Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For the first half of the century, the Czech
nationalrevival
, or
národníobrození
, was con-
finedtothenewCzechintelligentsia,ledbyphilologistsincludingJosefDobrovskýandJosef
Jungmann at Charles University, or Karolinum, in Prague. Language disputes (in schools,
universitiesandpublicoffices)remainedattheforefrontofCzechnationalismthroughoutthe
nineteenth century, only later developing into demands for political autonomy from Vienna.
The leading figure of the time was the historian
František Palacký
, a Moravian Protestant
who wrote the first history of the Czech nation, rehabilitating Hus and the Czech reformists
in the process. He was in many ways typical of the early Czech nationalists - pan-Slavist,
virulently anti-German, but not yet entirely anti-Habsburg.
1848 and all that
ThefalloftheFrenchmonarchyinFebruary
1848
promptedacrisisintheGermanstatesand
in the Habsburg Empire. The new Bohemian bourgeoisie, both Czech and German, began to
make political demands: freedom of the press, of assembly, of religious creeds. In March,
when news of the revolutionary outbreak in Vienna reached Prague, the city's Czechs and
Germans began organizing a joint National Guard, while the students formed an Academic
Legion, as had the Viennese. Eventually, a National Committee of Czechs and Germans was
formed, and Prague got its own elected mayor.
However, it wasn't long before cracks began to appear in the Czech-German alliance.
Palacký and his followers were against the dissolution of the empire and argued instead for
a kind of multinational federation. Since the empire contained a majority of non-Germans,
Prague's own Germans were utterly opposed to Palacký's scheme, campaigning for unific-
ation with Germany to secure their interests. On April 11, Palacký refused an invitation to
attendthePan-GermanNationalAssemblyinFrankfurt.TheGermansimmediatelywithdrew
from the National Committee, and Prague's other revolutionary institutions began to divide
along linguistic lines. On June 2, Palacký convened a
Pan-Slav Congress
, which met on
Prague'sSlovanskýostrov,anislandintheVltava.CzechsandSlovaksmadeupthemajority
of the delegates, but there were also Poles, Croats, Ukrainians, Slovenes and Serbs in attend-
ance.
On June 12, the congress had to adjourn, as fighting had broken out on the streets the pre-
vious day between the troops of the local Habsburg commander,
Alfred Prince Windis-
chgrätz
, and Czech protesters. The radicals and students took to the streets of Prague, barri-
cades went up overnight, and martial law was declared. During the night of June 14, Windis-
chgrätz withdrew his troops to the left bank and proceeded to bombard the right bank into
submission. On the morning of June 17 the city capitulated - the counter-revolution in Bo-
hemia had begun. The upheavals of 1848 left the absolutist Habsburg Empire shaken but
fundamentally unchanged and served to highlight the sharp differences between German and
Czech aspirations in Bohemia.
