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Austria-Hungary: the Dual Monarchy
The Habsburg recovery was, however, short-lived. In 1859, and again in 1866, the new em-
peror,Franz-JosephII,sufferedhumiliating defeatsatthehandsoftheItalians andPrussians,
respectively, the latter getting their hands on Prague yet again. In order to buy some more
time, the compromise, or
Ausgleich
, of 1867 was drawn up, establishing the so-called
Dual
Monarchy
of Austria-Hungary - two independent states united by one ruler.
For the Czechs, the
Ausgleich
came as a bitter disappointment. While the Magyars became
the Austrians' equals, the Czechs remained second-class citizens. The Czechs' failure in
bending the emperor's ear was no doubt partly due to the absence of a Czech aristocracy that
could bring its social weight to bear at the Viennese court. Nevertheless, the
Ausgleich
did
mark an end to the absolutism of the immediate post-1848 period, and, compared with the
Hungarians,theAustrianswerepositivelyenlightenedinthewiderangeofcivillibertiesthey
granted, culminating in
universal male suffrage
in 1907.
TheIndustrialRevolution continuedapaceinBohemia, bringinganever-increasing number
of Czechs into the newly founded suburbs of Prague, such as Smíchov and Žižkov. Thanks
to the unfair voting system, however, the German-speaking minority managed to hold on to
powerinthePraguecitycounciluntilthe1880s.Bytheturnofthecentury,German-speakers
made up just five percent of the city's population - fewer than the Czechs in Vienna - and of
those more than half were Jewish. Nevertheless, German influence in the city remained con-
siderable, far greater than their numbers alone warranted; this was due in part to economic
means, and in part to overall rule from Vienna.
Old Czechs, Young Czechs
Meanwhile the Czech
národní obrození
flourished and, towards the end of the century,
Prague was endowed with a number of symbolically significant Czech monuments including
the Národní divaldo (National Theatre), the Národní muzeum (National Museum) and the
Rudolfinum.Inevitably,themovementalsobegantosplinter,withtheliberalsandconservat-
ives,knownasthe
OldCzechs
,advocatingworkingwithintheexistinglegislaturetoachieve
their aims, and the more radical
Young Czechs
favouring a policy of non-cooperation. The
most famous political figure to emerge from the ranks of the Young Czechs was the Prague
university professor
TomášGarrigueMasaryk
, who founded his own Realist Party in 1900
and began to put forward the (then rather quirky) concept of closer cooperation between the
Czechs and Slovaks.
TheOldCzechs, backedbythenewCzech industrialists, achieved anumberofminorlegis-
lative successes, but by the 1890s the Young Czechs had gained the upper hand and conflict
between the Czech and German communities became a daily ritual in the boulevards of the
capital - a favourite spot for confrontations being the promenade of Na příkopě. Language
was also a volatile issue, often fought out on the shop and street signs of Prague. In 1897,
