Revolution and Counter-Revolution; Or, Germany in 1848Marx, Karl
History
Revolution and Counter-Revolution; Or, Germany in 1848
Marx, Karl
Germany -- History -- Revolution, 1848-1849
The Bohemians and Croatians called, then, a general Slavonic Congress
at Prague, for the preparation of the universal Slavonian Alliance.
This Congress would have proved a decided failure even without the
interference of the Austrian military. The several Slavonic languages
differ quite as much as the English, the German, and the Swedish, and
when the proceedings opened, there was no common Slavonic tongue by
which the speakers could make themselves understood. French was tried,
but was equally unintelligible to the majority, and the poor Slavonic
enthusiasts, whose only common feeling was a common hatred against the
Germans, were at last obliged to express themselves in the hated
German language, as the only one that was generally understood! But
just then another Slavonic Congress was assembling in Prague, in the
shape of Galician lancers, Croatian and Slovak grenadiers, and
Bohemian gunners and cuirassiers; and this real, armed Slavonic
Congress, under the command of Windischgrätz, in less than twenty-four
hours drove the founders of an imaginary Slavonian supremacy out of
the town, and dispersed them to the winds.
The Bohemian, Moravian, Dalmatian, and part of the Polish deputies
(the aristocracy) to the Austrian Constituent Diet, made in that
Assembly a systematic war upon the German element. The Germans, and
part of the Poles (the impoverished nobility), were in this Assembly
the chief supporters of revolutionary progress; the mass of the
Slavonic deputies, in opposing them, were not satisfied with thus
showing clearly the reactionary tendencies of their entire movement,
but they were degraded enough to tamper and conspire with the very
same Austrian Government which had dispersed their meeting at Prague.
They, too, were paid for this infamous conduct; after supporting the
Government during the insurrection of October, 1848, an event which
finally secured to them a majority in the Diet, this now almost
exclusively Slavonic Diet was dispersed by Austrian soldiers, the same
as the Prague Congress, and the Panslavists threatened with
imprisonment if they should stir again. And they have only obtained
this, that Slavonic nationality is now being everywhere undermined by
Austrian centralization, a result for which they may thank their own
fanaticism and blindness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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