Bohemian (pronounced boh-hee-mee-uhn)
(1) A native or inhabitant of Bohemia.
(2) A person, as an artist or writer, who lives and acts free of regard for conventional rules and practices (technically should be lowercase but rule often not observed.)
(3) The Czech language, especially as spoken in Bohemia.
(4) Slang term sometime applied to Gypsies (Roma or Travelers), especially in central and eastern Europe.
(5) Of or relating to Bohemia, its people, or their language, especially the old kingdom of Bohemia; a Czech.
(6) Pertaining to or characteristic of the unconventional life of a bohemian (again, should be lowercase).
(7) Living a wandering or vagabond life.
1570-1580: The construct was Bohemi(a) + -an (the adjectival suffix). The modern meaning "a gypsy of society" dates from 1848, drawn from the fifteenth century French bohemién, from the country name. Meaning is thus associative, from the prevailing French view that gypsies (Roma or Travelers) came from Bohemia (and technically, their first appearance in Western Europe may have been directly from Bohemia). An alternative view is it’s from association with fifteenth century Bohemian Hussite heretics who had been driven from their country about that time; most etymologists prefer the former.
A bohemian was thus something of “a gypsy of society; a person (especially a painter, poet etc) who lives a free and somewhat dissipated life, rejecting the conventionalities of life and having little regard for social standards”. The transferred sense, in reference to unconventional living, is attested in French by 1834 and was popularized by Henri Murger's (1822-1861) stories from the late 1840s, later collected as Scenes de la Vie de Boheme (which formed the basis of Puccini's La Bohème). It appears in English in that sense in William Makepeace Thackeray's (1811–1863) Vanity Fair (1848); the Middle English word for "a resident or native of Bohemia" was Bemener.
As a descriptor of lifestyle, in the West, bohemian sometimes has a romantic association with freedom but it can also be a put-down. In translation it can also be misunderstood. Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; Field Marshal and German head of state 1925-1934) dismissively called Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Nazi head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) a Böhmischer Gefreiter which is usually translated in English as “bohemian corporal”, leading many to conclude it was a reference to his famously erratic routine and self-described (and promoted) artistic temperament. Actually Hindenburg was speaking literally. In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, he’d served as an officer in the Prussian Army, at one point passing through the Bohemian village named Broumov (Braunau in German and now located in the Czech Republic) and knowing Hitler had been born in Braunau, assumed the future Führer had been born a Bohemian. Hitler however was actually born in the Austrian town of Braunau in Austria although the Field Marshal was right about him being a Gefreiter (an enlisted rank in the military equating with a lance corporal or private first class (PFC)), that being Hitler’s role in the First World War (1914-1918)). If vague on geography, one would expect Hindenburg to get the military terminology correct; he once claimed the only books he ever read were the Bible and the army manual.
Either way, the president’s slight was a deliberate, class-based put-down, the army’s often aristocratic (and predominately Prussian) officer corps regarding a corporal from somewhere south as definitely not “one of us” and one didn’t even have to come from as far south as Austria to earn Prussian disapprobation; Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) once described Bavarians as “halfway between an Austrian and a human being”. Even a Bavarian officer however could think himself superior to an Austrian corporal and Ernst Röhm (1887-1934; the most famous victim of the 1937 Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives (Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird)) and referred to by the Nazis as the Röhm Putsch) more than once dismissed Hitler as a lächerlicher Gefreiter (ridiculous corporal). Hindenburg’s phrase was well-known among the officer corps and generals were known to repeat it when among friends. Most famously it was reprised by Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus (1890–1957) who is now remembered only for commanding the doomed Sixth Army, surrendering the remnants to Soviet forces in February 1943. Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal just before the city fell, explaining that he wanted to give him “this last satisfaction”, the sub-text being that no German Field Marshal had ever been captured and that Paulus should draw his own conclusions and commit suicide. Paulus however decline to shoot himself for that “Böhmischer Gefreiter”.
La Bohème (1896) by Giacomo Puccini
In 1830s Paris, some bohemian youths are living in squalid flats in the Latin Quarter. Two of them, the writer Rodolfo and the frail Mimi, meet by chance when Mimi knocks on her neighbor Rodolfo’s door because her solitary candle has blown out. He lights it for her and they fall in love. These days, they'd be thought a couple of emos.
They have their ups and downs, as Puccini’s lovers do, and Rodolfo, though finding Mimi a bit highly-strung, really loves her but fears her staying with him and living in such poverty will damage her fragile health. Worried she may die, he decides to leave. Hearing this, Mimi is overcome with feelings of love and they make a pact to stay together until spring, after which they can separate.
In early spring, in Rodolfo arms, Mimi falls gravely ill and the bohemians rush off to sell their meager possessions so they can buy her medicine. Together the two lovers recall how they met and talk of their poor, happy days together. She takes medicine but her condition worsens and she dies, leaving Rodolfo in inconsolable grief.
Maria Callas (1923-1977) was as improbable a Mimi as she was a Madam Butterfly and never performed the role on-stage. However, in 1956, under Antonino Votto (1896-1985) in Milan, she, with Giuseppe di Stefano (1921-2008) as Rodolfo, recorded the Opera for Decca and it’s one of the great Callas performances. To this day, it's the most dramatic La Bohème available on disc.
A generation later, under Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989), Mirella Freni (1935-2020) and Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007) recorded it for Decca. Karajan, better known for conducting Wagner with hushed intensity, produced a lush and romantic interpretation.
In fashion, the bohemian look (boho or boho chic for short) is sometimes said to be not precisely defined but that’s really not true because the style is well-understood and, done properly, can’t be mistaken for anything else. Although the trick to the look is in the layering of the elements, the style is characterized by long flowing or tiered skirts and dresses, peasant blouses, clichéd touches like tunics or wood jewelry, embroidery or embellishment with beading, fringed handbags, and jeweled or embellished flat sandals (or flat ankle boots). Boho dresses owe much to the pre-Raphaelite women of the late nineteenth century although in the popular imagination there’s more of an association with the hippies of the 1960s (and those of the 1970s who didn’t realize the moment had passed). The terms bohemian & boho obviously long pre-dated the hippie era but as fashion terms boho & boho-chic didn’t come into widespread use until early in the twenty-first century.
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