the pie, which is nicknamed ‘pida bread’, while in wealthier households it is becoming a somewhat bizarre fashion to adorn it variously with tomatoes, cheese or mushrooms. The Master said that the local mayor even held a celebration where pida was the main dish for some guests from as far away as Italy."

This reference is probably even older than the Schmaltke one, although its precise date has yet to be determined. Nevertheless, the domestication of pida in the Czech environment is also attested by the famous folk tune "He ate pida, pasturing goats" (Jedl pidu, pásl kozy), which probably originates from the Wallachia region.

Stop immigrantism!

The way this pizzeria owner has so dramatically entered the discussion of the refugee crisis should not just be considered an expression of his clear and "courageous" civic position, but also a reference to the best of our purely Czech traditions. Of course, these are traditions that we must not allow to become dissolved by the horrible ongoing project of "immigrantism".

After all it was Josef Jungmann [Translator’s Note:  A leading figure of the 19th-century Czech National Revival] who openly displayed his somewhat ironic pleasure over the superiority of the Czech language and nation to that of the German language and nation by himself using the example of pida, writing:  "How could one translate the beautiful Czech word pida into German? The Germans don’t even know what that is." He ultimately attempted to translate pida by inventing the German term Riesengebirgetomatenkrapfen.

Tomáš Ševčík, meanwhile, has responded to his critics by posting:  "I DISAGREE AND I WILL FIGHT FOR A BETTER STANDARD OF LIVING FOR MY SON. ALL OF YOU OPTIMISTS STOP ABUSING SOCIAL SERVICES AND SUBSIDIES AND SHOW YOURSELVES. STOP INSULTING US AND TELL US YOUR SOLUTION!!!!!! You’re writing insults and lies when you yourselves have achieved nothing."  

The "We Don’t Want Islam in the Czech Republic" movement agrees with Ševčík’s words and posted some of their own:  "We won’t let the optimists win and we won’t let ourselves be bullied." Mr Konvička, the head of that movement, and Mr Ševčík & Co. apparently all have the answer to the current refugee crisis:  We won’t make them food, we won’t share our standard of living with them, and maybe they’ll all just drop dead.