Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule

Slavic Languages and Literat

tion and the Poles on the one hand and the Byzantine culture and the Russians on the other. Bohemia is the keystone in the Slavic arch. Without it the proto-history of the Eastern nations in Europe has no meaning and no coherency. Unfortunately even the most profound scholars have as yet overlooked

ussia to Dalmatia, from Poland to Bulgaria, has been borrowed from the religious works of the Bohemians, of the early period, now entirely lost to science. Bohemia was the intellectual mistress of what may be called the proto-Slavic world. Without Bohemia, the greater part of the Slavic vocabularies remains irreducible as regards origins and distribution, while with the proper appreciation of this country's geographical factor it appears at once that far from

ritten in the fourth century, the Germans used their native dialects for any literary purposes. There is nothing which we possess in the way of literary documents that dates back of the ninth century, and there is precious little that can with certainty be ascribed to a period previous to the tenth century. Hen

nth century, are written in a variant dialect and obviously are based on documents preceding the activity of the proto-apostles, make it certain that Cyril and Methodius drew on an older literary stock or composed in a language which was already permeated by the Christian conceptions which were the common possession of the ?echs in Carolingian times. This is proved by the precious Kiev fragments, of the eleventh centur

equest of Prince Rostislav, had in 867 been accused by the German missionaries of heresy, which accusation, however, Pope Hadrian found to be groundless. But the Slavic activity could not be maintained against German arrogance, and, as it was Bishop Wiching who soon after the death of Methodius banished the Slavic liturgy from Bohemia, so it was in the eleventh centu

re fond of attending foreign universities, especially those of Paris and Oxford. In the latter place they became acquainted with Wiclif and, returning home, they translated his works and laid the foundation for that remarkable activity which is known as Husitism. Matěj of Janov, who had studied at Paris, had even before Hus put himself in opposition to Popery, but it was Hus's particular desert to have roused the ?ech nat

ut a king. The most advanced of these democratic protagonists of that time was Chel?icky, who dreamed of a millennium, not unlike the one represented in literature at the present time by Tolstoy. His chief desert lies in having, by his writings, promoted the formation of the Church of Bohemian Brethren. The idea of Slavic nationality was not confined

ogy, as an independent science, assume shape. The chief desert in this matter belongs to Joseph Dobrovsky. He laid the foundation for a scientific grammar of the Slavic languages, centering it on its most ancient type, the Church-Slavic. He was the first to attempt a determination of the degree of relationship between the separate Slavic dialects by means of a scientific classification. It was he who i

s led a vegetative existence; the Serbians and Croatians had forgotten of their literary past; the Bulgarians had not yet discovered the fact that they spoke an intelligible language worthy of literary refinement. Russia was still struggling with the establishment of a linguistic norm out of the ecclesiastic Slavic and the spoken idiom, while its literature was but a feeble reflex of French pseudo-classicism. Nowhere was there the slighte

their collections of fairy tales and mythological lore, laid the foundation for a nationalistic movement which was soon to sweep over Europe. Not only did German literature successfully establish itself against the French fashion, but all the smaller nations, who had almost forgotten of their historical existence, began to discover themselves. If the popular creation was truer and more important than the traditional literatures of the Gr?co-Roman type, then Serbia and Bohemia and Russia, which had preserved an enormous mass of oral literature in out-of-the-way places, harked back to important pasts and should develop from within. The nationalistic idea began to grow out of proportion to the folklore which could convenien

?ech language and the formation of a literary norm. In 1792 his desire to reconstruct the Slavic past took him on a long journey to the libraries of Sweden and Russia, and even to the Caucasus, where he had expected to find some indications of a ?ech origin. In the same year appeared his "History of the Bohemian Language and Literature," in which he described the struggles of the ?ech language against the German and Latin from the time of Hus until his day, and showed what r

lars and poets, Goethe, Jacob Grimm, Pertz, and others. Goethe wrote of him: "Abbé Joseph Dobrovsky, the past master of critical historical science in Bohemia, this rare man who long before had followed the general study of the Slavic languages and histories with genial industry and Herodotic travel

t German nationalism and was fanned to exaggerated manifestations by the obscurant absolutism of Emperor Francis I. Indeed, the ?ech nationalism was to a great extent encouraged by the Austrian Government, as a protective measure against Napoleonic sympathies. The work begun by Dobrovsky was carried into the field of literature by Jungmann, who was not satisfied with creating a native literary language for the lower

revolution which had just broken out in Russia. But ?afa?ík continued to exert a great influence on Slavic science in Russia through his friend Pogodin, who never gave up the hope that ?afa?ík might be called to a chair in Petrograd. When this hope could not be materialized, the young Slavists then studying in Russia, Bodyanski, Sreznevski and others, made it their business to study for a time in Austria, more especially, to meet ?afa?ík and learn something from personal contact with him. Indeed, the main act

great Russian writers. It is eminently cosmopolitan in compass and subject-matter, but at the same time has preserved many national characteristics, which would well repay the interest of an English reading public, if it could be indu

ld should particularly be enlisted for this country in the possible future reconstruction of the Austrian Empire. Slavs and non-Slavs should unite on this point without discussion, and even the Germans should look favorably on the restoration of Bohemia to its former freedom and glory, if they are not blinded by selfishness and useless conceit. Bohemia has in the Middle Ages been the mediator between the West and the East, the South and the North, and it will for a long time remain the mediator between th

DE

IANS AS I

Professor of Economics

nds of most people. New Yorkers may have seen with interest the National Hall of the Bohemians, Clevelanders may be familiar with the Schauffler Missionary Training School, persons familiar with industrial conditions in Chicago may be aware of the great Bohemian colon

o this country, and in 1906, the latest year for which I have

ime there was a triple ferment in Bohemia: first, a desire for political independence; second, a resurrection of national self-consciousness symbolized by the revival of the Bohemian language, the use of which among cu

ts. The census of 1850 mentions 87 natives of Austria (out of 946 in the United States) as then in California; these were probably Bohemians. Throughout the fifties and early s

grate freely, the disastrous war with Prussia in 1866 gave added reasons for going,

1854 they had already established a Catholic church, and t

he early days they either went overland from the Eastern ports or up the Mississippi River. One of the reasons for so many Bohemians as well as Germans, Scandinavians, Poles, and Belgians being attracted to Wisconsin was undoubtedly the attitude of that state toward immigration. A fact that is easily forgotten in the present state of feeling in regard to immigration is the eager and

of national laws to encourage foreign immigration on the ground that labor was scarce, owing to the war, and that wages had more than doubled. Whether

izure by a creditor, suffrage and the right to be elected to any office but that of governor or lieutenant-governor on one year's residence, whether a citizen or not (intention to become one having been declared); and full eligibility to office for all actual citizens. "There is never an election in the state," one circular continues, "that does not put some, and often very many, foreign-bor

Europe." Of such solicitation at the very beginning of Bohemian immigration I found tradition still mindful in the old country. Thus immigrants have felt themselves directly and officially invite

es, occupied either with farming or with some one of the various employments incident to rural life, from shoemaking to keeping store or acting as notary public. If the comparison be extended to all groups of foreign parentage, Bohemia shows a larger proportion engaged in agriculture than any forei

or farmer because he works on a different plan, while the foreigner, used to small, intensive farming, thinks Yankees slovenly and wasteful. E

nery. Nothing was too good or too big for them. In the eastern half of Butler County, Nebraska, there were seventeen big steam threshing outfits among Bohemians-something to which you could find nothing

as though in certain lines, new to us and familiar in Europe, the immigrant should be able to supply very valuable skill. This seems t

orkers at tailoring or in tobacco. This corresponds to the fact that many Bohemians in the cities are engaged in

y were mere "pleasure clubs," to use the current East Side phrase, while many were lodges of various of their great "national" societies. Of these large national societies the most remarkable is the society founded by the Bohemians at St. Louis in 1854, under the name of the Bohemian-Slavoni

hysical condition and readiness for service to one's country. Women and children, as well as the men, have their own divisions, classes, and uniforms, and the Sokol exhibitions are important and very pretty social events

ra, "The Bartered Bride," is often given. On the other hand, one will see a very simple spontaneous little exhibition given with the greatest abandon and delight by a club of hard-worked, elderly women, whose triumphs are hugely enjoyed by their families and neighbors. It is an e

organ of a woman's society, printed as well as edited by women. It is not devoted to "beauty lessons" and "household hints," but to efforts toward woman's suffra

but there is a substantial Protestant minority; outside the churc

ities of fourteen years and over, those not able to both read and write were 24.2 per cent.; among the Germans 5.8 per cent.; among the Bohemians and Moravians only

he struggle with the Germans is in a sense the master-thread in their whole history, and this contact, even though inimical, has meant interpenetration and rapprochement. No other Slavic nationality

t one characteristic of the countrymen of Smetana and Dvo?ák is their noble gift for music. Their sense of color, too, is very marked, and they, beyond all people I

cago to fight for the Union is said to have been a Lincoln Rifle Company that some young men of that nationality had organized in 1860. The dominating feature in the great Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago is the

past, their language, their old home, yet they cannot hand on these interests in their pristine intensity to the younger people, absorbed in the

ook, Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens, for permiss

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should be discontinued. The people themselves prefer to be called Bohemians, not Czechs, which latter appellation is not generally known or understood. Some years ago a noted scholar was severely censured because he named his magazine, edited in the German language, but Bohemiophile i

ing made war on his neighbor. In manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories about his antiquated claim on Silesia; but in his conversations and Memoirs he took a very different tone. His own words were: "Ambition, interest

non-Germans to obtain a census free from political bias. As matters are, the Germans constitute 35 per cent. of the population, yet have

ture of Its Past and

itual, political, and historical-more than one-half of the American Bohemians have seceded from the Catholic

stants of the Helvetian and Augsburg Confessions, not to th

er of Archbishop Sancroft and Bishop Compton," said Oglethorpe. "They also addressed the Church of England in the year 1715, being reduced to a very low ebb in Poland, and his late Majesty, George I., by the recommendation of the late Archbishop Wake, gave orders in council for the relief of these Reformed Episcopal Churches, and letters patent

e of the hereditary provinces. You form the finest portion of her empire, and you are treated as a mere province to be used as an instrument of passions to which you are strangers. You have national customs and a national language; you pride yourself on your ancient and illustrious origin. Assume once more y

de world, but Bohemians themselves, believed that the old-time Bohemians of the stormy days of John Hus or those who revolted against Ferdinand II. were a band of heretics and rebels. Such has been the official Austrian version of these events in Bohemia. However, the truth could not be suppressed for all time. Palacky and others were being b

See p

asoning and of lucid thinking. When arguments failed with the black reactionaries, lay and ecclesiastic, Havlí?ek employed another weapon with telling effect-ridicule. Bohemians venerate him as a martyr of their cause. The c

ation the Settlement between Vienna and Hungary. The centralists were at first opposed to the division of Austria in two, but were eventually placated by Beust, h

en Vorfahren verliehen hat, eingedenkt ferner der unerschüttlichen Treue, mit welchen die Bev?lkerung B?hmens jederzeit Unseren Thron

legal claim to the title "King of Bohemia." He has never taken the coronation oath; and, without such an oath, he is no more King than Woodrow Wilson would

ent necessities" without parliament. Past experience has shown that these "necessities" arise quite often. Paragraph fourteen is a bulwark of strength to the German party against which the Bohemians have battled in vain. Under paragraph fourteen the ruler cannot change the fundamental laws o

Verantwortung des Gesammtministeriums durch Kaiserliche Verordnung erlassen werden, in soferne solche keine Ab?nderung des Staatsgrundgesetzes bezwecken, keine dauernde Belastung des Staatschatzes, und keine Ver?userung von

een found in preventing racial troubles among the enormous colony from captives. German Uhlan soldiers, hearing of the fall of Przemysl, declared that it must have bee

Hungary are divided into t

are found in Austria (the city of Vienna alone being the home of not less

n the northwestern part o

rity on Slavic matters, computed in 1900 the strength o

00,000; Polish statisticians make the total 20,000,000. When the constitutional era first dawned in Austria, the Poles were put in full charge of Galicia, in appreciation of which concession they have always loyally supported the Austrian Government. In Galicia, the Poles are the aristocracy and the Ruthenes the peasant element. The affection o

pt a section in the southwestern part thereof, the outlying villages of Trieste, the northern end of Istria, which project

divided by their political masters, into two national units. Their homelands include a large section of Istria and Dalmatia, together with the adjacent islands in the Adriat

he Serbo-Croatians i

s to Galicia, being predominant in east Galicia, strong in wester

the Ruthenes in Galicia, Hungary,

hs). Protestantism finds favor among the Slovaks (24 per cent.), Bohemians (2.44 per cent.), and Poles living in Silesia (1.81 per cent.). The Orthodox faith is professed by the Ruthenes in Gal

speaking one language, the Serbo-Croatians are clearly one nation, divided only by different faiths. The Croatians use the Latin letters and adhere, almost to a man, to the Catholic faith, while the Serbs employ the Cyrillic alphabet and belong to the Orthodox Church. The busy grammarians in Vienna and in Budapest did their utmost to keep the Serbo-Croatians apart, and even incited one against the other, by instilling the belief in them that two different religions really meant two different races. Galicia is inhabited by two distinct peoples, the Russians and the Poles. The name "Russian" sounded badly in Austria. It constantly reminded th

ill-concealed its chagrin, while Slavic journals rejoiced as if it had been their own victory. Imagine the dismay of such a staunch champion of Austrian public opinion as the Vienna "Neue Freie Presse," when the Serbs crushed the Turk at Kumanovo! For many reasons Serbia was for years looked upon as a kind of barometer of the hopes of the Austrian Slavs. A clever Bohemian journalist made the interesting prediction s

Bohemia without Rieger is unthinkable. His name is written large on every page of his country's history. As a leader of the Old Bohemian party he naturally played a prominent r?le in the fight for the

r, took his oath of of

guage" (Slováci a ich Re?), by

lan Getting, of New York. At a subsequent conference was pres

booed in Hungary, and school books containing them prohibited. Hun

Times, Janua

of Bohemian ancestry who helped to build up the Northwest. He s

in Bohemia and is gathering mater

s to Bohemia and his knowledge of Bohemians is int

is referred to "History of Bohemian Literature," by Count Lützow (London and New Y

scholar whose latest work, "An Interpretation

s." Miss Balch studied the Slav in the Un

riber'

ent printing errors

ation" changed t

ain" changed

e inconsistently

y and