Boho

a brief history of the English word boho, how it found a home in central Europe in the era of the Roman Empire, became homeless in Paris and London in the 19th century, and is currently gallivanting around luxury homes of the rich and famous  

If you have seen the film Les Miserables you'll have caught a glimpse of what life was like in Paris for poor people in the 19th century. From this urban landscape a counter-culture was born. It became known as Bohemianism.    
   
The French Bohemians were not poor people by birth. They weren’t ‘miserable’ because they had no choice. They came from the privileged bourgeoisie, the wealthy middle class. Some even came from aristocratic families. And some of them became quite famous, like Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire and other members of the ‘Club des Hachichins’ (mentioned in the chapter Assassin).  
   
Bohemianism in France in the late 19th and early 20th century wasn’t a fashion. Quite the opposite in fact. It was a way of life. It became a movement and attracted many writers and poets, philosophers and intellectuals, artists and their muses.    
   
The Parisian bohemians had a complete disregard for fashion. They would wear non-trendy styles and colours to make a powerful statement. They broke many conventional rules of the establishment. They rebelled against the bourgeois norms into which they had been born.    
 
Many Bohemians chose to live in poor neighbourhoods of Paris, like the Latin Quarter,  which attracted not only artists, musicians and dancers but the Romani people as well. The Romani were gypsies from Central Europe. They had come to France in the 15th century and were also called ‘bohémiens’ because people thought they had come from Bohemia. Yes. There once was a country with that name.    
   
Back in the days of the Roman Empire, many Celtic tribes lived in Europe. Some were nomadic. Some lived on the Atlantic coast of Iberia, France and Britain. Some settled in the north of Italy, and others as far east as what’s now called Turkey. One of these European Celtic people were known as the Boii.    
   
The Boii are thought to have settled in Central Europe during the late Iron Age (450 until 1 BCE). The area were they lived has been recorded in Latin texts as [i]‘Boiohaemum’ which means ‘home of the Boii’.  
   
In the late 9th century the Duchy of Bohemia was formed. In the 12th century it became a Kingdom and part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. When that Empire collapsed at the end of World War I (1918), the Republic of Czechoslovakia was formed as an independent country.    
 
Czechoslovakia practically replaced the old Kingdom of Bohemia (including Moravia and Slovakia). And if it hadn’t been for the Parisian counter-culture, the name ‘Bohemia’ might have been wiped off the map of our language as well.  
   
Twenty years before the ‘home of the Boii’ was renamed, the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini wrote an opera called ‘La Bohème.’ This had nothing to do with the country in Central Europe. It was based on a book about bohemian life in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The opera became a success and was played for decades in many cities.    
   
In 1886 the same word was chosen to introduce London’s most famous detective to the world: Sherlock Holmes. ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ is one of the first stories in the series. Doctor Watson, the faithful companion of the detective, notes that Holmes “loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul.”  
   
The word ‘boho’ appeared in English in the first half of the 20th century. It’s an abbreviation of ‘Bohemian Homeless’ — which apparently captures the essence of the word. Bohemian homeless? Really? What about the ‘home’ in the second part of the word? And what about celebrities who become trend setters for ‘boho fashion’?    
   
Tatiana Santo Domingo (member of the Royal family of Monaco), Sienna Miller (successful Hollywood actress), and the Duchess of Cambridge are just three examples. They are known in the fashion world for being partial to ‘boho-chic.’ They’ve even been blamed for keeping the ‘boho-trend’ going. And each of them has several luxury homes to choose from.  
   
The meaning of bohemian has come a long way, from home to homelessness to luxury homes. From gypsy fashion to fashion rejection to fashion icon. And from penniless arts to staggering wealth. But it still represents the opposite of bourgeois, right?  
   
Wrong! Bourgeois, the name of the conventions-and-status-quo-upholding-middle-class, arch enemy of the Parisian bohémiens, can now be found bolted together into a single brandname. In 2020 a “contemporary vegan footwear brand” launches their first collection in London. It’s called ‘Bourgeois Boheme.'  
   
It’s a little confusing, I know. Fortunately, Savannah Miller, fashion designer and sister of Sienna Miller, explains the current meaning of bohemian like this: “A real bohemian is someone who has the ability to appreciate beauty on a deep level, is a profound romantic, doesn't know any limits, whose world is their own creation, rather than living in a box.”    
   
Now there only remains one tiny confusion in the family of words related to boho. On one hand there is ‘bohemianism.’ That’s the name for the bohemian movement born in Paris. On the other hand there is ‘bohemism.’ This one is an official term for English loan words which come originally from Czech. Can you guess why?    
   
The answer will be revealed in chapter D under ‘Dollar’.