Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule

clair, N. J., Author of "Bohemia and the ?echs," "Come

. In this connection it may be pointed out that the civilization of the Bohemians is distinctly older than that of

early brilliant period in literature. Two centuries of intellectual barrenness followed the fatal battle of the White Mountain and the usurpation of the Bohemian Crown by the House of Hapsburg. The ancient constitution of the kingdom was suppressed and it was replaced by a slightly veiled system of Teutonic absolutism. The lands of the Bohemian nobles, who had been patrons of letters, were confiscated and given to generals in the Austrian ar

out and forgotten. The book-destroyers that were turned loose in the land burned not only all historical and theological works, but every form of literary composition that might suggest to the Bohemian people their glorious past. One book-destroyer, an Austrian priest, boasted with pride that he had burned 60,000 Bohemian books. Many works were carried by the Bohemian exiles to Sax

century. The few other Bohemian scholars of the day-Jungmann, Palacky, Kollár, ?afa?ík, and the incomparable publicist Charles Havlí?ek-lent their services to the rehabilitation of a national language that

rdinary progress made in the fields of poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and historical works during the last fourscore years. The satirical writings of Jan Neruda, the historical dramas of Alois Jirásek, the rich lyrical poetry of Jaroslav Vrchlicky (Frida), the bold imaginative compositions of Julius Zeyer, the modernist poetry of J. S. Machar, t

ainters, sculptors, and architects trained in Bohemia are represented to-day at most of the great cities in Europe where art treasures are preserved. The zealous and promising artistic movement inaugurated in the countr

at Prague in 1848; and this was followed by annual expositions of the chief productions of Bohemian and foreign artists. As an immediate result of these activities, Bohemia produced an astonishingly large number of painters who took high r

character of the language of music and to the eminence of her great tone poets, Smetana and Dvo?ák. Not that the history of music in the country begins

d we know that during the Hussite period the Bohemian hymnology attained a degree of excellence that has not been surpa

ty of Prague antedated similar institutions in Germany by more than half a century. John Amos Komensky (known in America and England by the Latinized form of his name, Comenius) was a Bohemian, and in the judgm

hundred years in Jan Hus, the forerunner of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and William E. Channing. An