Not Just Window Throwing Anymore

by Songül Arslan

Everybody has those days when everything and everyone gets on her nerves. In reality, you would love to hit your boss, strangle a client, tell off an annoying so-called friend or throw everything and everybody that bothers you out of a window--for good.

You might think these actions will solve many of your problems and irritations. But nobody acts on those deliciously attractive urges, right? That is exactly what I thought but people move in mysterious ways.

The act of throwing someone out the window is crazy enough to imagine but to give it a name--like people have in the Czech Republic--is even crazier. They call it "defenestration" and it has occurred in the country many times.

The first defenestration happened on July 30, 1419 when emotions rose high in politics and religion in the Czech Republic. In those days, politics and religion were more interwoven and the Catholic Church played a tremendous role in life. Jan Hus, a critic of the Catholic Church and a lecturer at the University of Prague had very different opinions on power and the use and abuse of it by the leaders of the Catholic Church. His ideas promoted the containment and reduction of power of the Church, which of course was a thorn in the sides of the Catholic clergies. Therefore Hus was summoned in 1414 to explain his subversive belief system.

Despite the solemn promise of safety by the emperor, he was arrested and cruelly burnt to death at a stake a year later. Hus' Protestant followers -- called Hussites--were furious. They demanded an answer from the town counselors for what had happened and the release of the other arrested Hussites. When their demands weren't met, they felt just like me on one of those days when things aren't going my way. Angrily, they threw the counselors out of the window from the town hall on Charles Square in Prague. This instigated a battle that lasted 15 years and the Protestants, like the Hussites, were eventually defeated.

More than two centuries later and after many revolts, the Catholics were still in power in combination with the Habsburg monarchy. The Protestant Czech people gained a bit power because of their increase in wealth and again these two groups clashed. The Protestant Czech people wanted to get rid of the Habsburgers so they did not have to share what they thought was originally their own.

On May 23, 1618, Protestant nobles entered the Prague Castle and you'll never guess how they solved their problem: by throwing their opponents out of the window. Supposedly two obelisks mark where the proponents of the Habsburg monarchy landed below the window on the ground.

This incident is known as the second defenestration in the Czech political history. This act instigated a war that would last for 30 years--otherwise known as the 30-Year Old-War--which again ended successfully for the Catholics.

These pieces of political history show that every time a person is thrown out of a window for whatever reason, a big battle or war is going to follow and will end in favor of the ones that were thrown out of the window.

That means that if I would act upon my impulses to throw somebody out of a window, I would lose whatever battle resulted from it. This is enough information to make me restrain myself and keep my head cool. Doesn't it make you think twice as well? It's a good thing we have bittersweet memories to keep us in check. Without them, we might forget the true the consequences of throwing people out windows.