Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule: A Study of the Ideals and Aspirations of the Bohemian and Slovak Peoples, as They Relate to and Are Affected by the Great European War — John Shaqi
Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule: A Study of the Ideals and Aspirations of the Bohemian and Slovak Peoples, as They Relate to and Are Affected by the Great European War
History
Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule: A Study of the Ideals and Aspirations of the Bohemian and Slovak Peoples, as They Relate to and Are Affected by the Great European War
It stands to reason that the language, returning to its own after a
disuse of almost two hundred years and dug from the grave of oblivion,
needed much burnishing, purifying, and modernizing. Terminology of
arts and sciences, that flourished while the language lay dormant,
had to be created. Dictionaries, grammars, and histories had to be
compiled. Above all, the dross of alien forms had to be removed and,
while the old Bohemian of Hus, Comenius, and Blahoslav constituted
an inexhaustible store of material, it was necessary to borrow from
kindred Slavic tongues and to coin many modern terms.
That the older writers composed some of their works in German seems
paradoxical (German in these instances was used to defeat German),
yet it was natural, considering the low state of Bohemian culture and
the corresponding literary excellence in neighboring Germany. Thus,
John Kollár, the apostle of literary Pan-Slavism, wrote his main work
in German. Josef Dobrovský, already mentioned, composed all his works
in German. Josef Šafařík’s monumental volume on “Slavic Antiquities”
was also written in German; even the “Father of his country,” Francis
Palacký, wrote his “History of the Bohemian Nation”[10] in the tongue
of Schiller and Goethe. When, in 1831, a number of writers gathered in
a well-known coffee-house in Prague, Čelakovský, one of them, remarked,
half jokingly and half seriously, that Bohemian letters would perish
should the ceiling of the room where they were chatting fall and kill
those present.
The literary men and the “vlastenci” (patriots) were looked upon by
many people with good-natured tolerance. Enemies of the cause regarded
them with ill-concealed suspicion, not infrequently with contempt,
while the government, distrusting everything that was new, suspected
them of dangerous intrigues against the safety of the state. It must
be borne in mind that there was no political freedom in Austria then;
matters of public concern were not allowed to be discussed, much less
criticised, except among intimates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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