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 WITHDRAWN
 
 BOHEMIA UNDER HAPSBURG 
 MISRULE
 
 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 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 THOMAS CAPEK 
 
 Author of "Slovaks of Hungary," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH
 
 Copyright, 1915, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 New York". . 1 58 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 'izy N. Wabash Ave. 
 ; Toronto; .-25 : Richmond St., W. 
 Lorldon: 21 -Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
 
 Bcbtcatcb 
 
 To the Cause of 
 Bohemian-Slovak Freedom
 
 ' / trust in God that the 
 Government of Thine affairs will again 
 revert to Thee, O Bohemian Peof/ef" 
 
 JOHN AMOS COMENIUS. 
 
 (In exile.)
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE object of this volume is to make Bohemia 
 and her people better known to the English- 
 speaking world. The average English- 
 man's and American's knowledge of Bohemia is 
 very vague. It is only within recent years that 
 Anglo-American writers have begun to take a 
 deeper interest in her people. Among the more 
 prominent students of Bohemian contemporary life 
 should be mentioned: Will S. Monroe, Emily G. 
 Balch, and Herbert Adolphus Miller, in the United 
 States; and A. R. Colquhoun, Richard J. Kelly, 
 F. P. Marchant, James Baker, Wickham H. Steed, 
 Charles Edmund Maurice, W. R. Morfill, and R. 
 W. Seton- Watson in England. Count Liitzow has 
 written in English a number of works on Bohemian 
 matters. 
 
 While it is yet too early to foresee the precise 
 results of the Great War, one may judge of coming 
 events by the shadows they cast before them. A 
 close observer of the Austrian shadows is justified 
 in thinking that the Bohemian people, so long sup- 
 pressed, stand on the threshold of a new destiny. 
 This destiny points to the restoration of their an- 
 cient freedom. If the Allies win and every loyal 
 
 7
 
 8 PREFACE 
 
 son of the Land of Hus fervently wishes that 
 their arms might prevail, notwithstanding the fact 
 that Bohemian soldiers are constrained to fight for 
 the cause of the two Kaisers Bohemia is certain 
 to re-enter the family of self-governing European 
 nations. The proclamation which the Russian 
 Generalissimo addressed to the Poles may be said 
 to apply with equal force to the Bohemians : " The 
 hour has sounded when the sacred dream of your 
 fathers may be realized. . . . Bohemia will be 
 born again, free in her religion, her language, and 
 autonomous. . . . The dawn of a new life begins 
 for you. ... In this glorious dawn is seen the sign 
 of the cross, the symbol of suffering and the resur- 
 rection of a people." 
 
 At the close of the Franco-Prussian War, 
 Frenchmen erected in the Place de la Concorde in 
 Paris the Statue of Strassburg, which they have 
 kept draped, as a sign of mourning for the loss of 
 their beloved Alsace-Lorraine. The Bohemians 
 have grieved for their motherland much longer 
 than the French for the " Lost Provinces." 
 Bohemia put on her mourning garb in 1620, the 
 year her rebel army was defeated by the imperial- 
 ist troops of Ferdinand II., at the Battle of White 
 Mountain near Prague, the capital of the kingdom. 
 May it not be hoped that the joyous moment is near 
 when her sons can substitute for the black and yel-
 
 PREFACE 9 
 
 low of Austria the red and white of Bohemia the 
 colors that Charles Havlicek loved so well. " My 
 colors are red and white," declared this fearless 
 patriot to his Austrian tormentors. " You can 
 promise me, you can threaten me, but a traitor 
 I shall never be." 
 
 Never during the three hundred years of Aus- 
 trian misrule were conditions so propitious for 
 throwing off the shackles of oppression as now. 
 In the darkest hours of national humiliation, the 
 children of Hus and of Komensky (Comenius) did 
 not despair. " We existed before Austria," 
 Palacky used to tell them, " and we shall survive 
 her." May not the words of the " Father of his 
 Country," as Palacky was affectionately called by 
 his countrymen, come true, in view of what is tak- 
 ing place in the Hapsburg Monarchy to-day ? 
 
 With what form of government would Bohemia 
 make her re-entry into the European family of na- 
 tions as a free state, as a dependency of Russia, 
 as a ward of the Allies, or incorporated in a federa- 
 tion of the states remaining to the Hapsburg Em- 
 pire? 
 
 It was a favorite theory of Palacky that the Aus- 
 trian nations would, for their own protection, have 
 to create an Austria, if she were ever destroyed. 
 But what Palacky has said may no longer be true, 
 because the events of 1914 have created issues and
 
 10 PREFACE 
 
 opened up possibilities undreamt of in his times. 
 Palacky, let it be understood, had in mind a Con- 
 federated Austria that should form a bulwark for 
 Small races against German expansion from the 
 north and the west. 
 
 It has been intimated that the Allies might agree 
 to create Bohemia and Hungary as independent 
 buffer states to curb German aggression, just as 
 Belgium and Holland are buffer states between 
 Germany and France. If this war has shown any- 
 thing, it has demonstrated the usefulness of a small 
 state like that of the Belgians. Albania, it will be 
 recalled, had been brought into being by Austria 
 and Italy, not for humanitarian reasons, we may 
 be sure, but to menace and weaken Serbia, of 
 whose growth they were jealous. 
 
 Another probability is that Russia might de- 
 mand, as one of the prizes of war, the cession of the 
 northern part of Austria-Hungary, which is wholly 
 Slavic. She might contend that she could not carry 
 out her traditional policy of guardianship of the 
 Slavs, unless her kinsfolk came under her influence, 
 if not actually under her rule. 
 
 Francis Josef waged two wars in the past, both 
 of which ended disastrously for the empire. Yet 
 from both of these wars good has come to his sub- 
 jects. The campaign in Italy, which resulted in 
 the defeat of the Austrians at Magenta and Sol-
 
 PREFACE 11 
 
 ferine in 1859, dealt a severe blow to the bureau- 
 cracy, liberating, incidentally, the Italians who were 
 trampled under foot by Radecky. As a result of 
 the war with Prussia in 1866, the Magyars came to 
 their own. Hungarian autonomy dates from 1867. 
 Now it is the turn of the Bohemians to profit from 
 Austria's predicament. 
 
 Self-government is not only an ideal but a neces- 
 sity to Bohemians. Why should Bohemia, in addi- 
 tion to paying for her own needs, make good the 
 deficits of lands which are passive, and in whose 
 domestic affairs she has no greater interest than the 
 State of New York has, for instance, in the local 
 constabulary of Nevada? Year after year Bo- 
 hemians justly complain that Vienna wrings mil- 
 lions in taxes from them that it spends on lands 
 that are passive. It is partly this feature of the 
 case, the high revenue flowing from the Bohemian 
 Kingdom, which has made Vienna hostile to the 
 home rule agitation. Is it reasonable to suppose, 
 however, that if Austria could not wholly suppress 
 the national aspiration of Bohemians in times of 
 peace, under normal conditions, she is more likely 
 to accomplish it if she returns home from the war 
 exhausted, humiliated, perchance vanquished? 
 
 It may seem hazardous to forecast Austria's 
 future in the event of the Allies winning. But this 
 much is already apparent, that the Austria of 1914,
 
 IS PREFACE 
 
 the government of which rested on the mediaeval 
 idea that one white race was superior to another 
 white race, is doomed to perish. Austria needed 
 a crushing blow from without, such as a lost war, 
 to send toppling the ramshackle structure that has 
 menaced for so long a time the security of the 
 Slavic inhabitants. For, though rent by internal 
 discord, the monarchy obviously lacked forces 
 powerful enough to effect its own redemption. If 
 the Teutonic forces are beaten, the logical sequel 
 will be the breakdown of the Germanic hegemony 
 and a corresponding rise of Slavism. With Poland 
 resuscitated and Serbia strengthened, Vienna, it 
 is certain, will be powerless to hold the Bohemians 
 down. 
 
 But no matter what may happen, whether Aus- 
 tria-Hungary will remain Hapsburg, whether the 
 Allies will impose their will on her destiny, or 
 whether the Russians will become the masters of 
 the North Slavs, let us hope that the future map- 
 makers will not be military conquerors, as was the 
 case at the Congress of Vienna in 1814, or states- 
 men of the Bismarck type, who, at the Berlin Con- 
 gress in 1878, were determined to separate the peo- 
 ple of one race, instead of uniting them. Let the 
 map-makers be ethnologists who will, wherever 
 practicable, deliminate boundaries according to 
 racial, not political lines, giving German territory
 
 PREFACE 13 
 
 to the Germans, Magyar territory to the people of 
 that race, Slavic lands to the Slavs. 
 
 Bohemia would not assume the serious task of 
 self-government as an inexperienced novice. Bo- 
 hemia is one of the oldest states in Central Europe. 
 As a kingdom she antedates the German kingdoms, 
 not excepting Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria. Some of 
 these were yet minor states when she already played 
 a conspicuous role in the affairs of Europe. In 
 point of population the United States of Bohemia 
 including Bohemia herself, Moravia, Silesia, and 
 Slovakland would have within her borders 2 
 population numbering about 12,000,000. The 
 combined area of the three first-named states is 
 almost twice the size of Switzerland. Prague, the 
 capital, had in 1910 581,163 inhabitants. As a 
 wealth-providing and revenue-yielding country 
 Bohemia stands unrivalled among the Hapsburg 
 States. T. C. 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. HAVE THE BOHEMIANS A PLACE IN THE 
 
 SUN? 17 
 
 Thomas Capek. 
 
 II. THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY . . .113 
 Thomas Capek. 
 
 III. WHY BOHEMIA DESERVES FREEDOM . . 123 
 
 Professor Bohumil Simek. 
 
 IV. THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER . . . 130 
 
 Professor H. A. Miller. 
 
 V. PLACE OF BOHEMIA IN THE CREATIVE 
 
 ARTS 153 
 
 Professor Will S. Monroe. 
 
 VI. THE BOHEMIANS AND THE SLAVIC RE- 
 GENERATION 1 60 
 
 Professor Leo Wiener. 
 
 Addenda. THE BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS . 176 
 Professor Emily G. Balch.
 
 HAVE THE BOHEMIANS A PLACE IN 
 THE SUN? 
 
 BOHEMIA (German Bohmen, Bohemian 
 Cechy *) has an area of 20,223 square 
 miles, and is bounded on the north by 
 Saxony and Prussian Silesia; on the east by Prus- 
 sia and Moravia; on the south by Lower Austria; 
 on the west by Bavaria. According to the census 
 of 1910, 4,241,918 inhabitants declared for Bo- 
 hemian and 2,467,724 for the German language. 
 Historians recognize two epochal events in the 
 life of the nation. The first begins with the out- 
 break of the Hussite wars, following the death of 
 King Vaclav IV. in 1419; the second, with the 
 battle of White Mountain in 1620. The period 
 
 * The word Czech, which is being freely used in the Anglo-Amer- 
 ican press, is a corrupt form of Cech. The German form is Czech, 
 Tscheche, the French Tcheque. But, inasmuch as Cech is sounded 
 more nearly like Checkh and not Czech, the form Czech fails utterly 
 of its purpose and its use should be discontinued. The people them- 
 selves prefer to be called Bohemians, not Czechs, which latter appella- 
 tion 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 in tendency, " Cechische 
 Revue," instead of " Bohmische Revue." The truth of the matter is 
 that the appellation Czech is an invention of Vienna journalists, who, 
 by persistent use of the term, wish to give a warning to the world 
 that Bohemia is not all Cech, but part German and part Cech. 
 
 17
 
 18 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 intervening between the first two events is re- 
 ferred to as the Middle Age. That which pre- 
 ceded the Hussite wars is called the Old Age, and, 
 that which followed the defeat at White Moun- 
 tain, the New Age. 
 
 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 
 
 The Margravate of Moravia, a sister state of 
 Bohemia, and one of her crown-lands, contains an 
 area of 8,583 square miles. The population of 
 Moravia is 1,868,971 Bohemians and 719,435 
 Germans. 
 
 The third crown-land of Bohemia is the Duchy 
 of Silesia, with an area of 1,987 square miles. 
 The population is divided as follows: 180,348 
 Bohemians, 325,523 Germans, 235,224 Poles.* 
 
 Although statisticians found in Austria, in 
 1910, only 6,435,983 Bohemians, it is generally 
 known that the actual figure is higher by several 
 hundred thousands. Singularly enough, the test 
 in Austria of one's nationality is not the mother 
 
 * Silesia was much larger, but Frederick II. of Prussia despoiled 
 Maria Theresa in 1742 of a major portion of it. Thus was created 
 Prussian Silesia and Austrian Silesia. In Macaulay's " Life of Fred- 
 erick the Great," we read why the Prussian King 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 con- 
 versations and Memoirs he took a very different tone. His own words 
 were: " Ambition, interest, the desire of making people talk about 
 me, carried the day; and I decided for war." If there is a rectifica- 
 tion of Prussian boundary after the war, a portion of Prussian 
 Silesia, that is still Bohemian, should be returned to Austrian 
 Silesia.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 19 
 
 tongue of the citizen, as elsewhere, but the lingual 
 medium which one employs in daily association 
 with others. This medium the statisticians desig- 
 nate the " Verkehrsprache " the " Language of 
 Association." The first decennial census, under 
 this novel system, was taken in 1880, and the re- 
 sults thereby obtained pleased Vienna so well that 
 the method has remained in use ever since. When 
 the matter was debated in parliament in 1880 the 
 Bohemians and other Slavs indignantly protested 
 against it as unscientific and as a device dictated 
 by political motives. A census so taken, they con- 
 tended, was calculated to raise by artful means the 
 numerical strength of the Germans and to deduce 
 from it the superior importance to the state of the 
 Germanic element to the disadvantage of the non- 
 Germans.* It was argued that the mother tongue 
 of the citizens should serve as the test of one's 
 nationality, not the language in which the Slavic 
 workman may be compelled to address his German 
 employer or a Slavic subaltern his German military 
 superior. But, as usual, Slavic opposition was 
 over-ridden. Even fair-minded Austrians con- 
 demned the system as unscientific. Innama- 
 
 * Representation in parliament being determinable by the result of 
 the enumeration, one can at once see of what vital concern it is to 
 non-Germans to obtain a census free from political bias. As matters 
 are, the Germans constitute 35 per cent, of the population, yet have 
 52 per cent, representation in the Reichsrath (parliament), while 24 
 per cent. Bohemians are represented in parliament only by 17 per 
 cent
 
 20 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Sternegg, for instance, deplored the fact that the 
 empire should have recourse to the " Verkehr- 
 sprache " test for political purposes. On this 
 ground Austrian official figures should be scruti- 
 nized with extreme caution. It has repeatedly been 
 proven by private census-takers that the official 
 census is unreliable, and that it grossly under- 
 estimates the numerical strength of the Bohemians. 
 
 From an agricultural state, that it was until re- 
 cently, Bohemia is rapidly changing into an indus- 
 trial state. Two of the most valuable products, 
 which make for the wealth of industrial countries, 
 namely, coal and iron, the hills of Bohemia contain 
 in abundance. Among her specialties, which have 
 acquired world-wide renown, are decorated and 
 engraved glassware, beer (Pilsener), high-class 
 cotton textiles and linen goods, grass seeds, em- 
 broidery, hops, fezzes worn by the Mohammedan 
 people of the Orient, toys, etc. 
 
 From times immemorial, Bohemia has been the 
 battle-ground between the Slav and the Teuton. A 
 glance at the map of Central Europe will tell the 
 story. Most westerly of all the Slavic peoples, the 
 Bohemians are surrounded on the north, west, and 
 south by Germans. Only on the south and east 
 frontiers are there strips of territory that connect 
 them with kindred races. More than once the Ger- 
 manic sea has threatened to engulf them in the
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 21 
 
 same way that it swept away the Slavic tribes 
 that lived north of them in Lusatia and of whose 
 existence nothing now remains but the Slavic 
 names of rivers and cities. The struggle for su- 
 premacy in Bohemia may be said to have begun the 
 year the fabled leader Cech, in the gray dawn of 
 history (about 450 A.D.), migrated to the country, 
 having dispossessed the non-Slavic tribes of Boii, 
 from whom Bohemia acquired her name. The Hus- 
 site wars in the fifteenth century are popularly be- 
 lieved to have been waged to free men's intellects 
 from the spiritual trammels of Rome; yet in the last 
 analysis it will be found that the Hussites, in mak- 
 ing war on the invaders who poured into the coun- 
 try from Germany, rejoiced in vanquishing alike 
 the foes of their race and the oppressors of their 
 conscience. Such, at least, is the conviction that 
 one acquires in perusing those chapters of the 
 history of the country that treat of the Hussite 
 wars. 
 
 Jointly with Moravia, Bohemia formed the 
 nucleus of the Bohemian State; this state had 
 never ceased to be Bohemian-Slavic in character, 
 though at times ruled by alien kings. The whole 
 of Silesia and both Lusatias (Upper and Lower) 
 also constituted part and parcel of this state, yet 
 the latter were never so closely affiliated with 
 Bohemia as Moravia had been, because the in-
 
 22 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 habitants of the Lusatias were not by origin or 
 preponderatingly Bohemian, but of Polish and 
 Serb (Wend) ancestry, having been largely Ger- 
 manized at the time they passed under the rule of 
 the Bohemian Kings in the fourteenth century. 
 
 Generally speaking, the Bohemians inhabited 
 the flat lands of the interior, while the Germans 
 overflowed the border line on the south, west, and 
 north, forming an almost uninterrupted chain of 
 settlements. As a matter of fact, however, there 
 is no compact, unmixed German territory in Bo- 
 hemia, which is exclusively German and into 
 which the Bohemian workman, going in search of 
 employment to the mines, mills, and shops in the 
 northwest, has not penetrated, and in which he has 
 not domiciled himself. The invasion of Bohemian 
 workmen has virtually rendered bilingual every 
 such Germanized district where industrialism 
 flourishes. 
 
 So intermixed are the two races on the border 
 line that a person cannot say confidently that his 
 ancestry is either pure German or pure Bohemian. 
 Observe, for example, the names of Bohemian lead- 
 ers: Rieger, Brauner, Gregr, Zeithammer. They 
 have an unmistakable Teutonic ring. Again, note 
 the names of Schmeykal, Tascheck, Chlumecky, 
 and Giskra, who lead the German cohorts. These 
 clearly betray Slavic origin. It has been remarked
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 23 
 
 sarcastically that the Bohemians were really Ger- 
 man-speaking Slavs. Certain it is that their asso- 
 ciation of more than a thousand years' duration 
 with Teutonic neighbors resulted in their accept- 
 ing many of the latter's customs and western cul- 
 ture. Then, too, foreigners have noticed in 
 Bohemians a degree of aggressiveness that they 
 claim is singularly lacking in the make-up of the 
 other Slavs. This trait, aggressiveness, may have 
 been inherited as a result of an almost ceaseless 
 struggle for national existence. It is not improb- 
 able, however, that the racial mixture above men- 
 tioned may have been one of the contributing 
 causes. 
 
 Fear of the Teutonic peril has always har- 
 ried the soul of the nation. ^Every historian, every 
 poet, every patriot has admonished the people 
 to be on their guard. One of the oldest chorals 
 extant contains the pathetic invocation to the 
 patron saint of the country. " St. Vaclav, Duke of 
 the Bohemian Land, do not let us perish nor our 
 descendants." 
 
 In course of time many Germans and denational- 
 ized Bohemians were Bohemianized, so that it is 
 hazardous to guess whether in Bohemia and 
 Moravia more Germans adopted the Bohemian 
 language than Bohemians the German. The final 
 sum of this process of assimilation seems to be
 
 24 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 that the Bohemians constitute more than two-thirds 
 and the Germans less than one-third of the entire 
 population of the kingdom. 
 
 As regards the ownership of land, Bohemians 
 hold about three-fifths of the soil, in Moravia three- 
 fourths. If it is true that the people with a future 
 is the one that owns the land, then the future of 
 Bohemians is clearly assured. Looking backward, 
 it was very fortunate for the nation that in the 
 days of its deepest abasement the peasant was not 
 allowed to dispose of his holdings at will, other- 
 wise the inrush of the Teutons would have still 
 more reduced the national area. 
 
 If we accept literacy as one of the tests of the 
 culture of a people, it will be found that the Bo- 
 hemians rank highest among the Slavic races, sur- 
 passing even Austrian-Germans and Hungarian 
 Magyars. According to the official reports of the 
 Commissioner of Immigration in Washington, the 
 number of illiterates among Bohemians is less 
 than 3 per cent., Slovaks 25 per cent., Serbo- 
 Croatians, 38 per cent., Poles 40 per cent., Little 
 Russians (Ruthenes), 63 per cent. Among the 
 non-Slavic immigrants from Austria-Hungary to 
 America the percentages of illiteracy are as fol- 
 lows: Germans 4 per cent., Magyars 12 per cent., 
 Italians 23 per cent., Jews 23 per cent., Rumuns 
 29 per cent.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 25 
 
 It may not be uninteresting to note, as indicative 
 of the position held by Bohemians among the Slavs, 
 the number of newspapers circulated in Slavdom.* 
 The Lusatian Serbs, a remnant of a once populous 
 Slavic branch in Germany, support n publica- 
 tions; Slovaks, 53 (4 of which are dailies); 
 Slovenes, no (5 dailies); Bulgars, 300 (19 
 dailies) ; Serbo-Croatians, 350 (37 dailies) ; Poles, 
 600 (78 dailies); Bohemians, 1,400 (34 dailies), 
 and Russians, 1,800 (315 dailies). From this 
 statistical fragment it will be seen that a little 
 country like Bohemia takes very favorable rank 
 when compared with the great Russian Empire. 
 
 At home the Bohemian is looked upon as a pro- 
 gressive agriculturist, and American tourists who 
 have traveled in the country have been favorably 
 impressed with the orderliness of the farms and 
 the high state of cultivation of the land. In the 
 great agricultural belt formed by the States of 
 Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, 
 and the Dakotas there are large settlements of 
 Bohemians (about one-half of the Bohemian popu- 
 lation in the United States devoting itself to farm- 
 ing), and their farms are known to bear favorable 
 comparison with the homesteads owned by land- 
 tillers of Scandinavian and Teuton ancestry. 
 
 The fact that a particular faith was denied him 
 
 * "The Slavdom : Picture of Its Past and Present," Prague, 1912.
 
 26 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 and he was required to accept a different creed, 
 has made the Bohemian one of the most liberal- 
 minded of men, in many instances a sceptic and 
 a scoffer. Possibly there is no other foreign na- 
 tionality in the United States that can boast trans- 
 lations in the vernacular of Thomas Paine and of 
 other advanced thinkers as early as the Bo- 
 hemians. 
 
 Economically the Germans are stronger than any 
 other one race in the empire. Much of their un- 
 questioned primacy in the realm of commerce and 
 industry is due to the fact that everywhere they 
 enjoy special favors from the government. Then, 
 too, the Slav, who is by preference a land-tiller 
 (as is also the Magyar), is still a novice in busi- 
 ness. The vast economic interests of the Jews are 
 found wholly on the side of the Germans. Ernest 
 Denis believes that German primacy in commerce 
 may yet continue for some time to come, because 
 the districts inhabited by them in Bohemia offer 
 greater inducements to the investor and the capi- 
 talist, owing to the wealth of mineral riches found 
 along the northwest frontier. It is, however, Denis' 
 opinion that the existing inequality in the distribu- 
 tion of industrial wealth will diminish as years 
 go by ; democracy, marching as it does everywhere 
 at the expense of the upper classes, will level it
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 87 
 
 down and give the Bohemian majority its share in 
 commerce and industry. 
 
 THE DOWNFALL 
 
 The Bohemians preserved their independence 
 till 1620. That year they rebelled against the king 
 for political and religious reasons and were de- 
 feated at the battle of White Hill (Bila Hora) near 
 Prague. From the effects of this disastrous event 
 the nation has never recovered, for even now, after 
 the lapse of 295 years, the scars received at Bila 
 Hora are not wholly healed. 
 
 Ferdinand II. punished the rebels with tradi- 
 tional Austrian fury. On June 21, 1621, he 
 caused the execution at Prague of twenty-seven 
 leaders of the revolution all men belonging to the 
 most noted families in the country. A number of 
 them were condemned to humiliating physical pun- 
 ishment and the estates of all were confiscated. 
 The first to lay his head on the block of the exe- 
 cutioner was Count Joachim Andrew Slik 
 (Schlick). During the interregnum Slik had been 
 a Director; besides, he had served as Chief Justice 
 and Governor of Upper Lusatia. The next victim 
 was Vaclav Budovec of Budova, " a man of splen- 
 did talents and illustrious learning, distinguished 
 as a writer, widely known as a traveler, and an 
 ornament to his country." Pelcl said of Budova
 
 28 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 that he belonged " to that old cast of serious, 
 thoughtful, inflexible Bohemians, by which the na- 
 tion was characterized in the fifteenth and six- 
 teenth centuries." The third to suffer was Chris- 
 topher Harant of Polzic, " a learned man, dis- 
 tinguished writer, and noted traveler." The next 
 on the death list was Caspar Kaplif of Sulevic, a 
 venerable man of eighty-six. The fifth was 
 Prokop Dvofecky of Olbramovic, a scion of an old 
 family. The sixth was Baron Frederick Bily, 
 " an upright and learned man, one of the Directors 
 at the time of the interregnum." The seventh, 
 Henry Otto of Los, who, under Frederick, was 
 connected with the exchequer. Then followed suc- 
 cessively Dionys Cernin, William Konechlumsky, 
 aged seventy years, Bohuslav of Michalovic, " a 
 man of splendid talents who deserved well of his 
 country," Valentine Kochan of Prachov, a learned 
 master of arts; Tobias Stefek of Kolodej, a citizen 
 of Prague and a Director of the Revolution ; John 
 Jesensky of Jesen (Jessenius), a scholar, scientist, 
 and orator, " whose writings shed lustre on the 
 university;" Christopher Kober, a noted citizen of 
 Prague; Burgomasters John Sultys of Kutna Hora 
 and Maximilian Hosfalek of 2atec (Saaz), (the 
 two latter having been Directors during the in- 
 terregnum), John Kutnaur, a Councilor of Prague, 
 Kutnaur's father-in-law Simon Susicky, Nathaniel
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 29 
 
 Vodnansky of Uracov, Vaclav Jizbicky. The last 
 to undergo death were Henry Kozel, Andrew 
 Kocour of Otin, George Recicky, Michael Witt- 
 man, Simon Vokac of Chys and Spicberk, Leander 
 Riippel, and George Hauenschild. On the tower 
 of the ancient Charles Bridge, which connects the 
 Old Town with the Small Town in Prague, twelve 
 heads of the rebels were set up in small wire cages, 
 six on each side of the tower, to awe the populace. 
 There these gruesome evidences of Hapsburg 
 hatred remained for years. On the same tower 
 were exposed to public view the hands of Slik and 
 Michalovic and the tongue of Jesensky. Riippel's 
 head and hand were nailed on the wall of the 
 Town House. 
 
 So ended the " Bloody Day at Prague " a day 
 that Bohemians may have forgiven, but which 
 none have forgotten. What now followed is prob- 
 ably without parallel in the history of European 
 nations. Edmund de Schweinitz, in commenting 
 on the consequences of the Bohemian Revolution, 
 says that " in the history of Christendom there 
 were few events more mournful. From the pin- 
 nacle of prosperity Bohemia and Moravia were 
 plunged into the depths of adversity." 
 
 The month the executions took place, the em- 
 peror, or rather the so-called Liechtenstein's Com- 
 mission on Confiscations which had been appointed
 
 SO BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 by the emperor, pronounced forfeiture on the 
 estates of 658 landowners of the nobility out of 
 a total of 728, whose names were on the list of 
 accused. Thomas Bilek, a writer of unimpeach- 
 able authority, has published a voluminous book 
 on these confiscations from which it would appear 
 that the Liechtenstein Commission had confiscated 
 fully two-thirds of all the lands in Bohemia. Some 
 of the choicest estates taken away from the rebels 
 the emperor retained for the Hapsburg family. 
 A goodly portion of the forfeited lands was given 
 to the church, of which the emperor was a devout 
 member. " Take, fathers, take," he used to say to 
 the ecclesiastics when endowing this or that 
 foundation with gifts of confiscated estates. " It 
 is not always that you will have a Ferdinand." 
 Still other lands reverted to the state. What was 
 left the emperor magnanimously distributed among 
 those of his favorites whose military prowess in 
 the rebellion entitled them to some special recog- 
 nition or compensation. Albrecht, Count of Wal- 
 lenstein or Waldstein, at one time a Generalissimo 
 of Ferdinand's army against Gustavus Adolphus, 
 was able to " purchase " sixty confiscated estates 
 of an enormous value. 
 
 Struve has remarked that of all the nobles in 
 he world those in the Hapsburg Monarchy had
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN .81 
 
 probably the least reason to boast of their ancestry. 
 This is especially true of the nobility whose ad- 
 vent into Bohemia antedates the first half of the 
 seventeenth century. From the events here re- 
 lated began the rise in Bohemia of such families 
 as Buquoy, Clary de Riva, Aldringen, Trautmans- 
 dorff, Metternich, Marradas, Verduga, Colloredo, 
 Piccolomini, Wallis, Gallas, Millesimo, Liechten- 
 stein, Goltz, Villani, Defours, Huerta, Vasques 
 names indicating Spanish, Italian, German, and 
 Walloon birth. These aliens, enriched by property 
 taken away from Bohemian nobility, surrounded 
 themselves with foreign officials, who treated the 
 natives with the scorn and insolence of victors. 
 Their chateaux formed in many cases the nucleus 
 of German settlements which later threatened to 
 overwhelm the nation. Some of these " islands," 
 or settlements, which were situated farther inland, 
 were in time absorbed by the native population. 
 But not so with the colonies on the border. These 
 latter not only preserved the lingual and national 
 characteristics of the owners, but they even con- 
 trived to Germanize the home element that came 
 into contact with them. It was during this calami- 
 tous period that the Germans made the greatest in- 
 roads upon Bohemian national territory. 
 
 Prior to the Thirty Years' War Bohemia was
 
 32 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 overwhelmingly Protestant,* but Ferdinand deter- 
 mined that in his empire there should be " unity 
 of faith and tongue." A unity of faith he and 
 his successors have achieved, but it has been de- 
 nied to the Hapsburgs much as they have tried to 
 achieve it the unity of language. 
 
 In 1620 Jesuit fathers were invited to come to 
 Bohemia and to take charge of the once renowned 
 University of Prague and of the provincial schools. 
 " The Jesuits buried the spirit of the Bohemian 
 nation for centuries." This is the severe judg- 
 ment of no less a person than V. V. Tomek, the 
 noted historian. Accompanied by Liechtenstein's 
 dragoons these ecclesiastics went from town to 
 town, searched libraries, carried off books written 
 in Bohemian and burned them whether they were 
 " tainted " or not. Sometimes the books were pri- 
 vately thrown in the flames in the houses where they 
 had been seized ; at other times they were brought 
 to the market-place or to the public gallows and 
 there publicly burned. The Jesuits were indefati- 
 gable in their search for heretical literature, ran- 
 sacking houses from cellar to garret, opening every 
 closet and chest, prying into the very dog kennels 
 and pig-sties. People hid their most precious 
 
 * Now of every 1,000 inhabitants in Bohemia 956.61 profess the 
 Catholic faith. Due to various reasons spiritual, political, and histor- 
 ical more than one-half of the American Bohemians have seceded 
 from the Catholic Church. Some have joined various Protestant 
 sects, but the majority of the sesessionists are Free-thinker t.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 33 
 
 books from the ferreting eyes of the inquisition- 
 ers in baking ovens, cellars, and caves. There are 
 cases on record of rare Bohemian volumes having 
 been saved from destruction by being hidden under 
 manure piles. 
 
 One zealot, Konias by name, boasted that he 
 had burned or otherwise mutilated 60,000 Bo- 
 hemian volumes. According to him " all 
 Bohemian books printed between the years 1414 
 and 1620, treating of religious subjects, were gen- 
 erally dangerous and suspicious." From their seat 
 in the Clementinum (Prague University) they pre- 
 sided over the intellectual life of the country; 
 that is to say, they wholly suppressed it. In order 
 to more systematically supervise the work, a censor 
 was appointed by them for each of the three 
 lands, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, and it 
 was the duty of this censor to see to it that no 
 books were published or reprinted that did not 
 meet the approval of the general of the order. 
 Easy was the labor of the censor, for in Moravia, 
 for instance, only one printer was fortunate enough 
 to secure a license. In Bohemia they set up the so- 
 called University Printing Office. Besides this 
 only five or six other establishments were licensed 
 to print books. In a few decades these zealots 
 destroyed Bohemian literature altogether. The 
 almanacs, tracts, hymnals, and prayer books that
 
 34 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 issued from their printing presses could not be 
 dignified by the term literature. Count Liitzow, 
 in his " History of Bohemian Literature," frankly 
 admits that, with few exceptions, all the men who, 
 during the last years of Bohemian independence, 
 were most prominent in literature and politics 
 belonged to the Bohemian Church. Living in 
 exile in foreign countries, there was no one left 
 at home to resume their tasks. 
 
 Ferdinand began his anti-reformation crusade 
 in earnest in 1621. In December of that year he 
 issued a patent by virtue of which about one thou- 
 sand teachers and ministers of the gospel of the Bo- 
 hemian Church were forced to leave the country. 
 The Lutherans did not come under this ban, inas- 
 much as the emperor was anxious to please his 
 ally, the Elector of Saxony, who pleaded clem- 
 ency for his co-religionists. In 1624 seven patents 
 were promulgated. Some of these were directed 
 against the laity, which, till then, had escaped the 
 wrath of the conqueror. It ordered the expulsion 
 from trade guilds of all those who could not agree 
 with the emperor in matters of faith. Discrimina- 
 tory measures against nonconformist merchants 
 and traders went into effect, which quickly resulted 
 in their ruin. Another patent, bearing date July 
 31, 1627, was more severe than those preceding it. 
 By it dissenters of both sexes and irrespective of
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 35 
 
 rank were ordered to renounce their faith within 
 six months, or failing to do so, leave the country. 
 The operation of this patent extended to Moravia, 
 but not to Silesia and Lusatia. The two latter- 
 named provinces had been spared because of a 
 promise given by the emperor to the Elector of 
 Saxony. 
 
 So severely did the country suffer by forced ex- 
 patriation, as a result of these edicts, that Ferdi- 
 nand saw himself compelled to issue other patents 
 to check it. In the hope of conciliating he remitted 
 fines in certain cases, discontinued suits for trea- 
 son, and made restitution of confiscated property. 
 In some cases he extended the time within which 
 heretics could become reconciled with the church, 
 but the clemency was extended too late, for while 
 some individuals yielded to the formidable pres- 
 sure, the great mass of nonconformists, com- 
 prising the very flower of the nation, were deter- 
 mined rather to lose their property and leave the 
 fatherland than to renounce that which they held 
 most sacred. 
 
 Count Slavata, who himself took no inconsider- 
 able part in this terrible drama of anti-reformation, 
 and who, owing to his religious convictions, cannot 
 be accused of partiality, is authority for the state- 
 ment that about 36,000 families, including 185 
 houses of nobility (some of these houses num-
 
 36 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 bered as many as 50 persons each), statesmen, 
 distinguished authors, professors, preachers, 
 spurning to accept the emperor's terms, went into 
 exile. 
 
 In 1627 Ferdinand promulgated what he desig- 
 nated the " Amended Statute." The " amend- 
 ment " really consisted in the abolishment of those 
 ancient rights and liberties of the land which were 
 incompatible with autocratic powers. 
 
 Under the " Amended Statute " the kingdom, 
 heretofore free to elect its sovereign, was declared 
 to be an hereditary possession, both in the male and 
 female line, of the Hapsburg family. The three 
 estates lords, knights, and the cities which till 
 then constituted the legislative branch of the gov- 
 ernment, were augmented by a fourth unit, the 
 clergy. The fourth estate was destined to exercise, 
 as subsequent events have shown, the greatest in- 
 fluence on the affairs of the government. The Diet 
 at Prague was divested practically of all its power 
 and initiative; from now on its sole function was 
 to levy and collect taxes. And because the king 
 had invited to the country so many alien nobles 
 (or commoners later ennobled) who were ignorant 
 of the language of the land, the amended statute 
 provided that henceforth the German language 
 should enjoy equal rights with the Bohemian. A 
 disastrous blow to the unity of the Bohemian
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 37 
 
 Crown was further dealt by the annulment of the 
 right of the estates in Bohemia, Moravia, and 
 Silesia to meet at a General Assembly for the 
 purpose of deliberating on matters common to 
 the crown. By this clever stroke the emperor tore 
 asunder the ancient ties of the kingdom. He 
 rightly reasoned that by isolating each of the in- 
 tegral parts of the kingdom he could easier hope 
 to hold in leash the whole of it. 
 
 In time the administration of the Bohemian 
 Crown was entrusted to an executive who received 
 the title of Chancellor, and when the kings no 
 longer resided in Prague, having taken up a 
 permanent abode in Vienna, the Chancellory was 
 removed thither, ostensibly on the ground that 
 the Chancellor was required to be near the person 
 of the sovereign. In reality, however, the trans- 
 fer was a part of a preconceived plan to make 
 Vienna the centre of the empire, from which the 
 Hapsburg " provinces " were to be ruled. Under 
 one pretext or another the Chancellory was being 
 gradually shorn of its powers, until Maria Theresa 
 (1740-1780) abolished it altogether. Henceforth 
 even purely local matters were administered from 
 Vienna direct, and the officials began to style 
 the once proud kingdom a " province of Aus- 
 tria." 
 
 During the Thirty Years' War thousands of vil-
 
 38 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 lages were destroyed by fire and many of them 
 have never been rebuilt. The population, which 
 before the war was estimated at 3,000,000, was 
 reduced by fire, sword, and pestilence to about 
 800,000. Fields lay fallow for years for lack of 
 workers to cultivate them. Of the 151,000 farms 
 before the war hardly 50,000 remained. Native 
 nobility was reduced to beggary by the confisca- 
 tion of their estates, and the peasantry that sur- 
 vived was reduced by alien lords to a degrading 
 condition of serfdom. Between 1621 and 1630 400 
 Prague citizens went into exile. The Nove Mesto 
 (one of the Prague quarters) alone had at one 
 time 500 vacant houses. The town of 2atec, which 
 in 1618 had 460 citizens, counted ten years later 
 205 of them. In Kutna Hora, of a total of 
 600 houses, 200 remained without owners or 
 tenants. The population of the city of Olomouc in 
 Moravia, by 1640, was reduced from 30,000 to 
 1,670. Wherever the armies marched nothing 
 was seen but waste and ruins. According to notes 
 taken by Swedish soldiers, 138 cities and 2,171 
 villages were totally ravaged by fire. The textile 
 industry, which had been the source of the wealth 
 of the country, was almost wholly destroyed by 
 the war. 
 
 The defeat at White Mountain could not have 
 been productive of such disastrous consequences
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 39 
 
 had it not been for the fact that the nobles were 
 the standard-bearers of Bohemian nationalism and 
 the sole representatives of the nation's culture and 
 traditions. The peasantry in those days and for 
 a long time afterward was yet helplessly dependent 
 on the aristocracy. 
 
 Bohemian Huguenots were scattered over every 
 land in Central Europe, most of them seeking 
 refuge in nearby Saxony, Silesia, Hungary, and 
 Poland. Many emigrated to more distant lands, 
 such as Sweden, serving in the army of Gustavus 
 Adolphus, Russia, Holland, England. A few of 
 the more adventurous spirits wandered off with 
 the English and the Dutch to America. One of 
 them, Augustine Herman, a noted figure among 
 the early Dutch in New Amsterdam, made an 
 attempt to establish a colony of compatriots on a 
 grant of land that he had received from Lord 
 Baltimore and which he named in honor of his 
 native land, Bohemia Manor, a place famous in 
 early Maryland history. Numerous exiles settled 
 in the first half of the seventeenth century in Vir- 
 ginia. In the beginning the exiles hoped to be 
 permitted to return home, but the terms of the 
 Peace of Westphalia (1648) made such a return 
 definitely impossible. They repeatedly called for 
 help. Oliver Cromwell, it is said, had a project 
 under consideration whereby Bohemian exiles were
 
 40 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 to be settled in Ireland. John Amos Comenius, the 
 bishop of the Bohemian Church, a distinguished 
 educator, himself an exile living in Holland, pre- 
 sented the history of his church to King Charles 
 II. of England in 1660, with a stirring account of 
 its suffering. 
 
 Suspecting that the dissenters were yet unsup- 
 pressed, the government caused other patents to be 
 issued, one of which, published in 1650, imposed 
 severe penalties such as the billeting of troops, 
 banishment from the country, confiscation of prop- 
 erty and, in extreme cases, death. A patent dated 
 April gth of that year required that within six 
 weeks all parishes should instal conformist clergy 
 or close. Under Josef I. (1705-1711), and again 
 under Charles VI. (1711-1740), the work of anti- 
 reformation was renewed with increased severity. 
 Loyal subjects were enjoined under pain of death 
 from harboring or aiding heretic teachers or min- 
 isters, the reading and smuggling into the country 
 or otherwise circulating Bohemian books on the 
 prohibited list. Other patents followed in 1721, 
 1722, 1723, 1724, 1725, 1726, with the result that 
 non-Catholics who still secretly clung to the for- 
 bidden faith emigrated to Saxony and Prussia, 
 where they sought the protection of the rulers of 
 those countries. The suffering of the unfortunates
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 41 
 
 was somewhat, though not wholly, relieved when 
 the German princes, assembled in the Diet at 
 Regensburg in 1735, sent a strong appeal to the 
 Austrian Emperor to treat his subjects with more 
 toleration. When the Edict of Toleration was 
 issued in 1781, permitting free worship, there still 
 remained in Bohemia about 100,000 Protestants.* 
 Of the refugees who fled to Germany in the first 
 quarter of the eighteenth century many found their 
 way with the Herrnhuters, or Moravians, as they 
 are called in the United States, to Georgia, and 
 others to Pennsylvania, where they established, in 
 1741, the flourishing town of Bethlehem, now the 
 recognized centre of the Moravian Church in the 
 United States. t 
 
 * However, the Patent of Tolerance extended only to Protestants of 
 the Helvetian and Augsburg Confessions, not to the Bohemian Church, 
 which latter had been denied recognition. 
 
 t On February 9, 1748, a bill was introduced in the English Parlia- 
 ment "to relieve the United Brethren (so-called in Comenius' time), 
 or Moravians, from military duties and taking oaths." Among the 
 speakers was General Oglethorpe, who spoke in support of the bill. 
 " In the year 1683 a most pathetic account of these brethren was 
 published by order of Archbishop Bancroft 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 Episco- 
 pal Churches, and letters patent for their support were issued soon 
 after. But since 1724 circumstances have altered for the better, and 
 they have wonderfully revived, increased and spread in several coun- 
 tries. They have even made some settlements in America. In the 
 province of Pennsylvania they have about 800 people to whom the 
 proprietor and Governor gave very good character."
 
 42 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 GERMANIZATION AND THE AWAKENING 
 
 Germanization, as a matter of fact, was pur- 
 sued in Bohemia by every Hapsburg, though the 
 rulers of that house have not planned it as sys- 
 tematically as Maria Theresa or her son, Josef II. 
 Centralism, to be successful and powerful, re- 
 quired the levelling of the differences of speech 
 and of race. Every Hapsburg ruler had been edu- 
 cated to the belief that he was rendering a supreme 
 service to his subjects by forcing them " to unlearn 
 the barbaric language of their sires, which iso- 
 lated them from the rest of the world." " He who 
 knows only Bohemian and Latin," declared Coun- 
 cilor Gebler, in 1765, " is bound to make a poor 
 scholar, and it were better for him to stick to 
 the plow and to the trade; there are too many 
 Latin scholars as it is." More and more the 
 conviction gained ground that a language like 
 the Bohemian, spoken but by a few millions of 
 people, was valueless, and that it would be a folly 
 for the government to aid in its restoration. 
 
 Austrian statesmen were determined to impose 
 German at one time even on the unsuspecting 
 Galicians, though in Galicia there were no Ger- 
 mans at all, only Poles and Russians. Discoursing 
 upon the worth or the lack of value of languages 
 ef small nations, Denis says : " These arguments
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 43 
 
 may be true, but unfortunately they could be ap- 
 plied to every language in the world." 
 
 In 1774 a detailed plan for the Germanization 
 of schools in the empire was submitted to Maria 
 Theresa. This plan provided for German schools 
 and none others. By " mother " language was 
 meant the German. Bohemian was permitted in 
 the primary or lowest grades of the school. No 
 pupil could enter a gymnasium (secondary school) 
 who had not had a previous training in German. 
 Fortunately for the non-Germans of that period, 
 progress was less rapid than had been generally 
 expected. Schoolmasters were scarce and pupils, 
 not understanding the language of the teachers, 
 advanced but slowly. As a result of all this, the 
 queen, though unwilling, was compelled to make 
 concessions here and there and to proceed less ag- 
 gressively. 
 
 A noted writer has truthfully said that in the 
 eighteenth century Bohemians were outcasts in 
 their own country. A lad who wanted to learn a 
 trade had to attend a German school for appren- 
 tices, and only pupils knowing German were en- 
 titled to receive stipends. In the secondary schools 
 in Bohemia the vernacular was treated as a " for- 
 eign " language. A professor was required to 
 qualify in Latin and Greek, yet no one questioned 
 whether or not he knew the tongue of the na-
 
 44 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 tives. Pupils were educated in German to be able 
 to perform the work of janissaries on the people 
 of their own race. Slowly but steadily Bohemian 
 was likewise forced out of the courts. Laws were 
 promulgated in the German language. The Bo- 
 hemian began to lose ground in the highest courts 
 of justice; gradually it was forced out from the 
 inferior courts. After 1749 law documents in Bo- 
 hemian became rarer. When, in 1788, Count 
 Cavriani moved that only certain notices be pub- 
 lished in that language, the motion was passed 
 without opposition. From that time on German 
 took its place as the official language in the king- 
 dom. 
 
 Can we wonder then that, pressed as it was on 
 four sides by the church, the state, the school, 
 and the dominant classes of the population the 
 tongue of Hus and Comenius lost ground almost 
 altogether? And who saved it from utter extinc- 
 tion ? It was the lowly peasant who continued giv- 
 ing it shelter under his thatched roof, long after it 
 had been expelled from the proud chateaux of the 
 nobility and disowned by the middle classes. The 
 peasant preserved the language for the literary 
 men who rescued from oblivion this precious gift 
 for future generations. " It is admitted by all," 
 said Palacky, " that the resuscitation of the na- 
 tion was accomplished wholly by our writers.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 45 
 
 These men saved the language; they carried the 
 banner which they wished the nation to follow. 
 Literature was the fountain spring of our national 
 life, and the literati placed themselves at the fore- 
 front of the revivalist movement." 
 
 The diet of the kingdom recommended, in 1790, 
 that Bohemian should be introduced at least in cer- 
 tain secondary schools, preferably in Prague, but 
 the Austrian world of officialdom was opposed 
 even to this concession. " No one threatens the 
 life of the Bohemian tongue," protested these offi- 
 cials. " The government cannot antagonize the 
 feeling of the most influential and wealthiest 
 classes who use German, if not exclusively, at 
 least overwhelmingly. Moreover, to encourage 
 Bohemian would be to lose sight of the idea of 
 the unification of the empire. The state must not 
 deprive the Bohemians of the blessing and of the 
 opportunity that emanate from the knowledge of 
 German. Useful though Bohemian may be, its 
 study must not be at the expense of German." 
 
 Two important events, both of which occurred 
 toward the end of the eighteenth century, helped 
 to awaken the soul of the prostrate nation. One 
 was the determination of Emperor Josef II. to 
 make the empire a German state, as has already 
 been pointed out. But a greater incentive than 
 Josef's coercive measures were the inspiring ideals
 
 46 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 of the first French Revolution which found their 
 way even to far-off Bohemia. The motto of the 
 French revolutionists, " Liberty, equality, frater- 
 nity," could not fail to give hope to the handful of 
 Bohemian intellectuals.* 
 
 However, as late as 1848, the year of revolu- 
 tionary changes in Austria, the Bohemian lan- 
 guage was still a Cinderella in its own land. In 
 the streets of Prague it was rarely spoken by the 
 people of any social distinction. To engage in 
 Bohemian conversation with strangers was a risky 
 undertaking, unless one was prepared to be rebuked 
 in the sternest manner. German predominated, 
 except in stores that were patronized by appren- 
 tices and peddlers. Posters solely in Bohemian 
 were not allowed by the police. The text had 
 to be translated, and the German part of it printed 
 above the Bohemian. Nowhere but in the house- 
 holds of the commonest classes was the despised 
 
 * When Napoleon sought to weaken Austria's position at home, he 
 addressed a patriotic appeal to the Bohemians. " Your union with 
 Austria," read Napoleon's appeal, " has been your misfortune. Your 
 blood has been shed for her in distant lands, and your dearest in- 
 terests have been sacrificed continually to those 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 na- 
 tional language; you pride yourself on your ancient and illustrious 
 origin. Assume once more your position as a nation. Choose a king 
 for yourselves, who shall reign for you alone, who shall dwell in your 
 midst and be surrounded by your citizens and your soldiers." Na- 
 poleon's proclamation found no echo among the people for whom it 
 was intended. The sentiment of nationality was yet too weak to 
 respond.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 47 
 
 tongue sheltered. Families belonging to the world 
 of officialdom and to the wealthier bourgeoisie, 
 though often imperfectly familiar with it, clung to 
 German. Strict etiquette barred Bohemian from 
 the salons. The only entrance that was open to it 
 led through the halls of the servants. So com- 
 pletely were the people denationalized that for- 
 eigners visiting the resorts at Carlsbad and Marien- 
 bad expressed their astonishment on hearing the 
 peasants talk in an unknown tongue. They had 
 learned to look upon Bohemia as a part of Ger- 
 many and on the inhabitants as Germans. Par- 
 ticularly the Russians and the Poles were sur- 
 prised to meet kinsmen in Bohemia whose language 
 sounded familiar to their ears. 
 
 " A few of us," writes Jacob Maly, one of the 
 staunch patriots of that time, " met each Thurs- 
 day at the Black Horse (a first-class hotel in 
 Prague) and gave orders to the waiters in Bohe- 
 mian, who, of course, understood us well. This we 
 did with the intention of giving encouragement to 
 others ; but seeing the futility of our efforts in this 
 direction, we gave up the propaganda in disgust." 
 
 In 1852, the then chief of police of Prague con- 
 fidently predicted that in fifty years there would be 
 no Bohemians in Prague. That even Austrian 
 Chiefs of Police could make a mistake, appears 
 from the fact that Greater Prague to-day numbers
 
 48 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 nearly 600,000 inhabitants, of whom only about 
 17,000 are Germans. When, in 1844, Archduke 
 Stephen came to Prague and the citizens arranged 
 a torch procession in his honor, the police were 
 scandalized to hear, mingling with the customary 
 " Vivat," shouts in Bohemian, " Slava ! " 
 
 Authors and newspaper writers were objects 
 of unbounded curiosity. Maly, already quoted, 
 relates the following: "Walking in the streets of 
 Prague, I often noticed people pointing at me and 
 saying : ' Das ist auch einer von den Vlastenzen ' 
 (Here goes another of those patriots), or ' Das ist 
 ein gewaltiger Czeche ' (There is a thorough Cech 
 for you). During my stay in southern Bohemia 
 in 1838, the innkeeper of a tavern which I fre- 
 quented evenings had surely no reason to regret 
 my patronage, for people would come primarily 
 to have a peep at me." 
 
 In the biography of Palacky * We read an account 
 
 * Francis Palacky (1798-1876), historian, revivalist, and statesman, 
 is, by common consent, regarded as the greatest Bohemian of our 
 time. His monumental work, " History of the Bohemian Nation," 
 on which he labored some thirty years, will endure as long as the 
 Bohemian language continues to be spoken. There was a time when 
 not only the outside 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 born, and in time the alluvium of 
 Austrian bigotry and of falsehood was removed from the nation's 
 past, and to the astonished gaze of Resurrected Bohemia was re- 
 vealed a glorious history of which descendants could be justly proud. 
 Great men, national heroes, hitherto unknown or misunderstood, 
 emerged from almost every chapter of Palacky's work.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 49 
 
 of a memorable meeting of patriots held in 1825 
 in the Sternberg Palace in Prague. Palacky being 
 invited to dinner on that particular day, as he often 
 had been, remained in the company of the Counts 
 Sternberg until midnight. A violent dispute that 
 arose between the guests and the hosts would not 
 allow of their separation. Among other ques- 
 tions discussed was the prospective publication of 
 a scientific magazine in both languages, Bohemian 
 and German. Abbe Dobrovsky, the " father of 
 Slavic philology," and Count Kaspar were of the 
 opinion that it was too late to think seriously 
 of the resuscitation of the Bohemian nation, and 
 that all attempts in that direction must end in 
 failure. Palacky, then a youthful enthusiast, dis- 
 agreed in this with his elder companions and bit- 
 terly reproached Dobrovsky, that he, a literary 
 light among his people, had not written a single 
 book in the mother tongue. " Were we all to do 
 the same, then indeed our nation would perish for 
 lack of intellectual nourishment. As for me," fer- 
 vently argued Palacky, " were I but a gypsy by 
 birth, and the last of that race, I would still deem 
 it my duty to try to perpetuate an honorable men- 
 tion of it in the annals of mankind." Count 
 Sternberg, though he knew the language well, never 
 used it in conversation with people of education.
 
 50 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 He availed himself of it only when talking with 
 his servants. 
 
 In 1811 Dobrovsky wrote to the noted Slovene 
 scholar, Kopitar, that " the cause of the nation is 
 desperate, unless God helps." In his discourse, 
 " Geschichte der Deutschen und ihrer Sprache in 
 Bohmen," dated 1790, Pelcl expressed himself as 
 follows : " The time is approaching when the Bo- 
 hemian language will be in the same situation at 
 home as the Slavonic language is to-day in Miess, 
 Brandenburg, and Silesia, where German is every- 
 where prevalent and where nothing remains of the 
 Slavic but the names of cities, villages, and rivers." 
 
 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 inex- 
 haustible 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
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 51 
 
 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 Kollar, the 
 apostle of literary Pan-Slavism, wrote his main 
 work in German. Josef Dobrovsky, already men- 
 tioned, composed all his works in German. Josef 
 Safafik's monumental volume on " Slavic An- 
 tiquities " was also written in German ; even the 
 " Father of his country," Francis Palacky, wrote 
 his " History of the Bohemian Nation "* in the 
 tongue of Schiller and Goethe. When, in 1831, a 
 number of writers gathered in a well-known coffee- 
 house in Prague, Celakovsky, one of them, re- 
 marked, 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 dan- 
 gerous 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 con- 
 
 Sc page 59.
 
 52 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 cern were not allowed to be discussed, much less 
 criticised, except among intimates. 
 
 The work of resuscitating a dying race was a 
 gigantic task, and but for the perseverance of the 
 first apostles, the most promising branch of the 
 Slavic linden tree would have withered. It was 
 necessary to build theatres, to found learned so- 
 cieties, to establish museums and libraries, to col- 
 lect and edit rare books and manuscripts scattered 
 in foreign countries, whither they had been carried 
 by soldiers during the Thirty Years' War. The 
 Austrian Government, instead of assisting in this 
 work which had for its object the uplifting of a 
 down-trodden people from ignorance, superstition, 
 and bigotry, hindered it at every step. As an ex- 
 ample of self-sacrificing patriotism, the case of a 
 law student by the name of Rehof should be men- 
 tioned. This man took a vow that he would dis- 
 tribute as many Bohemian books as were said to 
 have been burnt by the Jesuit Konias during the 
 anti-reformation, that is, 60,000 volumes. &ehor 
 died some time in the late fifties of the nineteenth 
 century, and he is said to have accomplished the 
 greater part of his self-imposed task. When 
 Jungmann, one of the greatest of the revivalists, 
 died in 1847, the patriots had an opportunity to 
 review their growing ranks and they were aston- 
 ished how the national movement had spread.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 53 
 
 " When we were returning home from the fu- 
 neral," noted J. V. Fric in his memoirs, " I walked 
 arm in arm with my father; we both felt proud 
 like victors who were marching to further decisive 
 battles. When father in the evening sat down for 
 a chat with the family, he exclaimed, breathing 
 freely as if a stone had rolled off his chest, * Chil- 
 dren, I think we shall win ; there are too many of 
 us; they can no longer trample us down.' ' 
 
 POLITICAL AWAKENING 
 
 Up to 1848 Austrian subjects enjoyed cer- 
 tain liberties: they could smoke, drink, and play 
 cards without interference from the police. One 
 enjoyment, however, was denied to them they 
 were not permitted to think. Prince Metternich, 
 the personification of absolutist Austria of those 
 days, observed with alarm how the structure that 
 he had been propping for years was beginning to 
 settle in its foundations, and how ominous cracks 
 appeared in it here and there. 
 
 Revolution was in the air. Switzerland, Ger- 
 many, and Italy were being engulfed by it. " The 
 world is ill," Metternich complained in a letter to 
 Count Apponyi. " Each day we can observe how 
 the moral infection is spreading, and if you find me 
 unyielding, it is because I am of a nature that will 
 not give in before opposition."
 
 54 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 The news of the fall of Louis Philippe in France 
 reached Prague February 29, 1848. Next day, 
 notwithstanding the strictest censorship, the city 
 was aflame with revolutionary talk. The liberals 
 in neighboring Germany had summoned delegates 
 to meet at Frankfort, March 5th. Italy seethed 
 with political excitement. Kossuth, in Hungary, 
 demanded that a constitution be granted to the 
 people in Austria. Overnight Metternich's elabo- 
 rate system of government, maintained by the 
 police and the military, was tumbling down like 
 a house of cards. In Prague, as in other large 
 centres, everybody clamored for a constitution, 
 though the masses, educated as they were to re- 
 gard the government as something above and apart 
 from them, hardly comprehended what the word 
 " constitution " meant. 
 
 In the midst of the turmoil the sickly Emperor 
 Ferdinand V. (1835-1848) abdicated in favor of 
 his nephew, Francis Josef, then a youth of eighteen. 
 The latter had been on the throne but a few weeks, 
 when his advisers, Schwarzenberg, Windischgratz, 
 Stadion, and others, decided to do away with the 
 constitution of the revolutionists and to substitute 
 it with an octroy constitution, the reason assigned 
 being " the incapacity of parliament." The choice 
 fell on this particular young man because Prince 
 Schwarzenberg recommended as ruler " one whom
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 55 
 
 he would not have to be ashamed to show to the 
 troops." Though not relevant, it is interesting to 
 recall how the present emperor acquired his cog- 
 nomen. " What shall it be, gentlemen," asked 
 Schwarzenberg in the ministerial council " Fran- 
 cis Josef, or simply Francis ? " A sub-secretary of 
 state thought that plain Francis would sound 
 very well indeed, but the fear having been ex- 
 pressed that the name Francis might remind the 
 Austrian nations too much of the ghost of Metter- 
 nich, Francis Josef, instead of plain Francis, was 
 chosen for the youthful monarch. 
 
 To Windischgratz constitutions, ministries ac- 
 countable to the people, and parliaments were 
 abominations. He made no secret of the fact that 
 he was opposed to the rule of lawyers; those alone 
 who carried bayonets and muskets were entitled to 
 be called patriots and saviors of the fatherland. 
 
 Under the Premiership of Alexander Bach 
 (1853-1859) the monarchy relapsed to the methods 
 of police rule that obtained prior to 1848. The 
 reactionaries who surrounded the throne encour- 
 aged the youthful monarch to rule like an autocrat. 
 
 Minister Bach, by the way a highly gifted man, 
 who had in his early days trifled with radicalism, 
 believed that an alliance between the church and 
 the state would strengthen both and that against 
 the unity of the altar and the throne the radicals
 
 56 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 would be powerless. " The Austrian Monarchy," 
 he confided to a noted clerical, " considering its 
 peculiar structure, has only two firm bases on 
 which it can rest in safety and unity, the dynasty 
 and the church." Accordingly he brought about, 
 in 1855, the adoption of the famous concordat, a 
 convention between the pope and the monarchy, 
 a pact that increased immensely the legal power of 
 the papacy in Austria. The concordat was abol- 
 ished in 1868 because of the bitter opposition of 
 the liberals. Bohemia, the land of Hus and 
 Havlicek, fought the concordat openly and fear- 
 lessly, suspecting in it a hidden menace to its 
 freedom of conscience and to national aspirations. 
 
 The uncompromising opposition of the Bohe- 
 mians to Bach and to his policies visited upon them 
 the wrath of Vienna. Under ^>ach they were prob- 
 ably subjected to oppression more ruthless and 
 cruel than any they had experienced since the time 
 of Ferdinand II. 
 
 Patriots, some of them mere youths, were 
 thrown in prison on the flimsiest accusation of 
 police spies. It was not safe to converse in Bo- 
 hemian in the streets of Prague. Spies were at 
 the heels of every Bohemian prominent in public 
 life. Police agents tried to connect Francis L. 
 Rieger with a treasonable plot to disrupt the mon- 
 archy and he had to flee the state to save himself
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 57 
 
 from prison. Spies followed Palacky even to the 
 sick-bed of his wife. The military authorities 
 at Prague suspended the publication of Havlicek's 
 famous newspaper, " Narodni Noviny," on the 
 ground that its editor indulged in " immoderate 
 language." Finding Prague closed to his paper, 
 Havlicek made an attempt to publish it in Vienna. 
 " I am determined not to issue licenses to any 
 newspaper in Vienna ; we have enough newspapers 
 as it is," replied General Welden to Havlicek's 
 application for the license. " But there is no such 
 newspaper in Vienna as I should like to publish," 
 pleaded Havlicek. " My paper is intended to be 
 an organ for Slavic matters and it is to be printed 
 in Bohemian." Welden retorted angrily: " Wir 
 sind hier Deutsche " (Here in Vienna we are Ger- 
 mans), and the General's decision was irrevocable. 
 Undaunted, Havlicek made other attempts to 
 procure a newspaper license, and at last he ob- 
 tained a promise that he might be allowed to 
 publish a paper in Kutna Hora, a provincial town 
 not far from Prague. In time even this paper was 
 suppressed by the police and its editor arrested and 
 interned in the province of Tyrol by Bach's order. 
 It should, perhaps, be said that Havlicek was the 
 one journalist whom neither threats nor offers of 
 bribery could influence. There, separated from his 
 wife and child, Havlicek gave way to brooding
 
 58 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 which brought on a fatal brain disease. From 
 Tyrol he was permitted to return home, broken 
 in health and spirit. To the last Havlicek remained 
 steadfast to the cause he had championed the 
 liberation from bondage of his nation. Havlicek's 
 colors were red and white (Bohemian national 
 colors), and neither threats nor favors could 
 swerve him from his chosen path : * " They ban- 
 ished you from the fatherland," wrote Pinkas to 
 Havlicek, " but they transformed the fatherland 
 itself into a fortress and a jail. We live here the 
 most unhappy lives conceivable. Not a ray of light 
 enters our intellectual prison to brighten it" 
 
 The mere acquaintanceship with Palacky was 
 enough to expose one to the chicanery of the police. 
 Strobach, at one time Mayor of Prague and a 
 former speaker of the short-lived parliament, was 
 deposed as judge because, when presiding at a 
 trial, he failed to hold a drunkard on a charge of 
 lese majeste. Count Thun would not allow Rieger 
 to lecture at the university for the reason, as he 
 
 * Karel Havlicek (1821-1856) is in many respects the most note- 
 worthy Bohemian of the nineteenth century. As a journalist, he had 
 no equal among his contemporaries. His political articles were models 
 of sound and mature reasoning and of lucid thinking. When argu- 
 ments failed with the black reactionaries, lay and ecclesiastic, Havlicek 
 employed another weapon with telling effect ridicule. Bohemians 
 venerate him as a martyr of their cause. The cultured immigrants 
 to the United States from Bohemia in the early days were imbued 
 with Havlicek's spirit and ideas, and the present-day spread of free- 
 thought among them is directly traceable to this Thomas Paine of 
 Bohemia.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 59 
 
 stated, " that students would see in him a political 
 agitator, not a professor." 
 
 A demand was made on Palacky by the censor 
 to strike out of his " History of the Bohemian 
 Nation " the chapters relating to Hus and the Hus- 
 site Wars. Even Prince Metternich, whose bu- 
 reaucratic leanings were above suspicion, consid- 
 ered the demand, which was equivalent to an order, 
 unreasonable. After a great deal of haggling as to 
 what was permissible and what should be deleted, 
 a compromise was effected between the historian 
 and the censor. However, Palacky's biographers all 
 agreed that the terms of the compromise were not 
 satisfactory to. him. He is said to have expressed 
 a hope that future historians, living in freer times 
 than he, should tell the whole truth about the im- 
 portance and meaning of the Hussite movement, 
 which he was not allowed to do. The chapters re- 
 lating to the Hussite times he wrote both in Bo- 
 hemian and German. But because German critics 
 had impugned his impartiality, he determined, as 
 a protest, to continue with Bohemian as the original 
 and German as a translation. When he announced 
 his decision to the Land Committee, a protest was 
 raised and he was warned not to publish the 
 Bohemian text before the German ; nor to do any- 
 thing from which it might appear that the German 
 text was not the original.
 
 60 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 The famous physician, Hamernik, a pupil of the 
 noted Skoda and Rokytansky, was removed from 
 the university because the government suspected 
 his political and religious views. 
 
 The publication of every Bohemian newspaper 
 in the land was suspended, except for two or three 
 scientific and literary magazines, and the police 
 would have liked to destroy even those, if decent 
 pretext could have been found for their doing so. 
 
 At one time the authorities were planning to 
 dissolve the society of the Bohemian Museum and 
 the Royal Society of Sciences. The discussions 
 of these learned bodies did not seem patriotic 
 enough from the Austrian point of view. The 
 Matice Ceska a society for the publication of 
 standard literature was threatened in its exist- 
 ence, and only the influence of some of its promi- 
 nent members saved it from the fury of the al- 
 mighty police. 
 
 Pogodin, the Russian scholar, had recommended 
 the Matice to publish the works of Hus. " God 
 prevent," answered Safafik to Pogodin's letter 
 (1857). " Who would think of publishing books 
 on Hus in Austria? yes, if they were against Hus 
 'that would be simple." 
 
 Before Krejci's work on geology could be pub- 
 lished, every page, nay every line, was carefully 
 scanned, and when that was done the manuscript
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 61 
 
 was ordered to be submitted for approval to a 
 learned priest, to make sure that it contained noth- 
 ing contrary to the teaching of the church. 
 Palacky, who was always dreaming of his pet 
 scheme of the publication of a Bohemian encyclo- 
 pedia, was told that " under the existing press laws 
 it would be unwise to urge the matter." 
 
 In honor of the emperor's marriage (1854) the 
 government showed clemency to certain political 
 persons; yet, in general, conditions remained un- 
 changed. Patriots who had been expelled from 
 Prague could return, but city or country, their 
 movements were watched by the police. Slad- 
 kovsky, a famous journalist whose publications 
 had been ruined by censorship, applied for a license 
 to start a coal yard with which to support 
 his family. The application was promptly dis- 
 allowed. Young Fric, a literary rebel, planned to 
 issue a volume of poetry with the collaboration of 
 the younger set of writers. This warning was re- 
 ceived from Vienna: " Let Fric beware; if he does 
 not desist in his dangerous course, he may again 
 find himself interned in a fortress." The police 
 directors and press censors suspected the loyalty 
 of everyone who ventured to write in Bohemian. 
 " I fail to comprehend," remonstrated Police Di- 
 rector Weber with Fric, " why you persist in this 
 ridiculous nonsense; in about six years there will
 
 62 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 be nothing left of your Bohemian literature, any- 
 way." 
 
 On another occasion Weber gave Fric to under- 
 stand that Bohemia was a German territory, and 
 that if he wished to live in it he must obey German 
 laws. Yet Fric was incorrigible. For his intract- 
 ability and because he would not share Weber's 
 view that his nation was doomed to extinction, he 
 was banished to the hills of Transylvania. 
 
 On the battlefields at Magenta and Solferino in 
 Italy in 1859, the absolutist rule of Bach, which 
 derived its chief support from the bureaucracy, 
 the military, and the clerical party, came to an 
 abrupt end. The progressive element clamored for 
 reforms. Bach was dismissed from office and his 
 successor (Goluchowski) announced that in the 
 future the state budget would be subject to the 
 scrutiny of the people and that provincial diets 
 would be invited to legislate on their needs. The 
 last part of the program the federalists interpreted 
 to mean that the principle of local self-government 
 had at last been recognized. 
 
 In the Bohemian Diet a prominent member, en- 
 couraged by the program of the new premier, 
 moved, amid genuine enthusiasm of the federalists, 
 that a deputation of the diet be appointed to go 
 to Vienna and urge the emperor to have himself 
 crowned king in Prague. When, subsequently, a
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 63 
 
 deputation of the diet secured an audience from 
 the ruler, he declared (1861) : " I will be crowned 
 in Prague as King of Bohemia, and I am con- 
 vinced that this ceremony will cement anew the in- 
 dissoluble tie of confidence and loyalty between 
 My throne and My Bohemian Kingdom." 
 
 Bohemians were elated. At last their ideal of 
 autonomous Bohemia seemed at the point of real- 
 ization. 
 
 Here a few words should be said concerning 
 the constitution under which Austrians were 
 to begin a new parliamentary life. The much- 
 heralded and impatiently awaited document was 
 drafted by Minister Schmerling, a staunch cen- 
 tralist, and because it was promulgated in Febru- 
 ary (1861) it was called the "Constitution of 
 February." As soon as its text had been made 
 public, the Slavs instantly recognized that the 
 statesmen in Vienna had not profited in the slight- 
 est from the lessons of 1848. Minister Schmer- 
 ling, was, like all Germans, obsessed with the no- 
 tion that German hegemony was indispensable to 
 the safety and greatness of the state. Accordingly 
 he subordinated every other idea and interest to 
 that one obsession. A most ingenious electoral sys- 
 tem was evolved whereby Germans, though in 
 minority, were able to control, not only the central 
 parliament, but the provincial diets as well. The
 
 64 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 scheme was to favor the cities, wealthy individual 
 taxpayers, and chambers of commerce (which 
 groups then were German in sentiment) to the dis- 
 advantage of the agricultural districts inhabited 
 by the Slavs. How the electoral law worked in 
 Bohemia one can perceive from the fact that in 
 1873 2,500,000 Bohemians were able to elect only 
 34 deputies, while 1,500,000 Germans contrived 
 to return 56 deputies. The powers of the provin- 
 cial diets were reduced to a minimum, the control- 
 ling idea, of course, being to keep centred in 
 Vienna the entire power of the state. By reason 
 of this juggling the Bohemian element found it- 
 self in minority in its own Land Diet. 
 
 Although distrustful because of the partisanship 
 evinced in the constitution, the Bohemians never- 
 theless entered parliament, but they did so upon 
 the express understanding that their participation 
 therein should not be in any manner prejudicial to 
 the historical rights of their kingdom. 
 
 Generally speaking, the Austrian nations, from 
 the very first day their representatives were per- 
 mitted to enter the legislative halls, divided them- 
 selves into two political parties, federalists and cen- 
 tralists. The federalists favored granting self-gov- 
 ernment to the various races ; the centralists, who 
 were backed by the German masses, opposed this. 
 Austria, according to the latter, was lost to the Ger-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 65 
 
 man cause the moment the agitation " Away from 
 Vienna " had gained the upper hand. For reasons 
 of self-protection the Slavs, led by the Bohemians, 
 inclined toward federalism, as more likely to sat- 
 isfy their national aspirations. Instead of a Teu- 
 tonic Austria, the Slavs desired a United States 
 of Austria that should be just and impartial to all. 
 
 For months the Bohemians waited, but to their 
 surprise and dismay the government took no steps 
 to make effective the emperor's promise. On the 
 contrary, the increasing persecution of their press, 
 the brutal partiality of the speaker of parliament, 
 the hostile attitude of the executive organs of the 
 government were signs, the significance of which 
 could not be doubted. The discouraging truth 
 dawned on them at last that the emperor had no 
 intention of keeping his word and of giving home 
 rule to his Bohemian subjects. 
 
 Deceived by their sovereign and realizing 
 that neither reason nor justice would influence 
 Vienna, they decided, in 1863, as a means of pro- 
 test and to show their deep resentment, to leave the 
 parliament in a body. On June ijth of that year 
 they issued a statement in which the grievances 
 of the nation were set forth at length. For sixteen 
 years after that no Bohemian legislator appeared 
 in the Austrian Parliament. And while this may 
 not have been a sagacious course indeed, sub-
 
 66 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 sequent events have shown that the " policy of 
 abstinence," as the parliamentary boycott came to 
 be known, almost irreparably prejudiced their posi- 
 tion yet, as a protest of an outraged nation, it 
 was magnificent. 
 
 DUALISM A BLUNDER AND A CRIME 
 
 Up to 1867 the Hapsburg Monarchy was, out- 
 wardly at least, a Teutonic state. But in 1866, 
 having been decisively beaten by Prussia at Sadova, 
 it found itself facing a new destiny. Expelled 
 from the Germanic Bund of which it had been a 
 leading member, the championship wrested from 
 it by victorious Hohenzollerns, rent by internal 
 discord, its statesmen concurred in the opinion 
 that reconstruction of some kind was inevitable. 
 But what course of action should be pursued? 
 Should the government again have recourse to the 
 shop-worn policy of rigid centralization and Ger- 
 manization which had been tried by Austrian 
 Premiers time and time again and invariably found 
 wanting ? 
 
 That Hungary should be given back her auton- 
 omy was conceded beforehand. Weakened by war, 
 its military prestige shattered, its finances at a low 
 ebb, the government was in no condition to resist 
 the Magyars, who had assumed a threatening atti- 
 tude. But what about the Bohemians, who also
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 67 
 
 clamored for recognition? Bohemia, Hungary, 
 and Austria, it will be remembered, had formed a 
 union in 1526-1527 on terms of equality. And 
 then how should the larger Slavic questions be 
 settled ? Numerically the Slavs were the strongest 
 element in the monarchy. If allowed to elect repre- 
 sentatives to one central parliament, these discon- 
 tented Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, and Croatians 
 might one day, uniting politically, control the coun- 
 try. Tacitly Vienna and Budapest agreed that, 
 whatever the terms of the settlement with Hun- 
 gary, the disaster of Slavic majority must be 
 averted. 
 
 " The Slavs must be pressed to the wall " 
 (Man wird die Slaven an die Wand driicken), 
 declared a statesman who participated actively in 
 the plan of reconstruction. " You," addressing 
 the Magyars, " will take care of your hosts [mean- 
 ing the Slavs] and we shall take care of ours." 
 
 In the parliament the cause of the Slavic fed- 
 eralists was lost beforehand; a German-made 
 constitution and German-made electoral law ren- 
 dered futile every opposition. Besides, the govern- 
 ment would brook no interference with its plan of 
 reconstruction as outlined by Count Beust* This 
 
 * Friedrich Ferdinand Beust, a Saxon statesman, entered the serv- 
 ices of Austria soon after the disaster at Sadova. It was he who 
 brought to a successful termination the Settlement between Vienna 
 and Hungary. The centralists were at first opposed to the division
 
 68 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 plan contemplated a dual government, one in 
 Vienna, the other in Budapest, and three parlia- 
 ments, one to sit in Vienna for the Austrian half, 
 one to meet in Budapest for the Hungarian half, 
 and a third one to be called the " Delegations " 
 and to convene alternately at both capitals to de- 
 liberate on matters common to the empire as 
 a whole, such as foreign relations, the army, 
 navy, finances, and so forth. In other words, 
 Beust's plan provided for two seats of centraliza- 
 tion instead of one. From a German state that it 
 had been before 1867 Austria became a German- 
 Magyar state an organization without precedent 
 or analogy. 
 
 The several kingdoms, crown-lands, etc., were 
 divided under Beust's plan; and, upon the consum- 
 mation of the deal, were allotted to the contract- 
 ing parties to the dualism as follows: Austria 
 received Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Bukovina, Dal- 
 matia, Galicia, Carinthia, Carniola, Trieste and vi- 
 cinity, Goritz and Gradiska, Istria, Lower Austria, 
 Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Voralberg. 
 Hungary secured as her part of the bargain Hun- 
 gary Proper, Transylvania, Fiume, Croatia, Sla- 
 vonia, and the Military Frontier. 
 
 of Austria in two, but were eventually placated by Beust, he having 
 convinced them that dualism meant the permanent subjugation of the 
 Slavs. The above remark, " Die Slaven werdcn an die Wand 
 gedruckt," is attributed to him.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 69 
 
 Figures, better than anything else, will explain 
 why the Slavs were opposed to dualism and pres- 
 ently became its irreconcilable enemies. Under 
 the Austrian roof Beust put these Slavic groups 
 (quoting from the census of 1910) : 
 
 Bohemians 6,435,983 
 
 Poles 4,967,984 
 
 Slovenes 1,252,940 
 
 Serbo-Croatians 783,334 
 
 Little Russians 3,608,844 
 
 Total 17,049,085 
 
 Under the Magyar domination fell the follow- 
 ing Slavs: 
 
 Slovaks 1,967,970 
 
 Croatians 1,833,167 
 
 Serbs 1,106,471 
 
 Little Russians 472,587 
 
 Beust's scheme was audaciously clever. By 
 dividing the monarchy in two he divided the Slavs; 
 and, separated and isolated, they were made easier 
 victims of Magyarization in Hungary and of Ger- 
 manization in Austria. A crying injustice of this 
 shameful bargain was that the " high contracting
 
 70 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 parties " tore apart peoples of the same race, set- 
 ting up a political barrier where nature intended 
 that none should exist. Austria, for instance, had 
 been awarded Dalmatia, the population of which 
 is almost wholly Croatian; yet Slavonia and 
 Croatia, which is also Croatian to the core (or 
 Serbo-Croation), went to Hungary. Bohemians of 
 Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were lodged under 
 the Austrian roof ; the Slovaks, on the other side, 
 who are almost one with the Bohemian race, were 
 put under the guardianship of Hungary. Nations 
 and races were moved on the Austrian chess-board 
 like so many pawns exactly the same way as at 
 the Vienna Congress in 1814 and at the Berlin 
 Conference in 1878. 
 
 " No people in the monarchy were more unjustly 
 prejudiced by dualism than the Bohemians," is the 
 opinion of Denis. " Every article of the Settle- 
 ment affected their interests most adversely. Their 
 kinsmen, the Croatians and Serbs, and particularly 
 the Slovaks the latter always confidently looked 
 upon as a reserve force of the nation were handed 
 out to merciless and unfeeling masters. The crown 
 of St. Vaclav (St. Vaclav is honored as patron saint 
 of Bohemia) was reduced by Vienna to a position 
 of semi-vassalage and given equal rank with a 
 medley of outlying and insignificant provinces. 
 Dualism condemned the Slavs to be the unwilling
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 71 
 
 tools of a policy to which they had been opposed. 
 Bohemia, the richest and most productive land in 
 the empire, was made to bear the heaviest quota of 
 the burden with which statesmen had saddled the 
 Austrian half of the monarchy." Condemning 
 dualism, Dr. Edward Gregr, in a famous speech 
 delivered in parliament, declared " that it would 
 be wisest to tear down to its foundations the ram- 
 shackle building that made every tenant dissatis- 
 fied, that lacked light and air, that neither expense 
 nor labor could make habitable, and to build upon 
 the ruins an edifice answering the manifold needs 
 of its inhabitants. In the judgment of Dr. 
 Menger " (a German deputy), thundered Gregr, 
 " this would be a treason and I confess that it 
 would be a treason. Yet, is not dualism a treason 
 on the rights and liberties of the peoples of this 
 state and particularly on the rights and liberties of 
 our Bohemian nation?" 
 
 And because the settlement between Austria 
 and Hungary had been effected without the co- 
 operation, much less the consent of the Bohemians, 
 whose claims were utterly disregarded it will be 
 remembered that at that time, 1867, they were 
 boycotting the parliament a series of political 
 duels were fought between Vienna and Prague, 
 which in the end resulted in the defeat of the 
 weaker antagonist, that is, Prague.
 
 72 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 In the spring of 1867 the Prague Diet was sum- 
 moned to elect deputies to the parliament which 
 was to vote on the settlement with Hungary. The 
 Bohemians refused to elect such deputies and en- 
 tered instead a vigorous protest against being in- 
 corporated in Austria-Hungary, then in process of 
 formation. The only state they recognized was 
 the Bohemian Kingdom and this had as much right 
 to autonomy as Hungary. Promptly the govern- 
 ment dissolved the diet and ordered new elections. 
 At these elections, thanks to the ingenious electoral 
 law, the Bohemians were defeated and the German 
 minority, now master in the diet, proceeded to elect 
 delegates to the Vienna Parliament. The Bo- 
 hemians declared this election unconstitutional and 
 fraudulent. Deputies so elected, they maintained, 
 were not true representatives of the people and 
 could not, therefore, legally or morally bind 
 the nation in parliament. Having issued this pro- 
 test, the Bohemians left the diet, and the next 
 year, instead of returning, issued their memorable 
 Declaration of Rights, bearing date August 22, 
 1868. They continued to boycott the Land Diet 
 until 1870. 
 
 The government was by no means tardy in mak- 
 ing the rebels feel that they needed to be disci- 
 plined for their refusal to participate in the labors 
 of the parliament. The Director of Police in
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 73 
 
 Prague received orders to see to it " that Bohe- 
 mian newspapers moderate their tone." That, of 
 course, meant the inevitable lawsuits, police 
 chicanery, confiscation, fines, jail. 
 
 To break the rebellious spirit of the Bohemians 
 the government sent Baron Koller to Prague, as 
 Military Governor, a soldier of the Radecky type 
 of Austrian generals brutal, violent. One of his 
 first acts was to place the capital under martial 
 law (1868). Koller suspended the publication of 
 nearly every Bohemian newspaper. Arrests for 
 political crimes became so numerous that the jail 
 of the New Town (one of the Boroughs of 
 Prague) held at one time 400 prisoners, though 
 there was room only for 250 persons. During 
 1868 in Prague alone Koller sent to jail 144 per- 
 sons who were convicted of political misdemeanors 
 and crimes. The total penalties aggregated 81 
 years. How many prisoners there were in the 
 provincial towns in Bohemia and Moravia is only 
 conjectured, but it was asserted afterwards that 
 there had been five times as many as in Prague, so 
 that the total number of political prisoners in 
 Bohemia in 1868 was about 700. 
 
 When the Premier tried to placate the Bo- 
 hemian opposition by suspending martial law 
 (April, 1869) in Prague, the centralists became 
 furious. Bohemian autonomy, declared their
 
 74 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 organ, the Vienna " Neue Freie Presse," is an 
 issue that only force can solve; the unification of 
 the Bohemian Crown may be of vital moment to 
 the Bohemians, but the Germans will never give 
 their consent. 
 
 FRANCIS JOSEF, A WORD-BREAKER 
 
 At last wiser counsel prevailed in Vienna, and 
 while certain members favored repression, even 
 force, to bring the Bohemians to submission, there 
 were others, Count Taaffe among them, who urged 
 moderation. The Potocki ministry (1870) tried 
 to breach the differences between Prague and 
 Vienna. More successful than Potocki was Count 
 Hohenwart, whom the emperor encouraged to 
 make terms with the Bohemians. Hohenwart's 
 first step was to name two distinguished Bo- 
 hemians, Jirecek and Habetinek, members of his 
 cabinet. The "Neue Freie Presse" commented on 
 Hohenwart's appointment as " the Sedan of Ger- 
 man ideals in Austria." Hohenwart's next step 
 was to select an Austrian commission, in co- 
 operation with a similar commission of Bohemians, 
 headed by Count Clam-Martinic and Dr. Rieger, 
 to draft terms of settlement, which came to be 
 known as the " Fundamental Articles." These 
 " Fundamentals " defined precisely the future rela- 
 tions of Bohemia and Austria. In the " Funda-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 75 
 
 mentals " one could clearly discern Palacky's ideas 
 of federalistic Austria. 
 
 Thereupon an imperial rescript was issued, 
 bearing date September 12, 1871, in which the 
 emperor made this memorable promise : " Recog- 
 nizing the state rights of the Bohemian Crown, 
 calling to mind the renown and power which the 
 crown has conferred upon Us and Our prede- 
 cessors, and mindful further of the unwavering 
 loyalty with which the people of Bohemia have 
 at all times supported Our throne, We are glad 
 to recognize the rights of this kingdom and are 
 ready to renew this recognition by Our coronation 
 oath." * 
 
 Obviously it was not the mere mediaeval cere- 
 mony of coronation that Bohemians were anxious 
 to have take place. By having himself crowned as 
 king, the sovereign would affirm by implication 
 that the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margravate 
 
 * " Eingedenkt der Staatsrechtlichen Stellung der Krone Bohmens 
 und des Glanzes und der Macht bewusst, welche dieselbe Uns und 
 Unseren Vorfahren verliehen hat, eingedenkt ferner der unerschutt- 
 lichen Treue, mit welchen die Bevolkerung Bohmens jederzeit Unseren 
 Thron stutzte, erkennen wir gerne die Rechte dieses Konigreiches an 
 und sind bereit diese Anerkennung mit Unserem Kronungseide zu 
 erneuern." 
 
 Among the many titles of Francis Josef are those of " Emperor of 
 Austria," " King of Hungary," " King of Bohemia," etc. Strictly 
 speaking, Francis Josef has no 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 be 
 President of the United States without first taking the oath of office. 
 Logically, therefore, Francis Josef is an unlawful ruler of the Bo- 
 hemian Kingdom.
 
 76 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 of Moravia, and the Duchy of Silesia were one 
 and indivisible; that Bohemia was a part of the 
 monarchy only as long as the Hapsburgs survived 
 in the male or female line; that in the event of 
 the Hapsburg-Lothringen line becoming extinct, 
 Bohemia was free to elect its own ruler; that the 
 power of legislation was vested jointly in the 
 king and in the diets and that the king, upon 
 taking the coronation oath, bound himself to de- 
 fend the indissolubility of the Bohemian Crown. 
 
 In answer to the emperor's declaration the diet 
 passed in its sessions of October 8 and 10, 1871, 
 the " Fundamental Articles." Meantime the cen- 
 tralists worked indefatigably to defeat the settle- 
 ment with Bohemia. Their journals employed 
 every means to prejudice public opinion against it. 
 " Austria is about to capitulate to the Slavs," wrote 
 these journals, " and Prague will eventually super- 
 sede Vienna as the capital of the empire." 
 
 It is known that Bismarck, fearing that Bo- 
 hemian home rule might have a stimulating effect 
 on his Poles, and Andrassy, solicitous about the 
 " welfare " of his Slovaks, jointly intrigued to 
 defeat the autonomy which Premier Hohenwart 
 was ready to concede. " Hungary will have noth- 
 ing in common with Slavic Austria," declared the 
 " Pester Lloyd," speaking for the Hungarian 
 Government. " We Hungarians shall do every-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 77 
 
 thing in our power to frustrate the reconstruction. 
 Call it selfishness, if you will, but that shall be our 
 policy." 
 
 The victory of the Prussians over the French 
 in 1871 naturally made the Austro-German cen- 
 tralists more stubborn than ever, and Hohenwart, 
 despairing of the passage in the parliament of the 
 " Fundamental Articles," resigned October 3Oth. 
 For the second time since 1848 the rehabilitation 
 of the Bohemian State had been frustrated. That 
 the emperor, always vacillating and ever fearful of 
 the Pan-Germans, was not himself without blame, 
 is obvious. In fact, it is charged that the coterie 
 of archdukes around the throne welcomed oppo- 
 sition to Bohemian home rule, if it did not secretly 
 foment it. 
 
 A new rescript commanded the diet to elect 
 delegates to the parliament. Refusing to do this, 
 the diet was dissolved. The Auersperg-Lasser 
 Ministry which followed Hohenwart was out- 
 spokenly German-centralistic and Bohemian au- 
 tonomists made ready for another onslaught from 
 Vienna. 
 
 NEW PERSECUTIONS 
 
 For the second time the " opposition tamer," 
 Baron Koller, was appointed Governor of Bo- 
 hemia. To Moravia was sent the notorious
 
 78 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Bohemiophobe, Baron Weber. As usual, the press 
 was the first to feel the heel of these little despots. 
 Public prosecutors throughout Bohemia and Mo- 
 ravia received instructions to proceed " fearlessly " 
 against opposition journals. Those prosecutors 
 who replied that they would do their duty strictly 
 " in accordance with the law " were either removed 
 or transferred to other posts and replaced by func- 
 tionaries who were more mindful of the needs of 
 the government. " It is not necessary in every 
 instance to set forth the reason for the confisca- 
 tion of a newspaper article," the prosecutors were 
 instructed. " The prosecutors have a full power 
 to act and they are answerable to no one." Dur- 
 ing the first year of the Auersperg-Lasser Minis- 
 try the daily newspaper " Politik " in Prague was 
 confiscated 83 times by the conscientious prose- 
 cutor. A number of societies were dissolved, 
 though non-political in character. An agricultural 
 organization that had been founded during the 
 reign of Maria Theresa and had survived the bitter 
 days of Bach's administration, was deprived of 
 its charter because its president, Prince Charles 
 Schwarzenberg, a Bohemian noble, declined to 
 participate in the Vienna Exposition unless a sepa- 
 rate space was allotted there to Bohemia, as to 
 Hungary. Every presiding officer of the so-called 
 District Committees in the provinces, who was
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 79 
 
 suspected of being a Bohemian sympathizer, was 
 summarily removed. Two of the most noted 
 journalists, Julius Gregr and J. St. Skrejsovsky, 
 who had the courage to fight the Auersperg-Lasser 
 Ministry openly, were put in jail for an alleged 
 attempt to defraud the government of a trifling 
 tax with which newspaper advertisements were 
 assessable. Both languished in jail for months. 
 As an instance of official meanness, the case of the 
 publisher of the " Correspondence Slave " should 
 be mentioned. This man received a long term in 
 prison for failure to pay a newspaper tax amount- 
 ing to less than half a florin (20 cents). 
 
 And because Bohemian juries almost uniformly 
 acquitted journalists brought before them for po- 
 litical offenses, prosecuting attorneys resorted to 
 the expedient of a change of venue to cities in- 
 habited by Germans. To eminent jurists protesting 
 that a procedure of this kind was unconstitutional, 
 the Minister of Justice replied that state necessities 
 justified this course. On one occasion a deputation 
 of representative citizens of Prague called on 
 Baron Koller to complain of the arbitrariness of 
 the police. " Gentlemen, I hope you do not wish 
 me to be uncivil to you. I am exceedingly busy, 
 and inasmuch as I have nothing to say to you, I 
 must ask you to leave the room in five minutes." 
 And when the deputation, incensed over Roller's
 
 80 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 brusqueness, wished to explain, the redoubtable 
 baron exclaimed : " Gentlemen, the five minutes 
 are up. Leave." A door was opened, and in the 
 ante-room stood a sentry with fixed bayonet. 
 
 The year 1879 witnessed the end of the " policy 
 of abstinence." Due, largely, to Premier Taaffe's 
 persuasion and promises, Bohemians re-entered the 
 parliament. From Taaffe and his successors in 
 office they obtained some political concessions 
 (crumbs fallen from the opulent table of the mas- 
 ter, to repeat a current expression of the opposi- 
 tion), yet the supreme ideal of the nation, auton- 
 omy, is to-day no nearer fulfillment than it ever 
 was. If they thought that they might be able to 
 convince Vienna of the injustice of dualism and 
 might by parliamentary pressure force it to grant 
 to them home rule of which they had been twice 
 cheated, they had reckoned wrongly. Not only 
 did they fail to bring Vienna to terms, but they 
 were made to feel that another foe, powerful and 
 implacable, blocked their way to national freedom. 
 That foe was Berlin. For it must not be forgotten 
 that, since the formation of the Triple Alliance, 
 Berlin influence at Vienna, always great, had be- 
 come predominant. If the two Teutonic partners 
 were agreed on any one thing, it was on the propo- 
 sition that Slavic trees in Austria should not grow 
 too tall.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 81 
 
 To conduct the reader through the maze of 
 purely local happenings that occurred since Taaffe's 
 administration would be a long, though not wholly 
 uninteresting story. Suffice it to say that during 
 most of the time Bohemians were forced to fight 
 on two fronts Vienna on one front and their 
 fellow-countrymen with Pan-German leanings on 
 the other. The main quarrel between Vienna 
 and Prague during all these years has been over 
 Home Rule. Shall Bohemians living in the coun- 
 tries comprising the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, 
 Moravia, Silesia) be the arbiters of their own 
 destiny, and shall they govern themselves from 
 Prague by laws made and enacted by their home 
 parliament ? Home Rule is and has been the main 
 issue; all else is subordinate to it. 
 
 WAR WITHOUT SANCTION OF PARLIAMENT 
 
 In 1908 the German minority in the Bohemian 
 Diet proposed a plan aiming at a division of Bo- 
 hemia into two administrative parts, German and 
 Bohemian. This plan the Bohemians vehemently 
 combated, as they had consistently opposed like 
 schemes in the past. They claimed that to rend 
 the kingdom into two halves, Bohemian and Ger- 
 man, was both impracticable and dangerous. Im- 
 practicable, because it would condemn to inevitable
 
 82 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Germanization the very strong Bohemian minori- 
 ties living in German districts on the border. 
 Dangerous, because there were good reasons for 
 believing that German Bohemia would gravitate 
 toward Berlin, rather than toward Prague or 
 Vienna. Their scheme having been blocked, the 
 Germans availed themselves of obstructive tactics 
 in the diet, with the result that a deadlock ensued. 
 As usual, the Vienna Government hurried to the 
 assistance of the Germans. Bohemian leaders 
 were made to understand that they must yield in 
 the Prague Diet, or suffer punishment in the par- 
 liament. However, neither threats nor promises 
 moved the Bohemians; they made it plain that 
 they would not submit to further political extor- 
 tions. Unable to break the deadlock in Bohemia 
 and unwilling to abandon the Germans in their 
 hopeless struggle for the maintenance of Teutonic 
 hegemony in Austria, the Vienna Government, as 
 a last desperate means of saving its compatriots 
 from political defeat, suspended what there was 
 still left of Bohemian autonomy on July 26, 1913, 
 one year before the outbreak of the war, having 
 previously advised the Berlin Government of its 
 intention. The diet was dissolved, although new 
 elections had not been ordered, as the law pro- 
 vided, and in place of the autonomous Land 
 Executive, the government appointed an Imperial
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 83 
 
 Commission to govern Bohemia. This was the 
 beginning of an absolutist era in the kingdom. 
 
 The echo of the deadlock in Bohemia was at 
 once heard in parliament. Promptly the Bohe- 
 mians carried the fight to the imperial assembly, 
 thus crippling its functions. And so it happened 
 that, on the eve of the Great War, the highest 
 legislative tribunal of the empire did not meet 
 and the nations were not consulted as to whether 
 or not they wished war. The ruler alone decided 
 this momentous question by taking recourse to the 
 famous paragraph fourteen of the constitution 
 which, in certain cases, allows him to act alone 
 without the co-operation or advice of the parlia- 
 ment.* This situation really suited the wishes of 
 the government clique, which knew beforehand 
 that the Slavs would have resolutely opposed the 
 war if given an opportunity. Certain it is that the 
 Bohemians would have raised their voice against 
 the mad adventure against Serbia and would have 
 declared in no unequivocal language that a ruler 
 
 * The elusive paragraph fourteen of the constitution (bearing date 
 December 21, 1867) has been the cause of some of the bitterest fights 
 in parliament. It virtually nullifies constitutionalism in Austria, per- 
 mitting as it does the emperor and his ministers to rule the land " in 
 case of urgent 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 Bohe- 
 mians have battled in vain. Under paragraph fourteen the ruler cannot 
 change the fundamental laws of the realm, contract permanent loans, 
 and alienate public property. Aside from this there is nothing to 
 curb his absolutism. Parliament may impeach the ministers for ex-
 
 84 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 who had twice broken his solemn promise to 
 them had little claim on their loyalty. 
 
 In a hundred different ways the nation is being 
 wronged and held back, and no lasting relief is 
 possible so long as the deadening centralistic, anti- 
 Slavic policy obtains, so long as the state recog- 
 nizes master races and servant races and accords 
 different treatment to each. 
 
 To every one of its political and cultural de- 
 mands Vienna is ready to plead reasons of state, 
 policies of state, principles of state, necessities of 
 state. If the grumbling is too loud the malcontents 
 are given to understand: "If you are not satisfied 
 in Austria, you may have a chance to become Prus- 
 sians." 
 
 " Our nation is in a grave danger," said Palacky, 
 " and surrounded on all sides by enemies. Yet I 
 believe that it will conquer in the end, if it is 
 only determined." And the Bohemian nation is 
 determined, determined to the last man, to fight 
 for its life, its liberty, and its happiness. 
 
 ceeding their powers, but this safeguard is really no safeguard at all. 
 The German text of paragraph fourteen is as follows: 
 
 " Wenn sich die dringende Nothwendigkeit solchen Anordnungen, zu 
 welchera verfassungsmassig die Zustimmung des Reichsrathes erforder- 
 lich ist, zu einer Zeit herausstellt, wo dieser nicht versammelt ist, 
 so konnen dieselben unter Verantwortung des Gesammtministeriums 
 durch Kaiserliche Verordnung erlassen werden, in soferne solche 
 keine Abanderung des Staatsgrundgesetzes bezwecken, keine dauernde 
 Belastung des Staatschatzes, und keine Verauserung von Staatsgut 
 betreffen. Solche Verordnungen haben provisorische Gesetzkraft, wenn 
 sie von sammtlichen Ministern unterzeichnet sind, und mit ausdriick- 
 licher Beziehung auf diese Bestimmung des Staatsgrundgesetzes 
 kundgemacht werden."
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 85 
 
 HAPSBURGS DISTRUSTED 
 If there is one thing deeply rooted in the minds 
 of the Bohemian people it is the belief, or rather 
 the conviction, that the Hapsburgs, beginning with 
 Ferdinand II. and ending with Francis Josef, the 
 present sovereign, one and all planned the Ger- 
 manization of the nation. Vienna newspapers 
 make much of the fact that Bohemia has advanced 
 under the rule of Francis Josef as under no other 
 Hapsburg and they seek to convey the impres- 
 sion that this remarkable renascence should be 
 credited to his reign. If Francis Josef had had his 
 way, Bohemians argue, they would to-day be like 
 the Slavs along the Elbe who have succumbed to 
 Germanization, and Prague would be as German 
 as Leipzig or Vienna. Their own determination 
 to live saved them from extinction. All that the 
 nation is and all that it has attained it has accom- 
 plished through its own effort, without help from 
 Vienna, often in the face of the bitterest opposi- 
 tion from that quarter. Deny it as much as you 
 will, the truth remains that Bohemians, remem- 
 bering their experience with Ferdinand II., have 
 always distrusted the Hapsburgs; and Francis 
 Josef has done nothing, despite the splendid oppor- 
 tunities of his remarkably long reign, to dispel 
 that feeling of distrust. For, who was it but a 
 Hapsburg who, in the first half of the seventeenth
 
 86 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 century, turned their fatherland into a waste, driv- 
 ing into exile the flower of the nation ? Who but 
 a Hapsburg put a tombstone on the sepulchre of 
 the nation, and who but a Hapsburg tried to 
 smother its spirit under that tombstone? Who 
 but a Hapsburg caused the persecution and jail- 
 ing of the revivalists who undertook the task of 
 awakening the nation ? And who but a Hapsburg 
 twice violated, twice broke his solemn promise 
 to the nation, first in 1861, and again in 1871? 
 Who but a Hapsburg, by approving of the dual- 
 istic system of government in 1867, intrigued to 
 barter them away, with the rest of the Slavs, into 
 political bondage? 
 
 LOYALTY AND UNITY 
 
 Reading the utterances of Austrian officials in 
 the United States one is almost persuaded to be- 
 lieve that the reports of mutinies in the early 
 stages of the war and of disaffection of Slavic 
 troops were pure inventions of a hostile press, that 
 the nations in the Hapsburg Monarchy were en- 
 thusiastic and united * on the question of war and 
 
 * The register of prisoners at Kiev shows 1 14,000 were taken in 
 the Carpathian fighting during the two months before the fall of 
 Przemysl, and some difficulty has been 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 
 been due to the treachery of " that Czech Kusmanek," whereupon a 
 Czech officer struck him. The fight spread and the participants had 
 to be separated. Cable item from Russia.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 87 
 
 that stories of oppression of non-Germanic peoples 
 were baseless, lacking the foundation of truth. A 
 member of one of the consular staffs made a pretty 
 speech before the New York Twilight Club in 
 which he tried to convince his hearers that it was 
 an old-time policy of the Austrian Government to 
 treat justly and impartially all its subjects, irre- 
 spective of race, for does not the Hofburg in 
 Vienna, the residence of the emperor, bear the 
 proud legend, " Justice to all nations is the funda- 
 ment of Austria " ? 
 
 Is it really true that the Austrian troops are 
 and were loyal, that none shot their officers and 
 none surrendered to the Russians or to the Serbi- 
 ans when an opportunity presented ? Do not these 
 very denials of mutiny and disaffection sound sus- 
 picious? Mutiny of troops is admittedly unknown 
 in the German Army, and none have been, so far 
 as we know, reported from the French or English 
 Armies. Neither the Germans, nor the English, 
 nor the French officials in this country have felt 
 the need to make public affirmation or denial where 
 silence should have been most eloquent. If the 
 Austro-Hungarian officials are so sure of their 
 case, why do they make an exception and 
 try to refute what in the case of the other 
 warring countries is understood as a matter of 
 course ?
 
 88 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Before we could give unreserved credence to 
 these official assurances, we should like to hear 
 the other side of the story. But, it so happens that 
 the other side cannot now be presented. Every 
 newspaper in Austria, without an exception (par- 
 ticularly opposition journals printed in any of the 
 Slavic languages), is edited by the government. 
 The government censor is editor of all journals 
 published in the empire, and the newspapers are 
 given the choice either to print what the Imperial 
 Royal Press Bureau sends them or have the 
 articles promptly confiscated. As a result of this 
 complete muzzling of the press, there is now but 
 one kind of public opinion in Austria the censor's 
 opinion. According to the Prague journals, which 
 reach the United States, Austrians are winning 
 everywhere on land, at sea, and in the air. 
 Police agents plan fraternal and loyal meetings of 
 Germans and Slavs, and the police agents' faithful 
 ally, the censor, writes them up in the newspapers 
 and the Imperial Royal Press Bureau in Vienna 
 sends broadcast glowing accounts of them. Again, 
 many of the leading men of the Bohemian nation 
 are in jail or under strict police surveillance and 
 cannot speak. Are we to believe that all the Aus- 
 trian races fight enthusiastically? Precisely the 
 opposite of this is true. With the exception of a 
 fraction of the Galician Poles, the Slavs were en-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 89 
 
 tirely opposed to the war with Serbia.* Unfortu- 
 nately they have no voice in the foreign policy of 
 the monarchy; if their warnings and pleadings, as 
 reflexed in their press, had been heeded, war 
 against Serbia would never have been undertaken. 
 Slavs are battling under the Austro-Hungarian 
 standards because they cannot help themselves. 
 Yet their hearts are not in the fight. Even the 
 dullest and least informed mind will guess, not- 
 
 * The Slavs in Austria-Hungary are divided into the following racial 
 groups: 
 
 1. The Bohemians. Inhabit Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Strong 
 settlements are found in Austria (the city of Vienna alone being the 
 home of not less than 300,000, according to some estimates 500,- 
 ooo) and in Prussian Silesia. 
 
 2. The Slovaks. Settled in the northwestern part of Hungary and 
 in Moravia. 
 
 Professor Lubor Niederle, who is recognized as an authority on 
 Slavic matters, computed in 1900 the strength of the Bohemians, to- 
 gether with the Slovaks, at 9,800,000. 
 
 3. The Poles. Scattered over the whole of Galicia, intermixing 
 there with the Ruthenes, but predominating mainly in the westerly 
 part of it. They also live in Silesia, with settlements in Bukovina 
 and Moravia. Austrian Poles number almost 5,000,000. All told, 
 the Polish race in Austria, Germany, and Russia is computed by 
 Niederle (1900) at 17,500,000; 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 Govern- 
 ment. In Galicia, the Poles are the aristocracy and the Ruthenes the 
 peasant element. The affection of Vienna for the Poles, however, is 
 not above suspicion; it is claimed that hatred of Russia, common to 
 both the Poles and the Austrians, was more directly responsible for 
 the alliance than any other single cause, though of course it is unde- 
 niable that under Austrian rule the Poles fared better than either 
 under the Russian or Prussian regimes. 
 
 4. The Slovenes. Occupy the whole of Carniola, the southern 
 part of Styria, the major section of Goritz and Gradiska, except a 
 section in the southwestern part thereof, the outlying villages of Trieste, 
 the northern end of Istria, which projects on the west into Italian ter-
 
 90 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 withstanding the honeyed assurances of consular 
 officials, the way their sympathies incline. It 
 should be borne in mind that this is a war of Slavs 
 against Slavs, of Slavic Russia and Slavic Serbia 
 against two-fifths Slavic Austria. Let us place 
 ourselves in the position of the Bohemians. For 
 decades they have worked for solidarity among the 
 Slavs, so much so that their endeavors in this 
 direction have earned for them the title of the 
 
 ritory and eastward into Hungary. Niederle's estimate of the Slovenes 
 in 1900 was 1,500,000. 
 
 5. No Slavic race is more torn up territorially than the Serbo- 
 Croatians. Although really one people by language and origin, they 
 have divided themselves, or rather were subdivided 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 Adriatic, the whole of Croatia and Slavonia, a piece of southern 
 Hungary, and all of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Besides this, there is, of 
 course, the Serbian Kingdom and Montenegro. 
 
 Niederle estimated the Serbo-Croatians in 1900 at 8,550,000. 
 
 6. The Ruthenes (Little Russians). Overflow the Russian bounda- 
 ries to Galicia, being predominant in east Galicia, strong in western 
 and northern Bukovina, numerous in several counties in Hungary. 
 
 Niederle computed the strength of the Ruthenes in Galicia, Hun- 
 gary, and Bukovina in 1900 at 3,500,000. 
 
 By religious affiliations the Slavs are divided as follows: To the Catholic 
 group belong almost wholly the Bohemians, Poles, Slovenes, Croatians, 
 and Slovaks (of the last named about seven-tenths). 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 Galicia, Hungary, and Bukovina, and 
 the Serbians. A fraction of the Russians in Galicia and Hungary 
 adheres to the Uniate Church, and there are believers in Mohamme- 
 danism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
 
 The old-fashioned Austrian diplomacy knew well the value of the 
 principle " divide and rule " and tried it on its Slavs with success. 
 There was a time when Bohemians in Moravia were taught by Aus- 
 trian officials to believe that they were Moravians, not Bohemians. 
 The difference between Bohemian and Moravian is as great as the 
 difference between Bronx English and Brooklyn English, yet this fact
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 91 
 
 Apostles of Pan-Slavism. Is it reasonable to sup- 
 pose that they would suddenly turn traitors to 
 one of the most cherished traditions of their race 
 and shout enthusiastically for a war which, if 
 successful for the two Kaisers, would mean 
 their certain obliteration? If Germany should 
 win, the eventual absorption by her of Austria 
 would be probable, if not inevitable. The Pan- 
 German sentiment in the two neighboring em- 
 pires would become so overwhelmingly strong 
 that nothing would stay its furor and the millions 
 of Austrian Slavs would find themselves face to 
 face with their doom. Plainly, Slavs have nothing 
 
 did not discourage the grammarians in Vienna from setting up 
 boundaries where none existed. Croatia, as pointed out elsewhere, 
 is peopled by a nation calling itself alternately Croatians and Serbs. 
 Possessing a common past, the same racial traditions, and 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 gram- 
 marians 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 differ- 
 ent races. Galicia is inhabited by two distinct peoples, the Russians 
 and the Poles. The name " Russian " sounded badly in Austria. It 
 constantly reminded the Galician Russians that on the other side of 
 the yellow-black boundary posts lived a great nation that spoke the 
 same language and professed the same faith as they. Again the 
 learned grammarians in Vienna went to work and by dint of hard 
 study discovered that Austrian Russians were really not what they 
 seemed to be and promptly they baptized them " Ruthenes." The 
 ruse, of course, was to veil the nearness of the relationship of the 
 " Ruthenes " to the Russians in Russia proper. In the same manner 
 and with the same object in view the Slovaks of Hungary are en- 
 couraged to believe that they are a separate race and not near rela- 
 tives of the Bohemians.
 
 92 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 to gain from the defeat of the Allies, but every- 
 thing to lose from the victory of the Hapsburgs 
 and the Hohenzollerns. They feel that nothing 
 short of a decisive defeat of Austria will liberate 
 them from the thraldom of German-Magyar domi- 
 nation. If Austria collapses in this war the Bo- 
 hemians will be among the first to profit thereby.* 
 Is it really true that the Slavs are loyal? Is it 
 not rather a loyalty wrung from them at the point 
 of the bayonet? Besides, how can they protest 
 against a war which was neither of their choosing 
 nor of their making, when the military rule has 
 made protests impossible ? One must respect and 
 even admire the French and the Germans when 
 they declare that they are fighting for the exist- 
 ence of the fatherland. What are the Austrian 
 
 * For a student of Austrian conditions it is instructive to note 
 how the war of the Balkan Allies against the Turk divided the sym- 
 pathies of the people along racial lines. Save a fraction of the Poles 
 in Galicia, the Slavs sided heartily and enthusiastically with the 
 Allies. The Germans and the Magyars wished for the success of the 
 Turks. When the Bulgars routed the Ottoman army at Kirk Killise, 
 the Vienna press ill-concealed its chagrin, while Slavic journals re- 
 joiced 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 some time before the Balkan 
 War that relief from Austrian thraldom may be looked for, not from 
 Russia, as many dreamers believed, but from the small Slavic states 
 in the Balkans. If these were victorious, prophesied this newspaper 
 writer, the Slavs in the Hapsburg Monarchy were sure to gain mor- 
 ally from the victory. Official public opinion frowned on the war 
 relief work among Austrian Slavs in aid of the Balkan Allies.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 93 
 
 Slavs fighting for? To them, or rather to the 
 majority of them, Austrian fatherland conveys 
 but an abstraction, for correctly speaking, Austria 
 is a government and not a fatherland in the sense 
 that a German or a Frenchman regards the country 
 of his birth. Austria may possibly be a father- 
 land to the inhabitants of the Archduchies of 
 Lower and Upper Austria, but not to a Bohemian, a 
 Magyar, or a Pole certainly no more than England 
 is the fatherland of an Irishman. By allegiance 
 a Bohemian is an Austrian subject, ethnically 
 he belongs to the country of his birth Bohemia. 
 While the national anthem "Kde domov muj " 
 (Where is my Home?) stirs deeply the emotions 
 of a Bohemian, the singing of the Austrian hymn 
 " Gott erhalte " leaves him cold and indifferent. 
 
 VIENNA, THE CAPITAL 
 
 Vienna loves to pose as the beacon-light of the 
 empire somewhat as Paris, the recognized centre of 
 everything French, or Berlin, the pivotal city of 
 Germany. Yet Vienna forgets that it lacks all of 
 the historical, geographical, economic essentials 
 of Paris and, for that matter, of Berlin. What 
 is Vienna? The residence of the sovereign and the 
 seat of the government and the capital not of the 
 empire, mind you, but of the Archduchy of Lower 
 Austria. The capital of Hungary is Budapest; the
 
 94 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 centre of attraction of the Poles is Cracow; the 
 heart of the Bohemians is Prague. What has been 
 the attitude of Vienna toward the non-German peo- 
 ples and their national needs? The good-natured 
 Viennese has for decades seen the Slavs caricatured 
 on the stage, or in the humorous journals, as hope- 
 less simpletons, while the Bohemian Wenzel was 
 chosen by common consent as the quintessence of 
 stupidity. 
 
 Several years ago a Bohemian Bank purchased 
 palatial quarters on a leading thoroughfare, but 
 it had to cover with cloth a Bohemian sign on the 
 building until the municipality gave its consent 
 thereto. A few years ago a company of actors, 
 attached to the National Theatre at Prague, ar- 
 ranged to give in Vienna representative plays. 
 Anti-Bohemian demonstrations, ending in riots, 
 were the result. 
 
 Vienna, the capital of an empire that is inhabited 
 by a dozen different races, and which counts among 
 its inhabitants upward of 300,000 Bohemians, ob- 
 jected to a business sign in Bohemian, because it 
 might mar the beauty of its looks as a German city ! 
 A few years ago the municipality ordered the clos- 
 ing of the Komensky Bohemian elementary school, 
 ostensibly because it failed to comply with build- 
 ing and health ordinances. The real reason, how- 
 ever, was known to be political and racial antip-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 95 
 
 athy. Is it any wonder, then, that the sentiment 
 " Away from Vienna " is strong and that it 
 grows stronger every year among non-Germans? 
 " Vienna has always been to us," remarked a noted 
 Bohemian writer, " a cruel, unforgiving step- 
 mother." 
 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 On the surface the Austrian problem appears 
 to be quite complicated, yet with the assistance of 
 a few facts and figures much that is puzzling to 
 casual observers becomes intelligible, if not per- 
 fectly clear. 
 
 Like most industrial countries, Austria is 
 plagued with issues which follow in the wake of 
 modernism whatever that term may imply. 
 Modernism there pounds with ever-increasing vio- 
 lence at the doors of the palaces of the opulent 
 captains of industry. The small farmer is land- 
 hungry. Industrialism has everywhere created 
 new sources of wealth, yet with every factory 
 erected or a mine opened the socialists have added 
 so much to their disaffected ranks. A bitter war 
 is being waged in certain sections of the monarchy 
 between the clericals and the modernists, for it 
 must not be forgotten that Austria is still a faith- 
 ful daughter of Rome. If there are those who 
 favor the " Los von Rom " " Away from Rome "
 
 96 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 movement, there are others who firmly believe 
 that a steadfast loyalty to a faith different from 
 that professed by the Prussian neighbor, really con- 
 stitutes one of the most effective barriers against 
 the ever-threatening absorption of Austria by 
 Prussia. 
 
 Most important of all the problems, however, 
 which confront Austria is that of nationalism. 
 Nationalism was unknown to Austria in the days 
 of Napoleon. Prior to 1848 Hapsburgs knew and 
 recognized Austrian-Germans only. After that 
 revolutionary year they were compelled to take 
 notice, unwillingly enough, we may be sure, of 
 other races. Bohemians, Magyars, Croatians, and 
 others forced themselves to the front ; and, resent- 
 ing the broad and ethnically meaningless term 
 " Austrian," demanded to be called by their proper 
 racial names. 
 
 The voice tha.t extolled racial patriotism had 
 first been heard across the Austrian frontier from 
 Frankfort, Germany, in 1848, when a parliament 
 that had been summoned to that city called on 
 Germans to unite. Promptly the Slavs took up the 
 idea of unity and as a retaliatory measure sum- 
 moned a Pan-Slavic Congress to meet in Prague. 
 It was on the occasion of the Prague Congress 
 that Francis Palacky addressed his famous let- 
 ter to the Frankfortists, explaining why the Bohe-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 97 
 
 mians and other Slavs were opposed to the in- 
 corporation of Austria in the future Germany. 
 " The aim which you propose to yourselves," wrote 
 Palacky, among other things, to Frankfort, " is 
 the substitution of a federation of peoples for the 
 old federation of princes, to unite the German 
 nation in a real union, to strengthen the sentiment 
 of German nationality, to secure the greatness of 
 Germans without and within. I honor your resolve 
 and the motives by which you are impelled, but at 
 the same time I cannot share in your work. I am 
 not a German, or at least I do not feel as if I were 
 one. Assuredly you cannot wish that I should 
 join you merely as a supernumerary with neither 
 opinion nor will of my own. I am a Bohemian of 
 Slavic origin, and all I possess and command I 
 place wholly and forever at the service of my 
 own country. It is true that my nation is 
 small, but from the very beginning it has possessed 
 its own historical individuality. Its princes on 
 occasions have acted in common with German 
 princes, but the people have never regarded them- 
 selves as Germans, nor have others, during all 
 these centuries, included them amongst them." 
 
 It, therefore, sounds very much like irony to 
 hear Germans from the Fatherland censuring the 
 Austrian Government for allowing the national 
 movement among its Slavs to spread as it did.
 
 98 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 What the Austrian nations really did was to follow 
 the advice of their Germanic tutors and awaken 
 racially. 
 
 The population of Austria in 1910 was 28,571,- 
 934. Of this number the Slavs constituted 60.65 
 percentage, the Germans 35.58. It is in these 
 figures that we must seek and will find the real 
 problem of the country. " Austria," once declared 
 a noted statesman in the Austrian Parliament, 
 " should be a German state in language and edu- 
 cation. German should be spoken by all persons 
 and serve as a political bond to all races and na- 
 tionalities. All the citizens, whatever may be their 
 mother tongue, Bohemians, Slovaks, Poles, Ru- 
 thenes, Slovenes, Rumuns, and Italians, should 
 submit to the baptism of the German school, if 
 they desire to participate in the public affairs of 
 the state." Someone answering von Kaiser f eld, 
 for that was the name of the distinguished states- 
 man, " You desire to Germanize the empire ; you 
 are not Austrians, you are Germans," von Kaiser- 
 feld replied angrily, " There are no Austrians in 
 Austria, only Germans." Von Kaiserfeld was not 
 the only statesman who believed that Austria 
 should be a German state. That is the obsession 
 practically of every German in the country, from 
 the emperor down to the meanest postman. Yet 
 Austria is to-day further from the realization of
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 99 
 
 this dream than it ever was. The feeling of 
 nationalism has grown too strong among the non- 
 Germans to be suppressed. And this nationalism 
 demands that people shall be allowed to live their 
 individual lives, to cultivate their language and 
 racial ideals, and to pursue both without the in- 
 terference of any other people. 
 
 Much of the difficulty in the past has been di- 
 rectly due to the fact that the 35 per cent, not only 
 thought and acted for themselves, but they also 
 insisted on doing the thinking for the 60 per cent., 
 regardless of the latter's feelings. The result was 
 jealousy, discord, opposition. Even the Great War 
 which has caused Austria to rock like a rudderless 
 ship, was engineered and premeditated by the 35 
 per cent., in face of the bitter, though of course 
 futile, opposition of the 60 per cent. As a result, 
 there is only 30 per cent, of enthusiasm and effi- 
 ciency; and in juxtaposition, 60 per cent, in dis- 
 aster, defeats, and discouragements. 
 
 The Hapsburgs have never learned, it seems, 
 how to rule their many nationalities successfully. 
 There are two races in Canada, the English and 
 the French. If the Canadian Government had 
 treated its citizens of French origin in the same 
 rough-shod manner as Vienna has treated the Bo- 
 hemians, or Budapest the Slovaks, Serbs, or 
 Rumuns, she would have made rebels of every one
 
 100 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 of them, instead of loyal citizens. The Swiss 
 Republic is the home of three races, French, Ger- 
 man, and Italian, and yet we hear of no racial 
 friction among them. And when and where did 
 the national, state, or city government in the United 
 States interfere when this or that people of for- 
 eign origin desired to build a school or establish a 
 clubhouse? 
 
 Years ago T. G. Masaryk, a prominent Bohe- 
 mian deputy, delivered a scathing denunciation 
 in parliament, in which he took the government 
 to task for its anti-Slavic policy. " Extirpate, 
 Germanize, that is and has been the favorite policy 
 of the government for decades," said Masaryk. 
 " Extirpate whom ? The Slavs, of course, and first 
 among them the Bohemians. A nation as vigorous 
 and virile as our Bohemian nation is bound, if 
 persecuted, to seek and find new outlets for its 
 surplus energy. And if, while this process is 
 going on, we succeed in reclaiming some of the 
 ground that had been wrested from our fore- 
 fathers, it is but a law of compensation and the 
 Germans should not claim that we are encroaching 
 on their domain, which they claim belongs to them. 
 We shall never rest content if we are only tolerated 
 in Austria; we demand the right to be treated as 
 equals with the rest of the citizens of the state 
 and we insist on being permitted to work out our
 
 A PLACE IN <THE SUN-^'t \: \ 10 1 
 
 destiny as Bohemians without restrictions or limi- 
 tations. We entertain no hatred toward the 
 Germans. We are distrustful, not so much of Ger- 
 many, as of Prussia. Recently a speaker in this 
 parliament has declared that the Germans were 
 not antagonistic to the Slavs, and that, therefore, 
 they could not be hostile to the Bohemians. This, 
 I regret to say, is untrue. It is a matter of com- 
 mon knowledge that not only they, but the govern- 
 ment as well, are in opposition to us. I shall not 
 repeat what Mr. Dumreicher has lately said about 
 the Germanization of the Slovenes and of the Bo- 
 hemians ; permit me to allude to a pamphlet which 
 came out some time ago and which is causing a 
 great deal of comment, ' On the right and the duty 
 of the Germanization of the Bohemians and the 
 Slovenes,' by Mathias Ratkovsky. Yes, gentlemen, 
 it will be a sin if the Bohemians and Slovenes are 
 not Germanized, is the opinion of Mr. Ratkovsky of 
 the Vienna Theresianum. The government should 
 use force to attain this object, if necessary. Equal- 
 ity of languages, what nonsense, argues Mr. Rat- 
 kovsky ! The government owes it to the people to 
 make Bohemia German. Extirpate! Remember, 
 gentlemen, Ratkovsky is not an isolated case; this 
 agitation is being conducted systematically both in 
 Austria and in Germany. F. Loher, a Bavarian 
 historian, who studied conditions in Austria-
 
 103 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Hungary in the seventies, declared that there was 
 only one conclusion possible : to make Germans of 
 Bohemians and Magyars. This same idea was 
 advanced by Professor Walcker of the University 
 of Leipzig. Yet, gentlemen, I should not attribute 
 so great a weight to the opinions here cited were 
 it not for the circumstance that bigger men in Ger- 
 many were behind this scheme. One can often 
 hear mentioned the name of Lagarde in this con- 
 nection and you, gentlemen of the German na- 
 tional party, know Lagarde's name full well. 
 What has this great thinker taught the German 
 youth for decades ? ' Austria must be regarded in 
 the light of a colony of Germany. Apart from this 
 Austria has no claim to a separate existence. Aus- 
 tria is confronted with one task only and that 
 task is to Germanize all its Slavs.' To the South 
 Slavs Lagarde gave pardon. All the other people 
 of the Danube Monarchy, including the Magyars, 
 were obstacles in Germany's way and the sooner 
 they were extirpated the better for Germany, the 
 better for themselves. Slavs, according to La- 
 garde, resembled a commercial enterprise which 
 was working with an insufficient capital. And just 
 as there could be no Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz-Loben- 
 stein policy, so there could not exist a state called 
 Wenzelland (an opprobrious term given to Bohemia 
 by Germans and meaning much the same as Pat-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 103 
 
 rickland as applied to Ireland). Istria, contended 
 Lagarde, should be German to form an outlet for 
 German commerce to the Adriatic Sea and to the 
 African coast, Jablunkov (a town in Austrian 
 Silesia situated on a direct route to Hungary) 
 should hear nothing but German, and from there 
 let the wave roll southwardly, submerging the 
 wretched little states and people that now bar the 
 way thither. ' No empire, save Germany, is capable 
 of upholding peace in Central Europe, a Germany, 
 which should reach out from the Ems to the delta 
 of the Danube, from Memel to Trieste, from 
 Metz to the river Bug. Only such a Germany 
 could be self-sustaining, only such a Germany, 
 with its huge standing army, would be powerful 
 enough to defeat both France and Russia. Bo- 
 hemians and all the other small races must not be 
 coddled by us. On the contrary, they are our 
 enemies, and we should deal with them as such. 
 Austria cannot be preserved except as a Germanic 
 Empire.' Gentlemen, note what is going on in 
 Germany at the present time and you cannot but 
 see that this plan to unite Austria with Germany, 
 to Germanize Austria,, has become a recognized 
 policy in both of these monarchies. I am not quot- 
 ing from newspaper clippings. I could refer you 
 to the books of several prominent writers in sup- 
 port of this contention. Can you blame us then
 
 104 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 that we are on guard and that we watch with 
 jealous look what is going on both in Germany 
 and among our Austrian Germans? Do not tell 
 us that we should not take seriously theories of 
 professors lecturing at Gottingen, Munich, and so 
 forth. No, these theories so-called are assuming 
 practical forms. Behold, for instance, the teach- 
 ing of a philosopher like Edward Hartmann. A 
 few years ago this noted scholar defined the pro- 
 gram of Germany very clearly: Ausrotten! (ex- 
 tirpate). Ausrotten whom? The Poles, of 
 course, and with them all those who are not of 
 German blood. You cannot convince us that this 
 is a theory advanced by professorial dreamers 
 only; no, it is a theory which the chancellor of 
 iron and blood (Bismarck) put to practice with 
 the backing and money of the Prussian Govern- 
 ment in the case of the Poles in Posen. I allude 
 to this not as an isolated case, but as part of a 
 well-recognized system that is at work through- 
 out our monarchy and that not alone threatens to 
 undermine its very existence as a state, but which 
 aims a death-blow at our nation, just as it menaces 
 the life of the Poles, of the Slovenes, and of all 
 the Slavs." 
 
 The constitution of 1867 proclaimed the equality 
 of languages in schools, courts, and in administra- 
 tion of public affairs. However, the operation of
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 105 
 
 this constitutional guarantee is unique and its in- 
 terpretation a legal puzzle. For example, in 
 Carinthia there are 30,000 Germans and 500,000 
 Slovenes; the latter are autochthons, yet the Ger- 
 mans there demand equality but they vehemently 
 deny equality to the Slovene minority in Styria. 
 In the same breath, they insist that German schools 
 be maintained in Italian Tyrol, while they urge 
 the authorities to close Italian schools in northern 
 Tyrol. In Prague the courts try cases in either 
 Bohemian or German, but should a Bohemian come 
 into contact with the courts in Vienna, the capital 
 of the empire, the law forgets equality and treats 
 him there as a foreigner who must plead his case in 
 German only. In Prague there are numerous and 
 palatial German schools maintained by the state 
 or the municipality, as the case may be; but in 
 Vienna Bohemians, though numbering not less 
 than 300,000 (in Prague Germans are 17,000 
 strong), have not one public school and the school 
 authorities at the capital have fought for years in 
 the courts every attempt of the Bohemians in that 
 direction. A very striking illustration of the chaos 
 in this respect is found in Bohemia. There, in the 
 so-called German-Bohemia, Germans insist that 
 their language shall be paramount and exclusive in 
 the judiciary, schools, and administration. Hav- 
 ing long enjoyed ascendency they will not content
 
 106 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 themselves with equality; yet in the rest of the 
 country, in the mixed and in the pure Bohemian 
 districts, they demand that both tongues shall have 
 equal rights. By stamping their tongues as 
 " minderwertig," inferior, the government pro- 
 vokes to opposition the non-German element. 
 
 Observe how the idea of equality works out in 
 practice the matter of the distribution of schools. 
 For 9,950,266 Germans Austria maintains 5 uni- 
 versities (at Vienna, Prague, Graz, Innsbruck, 
 Czernovitz), and for 6,435,983 Bohemians one 
 university at Prague. And this one university the 
 Bohemians were able to get in 1882 only after a 
 great deal of political haggling and bargaining. 
 Opponents of the Bohemian seat of learning pre- 
 dicted that it would soon fail for lack of profes- 
 sors and of students. Yet, contrary to their ex- 
 pectation, when the Prague school was divided in 
 1882 into two parts, Bohemian and German, 1,055 
 students matriculated the first year in the Bohe- 
 main section as against 1,695 Germans. Eventu- 
 ally the Bohemian university by the way, one of 
 the oldest universities in Central Europe, having 
 been founded by Emperor Charles IV. in 1348 
 far outstripped its old partner in point of attend- 
 ance. At present the number of students in the 
 Bohemian faculties is 4,713; in the German 2,282. 
 Of late years a demand has been made for a sec-
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 107 
 
 ond university to be located at Brno (Briinn), the 
 capital of Moravia. The University of Prague is 
 scandalously overcrowded and students from the 
 sister state of Moravia are compelled, in conse- 
 quence, to go to Vienna in search of education, 
 where, under Teutonic influences, many are 
 estranged from their nation. Numerous petitions 
 have been addressed to the government on the 
 subject of a second university, but to no purpose. 
 In the matter of secondary schools (gymnasia and 
 real schools) the discrimination against non-Ger- 
 mans is very striking. For 4,241,918 Bohemians 
 in Bohemia the government maintains 39 schools 
 of this type for secondary education, and they are 
 unable to get more, while 2,467,724 Germans 
 boast 34 of these schools. In Moravia the dis- 
 proportion is still greater and in Silesia it is 
 relatively worse than in Moravia. The condition 
 of the Bohemian elementary schools in the mixed 
 districts near the border is most deplorable. It 
 was the blind and unreasoning hostility of the au- 
 thorities in the German-Bohemian districts against 
 Bohemian schools which led the patriots, in 1880, 
 to found a school society called the Ustredni 
 Matice Skolska. This vernacular school society 
 had spent, up to 1912, a total of more than 
 $3,000,000 in the establishment and support of 
 such schools in districts inhabited by both races.
 
 108 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Every cent of this money has been donated by the 
 Bohemian people in order to give their children an 
 education in the mother tongue. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF AUSTRIA 
 
 " Austria as a great power," said Rieger,* in 
 a speech delivered in parliament in 1861, " dates 
 back only to the days when the Bohemian Crown 
 and the Hungarian Crown united with Austria. 
 We Bohemians raised it to the dignity of a 
 state of the first magnitude when, by a free elec- 
 tion, our diet summoned, on October 23, 1526,! 
 Ferdinand I. to the sovereign throne of our king- 
 dom. Our action was followed on November 
 26th of that year by the Hungarians, who placed 
 the crown of their country on the head of this 
 Hapsburg. From that time on Austria, composed 
 of three states in one, started on its career of a 
 world power. The three units were the basis, the 
 origin, the rise of the Austrian Empire. All else is 
 really the result of accident. Eastern Galicia has 
 
 * Francis L. Rieger (1818-1903), a lawyer, writer, economist, and 
 statesman, was, despite his German name, an uncompromising patriot 
 who had spent his whole life in the service of his nation. Modern 
 Bohemia without Rieger is unthinkable. His name is written large 
 on every page of his country's history. As a leader of the Old Bo- 
 hemian party he naturally played a prominent role in the fight for 
 the historical rehabilitation of the Bohemian Kingdom. Having mar- 
 ried the daughter of Francis Palacky, the " Father of the Nation," 
 he was nicknamed by his political adversaries, " Son-in-law of the 
 Nation." 
 
 t Ferdinand, however, took his oath of office January 30, 1527.
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 109 
 
 belonged to Austria only since 1772, Bukovina 
 since 1777, Western Galicia since 1795, Venice and 
 Dalmatia since 1797, Southern Tyrol (Trient and 
 Brixen) since 1801, Salzburg and other smaller 
 lands since 1814, while Cracow is part of Austria 
 only since 1846. All these possessions have not 
 made Austria a great power, for even without 
 them it would still be one; however, an Austrian 
 Empire is unthinkable and Austria as a great 
 power is inconceivable without one of the three 
 crowns that of Austria, Bohemia, or Hungary." 
 
 AUSTRIA'S FUTURE DARK 
 
 What is Austria? A land that has a German 
 head and a Slavonic body, in which minorities 
 rule and majorities are made to obey, the home- 
 land of a dozen races, every one of which is dis- 
 satisfied or jealous of some other race. 
 
 There was a time when Austria had a mission to 
 perform. That mission was to serve as the ad- 
 vance guard of Germandom and as a Catholic 
 power. The first came to an end at Sedan when 
 the Prussians assumed leadership among Germans ; 
 the second terminated when Prussia gave up its 
 Kulturkampf against Rome. Now Austria is a 
 country without a mission, unless it be a mission 
 to thwart the legitimate aspirations of the Slavic 
 races to national freedom.
 
 110 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 For Austria to pursue further its policy of Teu- 
 tonism is madness. If the monarchy wishes to 
 live it must be neither German, for there is no 
 room in Europe for two Germanic Empires side 
 by side, nor wholly Slavonic, like Russia. Her 
 manifest destiny is, or rather has been, to form a 
 bridge between Germany and Russia, between the 
 Slavs and Teutons, between the west and the east. 
 For Germany to go to war to fight the Slavic peril 
 is conceivable, even justifiable; but for Austria, 
 more than 60 per cent. Slavonic, to draw her 
 sword to combat Slavism sounds very much like 
 the familiar story attributed by Plutarch to 
 Menenius Agrippa, according to which various 
 members of one's body determined to down the 
 stomach as the source of all their troubles. To 
 fight the Slavs Austria must fight herself. 
 
 Plainly the destinies of Austria and Germany 
 are as unlike as are divergent their ambitions. Ger- 
 many aspired to be a world power, a Weltmacht, 
 and in pursuance of this dream she began to build 
 up a colonial empire. Austria possesses no colo- 
 nies. The plan of her statesmen (Aehrenthal) 
 has been to establish a predominating Austrian 
 influence in the Balkans, where Germany's inter- 
 ests, to quote the well-known words of Bismarck, 
 were not worth the bones of one Pomeranian 
 grenadier. Germany is a homogeneous country
 
 A PLACE IN THE SUN 111 
 
 or nearly so; Austria, on the contrary, is the most 
 heterogeneous empire in Central Europe. 
 
 Quite naturally the question suggests itself: 
 what would arise on the splendid ruins on the 
 Danube should the proverbial ill-luck overtake the 
 Hapsburgs in the present war ? With Galicia and 
 Bukovina lost to Russia, with Transylvania an- 
 nexed to Rumania, with Trentino and Trieste 
 restored to Italy, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in- 
 corporated in Greater Serbia provided the parti- 
 tion went no further what would be left of the 
 Hapsburg inheritance ? Instead of a Greater Aus- 
 tria, that should have included conquered Serbia, 
 it is not improbable that the Hapsburgs will re- 
 turn home from the Great War with a Small 
 Austria an Austria as it began in 1527, when the 
 Austrians, Bohemians, and Hungarians formed a 
 confederacy and elected a Hapsburg as their ruler. 
 
 Rieger, a Bohemian statesman, once declared 
 in the Vienna Parliament, that Austria will only 
 live as long as the Slavs wish her to live and no 
 longer. Rieger's famous utterance has acquired a 
 new meaning in view of the passing events in the 
 Hapsburg Empire. 
 
 THOMAS CAPEK. 
 
 References : The writer of this article is largely 
 indebted for much of the material to Professor 
 Ernest Denis' most excellent work, La Boheme 
 depuis La Montagne-Blanche (lately translated
 
 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 from the French into Bohemian). Among others 
 he has consulted the following Bohemian works : 
 Our Re-birth, Review of Bohemian National Life 
 Within the Last Half Century, by Jakub Maly; 
 Slavdom, Pictures of Its Past and Present. (This 
 is a standard work containing isolated articles by 
 a number of representative authors.) History of 
 Our Times, by Dr. Jan Kristuf ek ; Political History 
 of the Bohemian Nation from the Year 1861 to 
 the Ascension of the Badeni Ministry in 1891, by 
 Adolf Srb; Political Ideas of Francis Palacky; Po- 
 litical Utterances and Principles of Francis L. 
 Rieger; A Great Bohemian: The Life, Work and 
 Meaning of Francis Palacky, the Father of the Na- 
 tion, by Vacslav Reznicek; Karel Havlicek; Aims 
 and Hopes of Political Awakening, by T. G. 
 Masaryk.
 
 II 
 
 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 
 
 THE Slovaks, a branch of the Slavic family, 
 numbering between 2,000,000 and 3,000,- 
 ooo people, and kinsmen of the Bohemians, 
 inhabit the northwestern provinces of Hungary. 
 There is not uniform agreement among Slovak 
 scholars with reference to the ethnic affinity of this 
 people with the Bohemians. Are the Slovaks a 
 direct offshoot of the Bohemians or a separate 
 branch of the Slavic family? Ethnologists find 
 convincing arguments for and against both 
 theories. Bohemians, as may be surmised, take 
 the ground that they and the Slovaks are one 
 one in language and one in racial traditions and 
 that nothing divides them except political bound- 
 aries, the Slovaks being subject to the rule of 
 Hungary, Bohemians owing allegiance to Austria. 
 Samo Czambel, a learned Slovak, published a 
 book recently on the grammatical peculiarities of 
 his mother tongue in which, contrary to the almost 
 universal opinion of philologists that Slovak is but 
 an older form of Bohemian, he contends that the 
 
 113
 
 114 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 old grouping of Slovak jointly with Bohemian is 
 wrong ; and that the language should be treated as 
 an independent Slavic idiom, precisely in the same 
 way as Polish, Russian, etc. But, though gram- 
 marians may disagree about this or that Slovak 
 or Bohemian root or termination of a verb; though 
 they may fancy they see a difference where prob- 
 ably none exists, the people themselves have no 
 quarrels to pick, no disputes to adjust. On the 
 contrary, they have always been good neighbors * 
 and loyal friends. As for real differences of 
 speech, these are so slight that a Slovak will under- 
 stand a Bohemian as readily as an Englishman 
 from Yorkshire will his cousin, the Yankee. One 
 is reminded of the closeness of the two languages 
 when one recalls that Slovaks of the Protestant 
 faith read at their church services from the Bo- 
 hemian Bible. Recently a meeting of representa- 
 tive Bohemians and Slovaks f in New York 
 passed a resolution, in which occurs this significant 
 passage : " Nothing now separates us, except that 
 we owe political allegiance to two different states, 
 one to Austria, the other to Hungary. Remove 
 that barrier, and it will be seen that the Bohe- 
 
 * " The Slovaks and Their Language " (Slovici a ich Rec), by Dr. 
 Sarao Czambel, Budapest, 1903. 
 
 t Among the Slovak spokesmen at this meeting was Editor Milan 
 Getting, of New York. At a subsequent conference was present 
 Albert Mamatey, President of the National Slovak Society.
 
 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 115 
 
 mians and Slovaks are one in language, one in 
 blood, one in national faith, indissoluble and in- 
 divisible." 
 
 According to the census of 1910, a census, by 
 the way, notoriously unreliable, Slovaks number 
 1,967,970. If an enumeration were taken free 
 of intrigue and coercion, the actual number of 
 Slovaks, it is asserted, would be nearer 2,500,000; 
 and, were we to include as Slovaks the opportunists 
 who everywhere go with the ruling element, and 
 further, were we to add those who are compelled, 
 for various reasons, to conceal their nationality, 
 the actual number would not be far from 3,000,000. 
 Outside of Slovakland Slovaks are scattered 
 throughout Hungary except in Transylvania. 
 There are few districts in Hungary in which they 
 do not live. The various settlements in the in- 
 terior of the country are in part ramifications of 
 Slovakland proper, which formerly extended fur- 
 ther south into Hungary than at present and in 
 part colonies, the origin of which dates back to 
 the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 
 
 When did the Slovaks come to Hungary ? Prob- 
 ably the question could best be answered by saying 
 that they had always lived there. Certain pseudo- 
 historians wish to make it appear that the Slovaks 
 are descendants of immigrants from Bohemia who 
 fled to Hungary to escape religious and political
 
 116 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 persecution. The truth is, however, that their 
 ancestors occupied the Carpathian highlands from 
 the dawn of history. The Slovaks of Hungary 
 are not immigrants, and no authoritative historian 
 has successfully disputed their claim to priority as 
 one of the earliest inhabitants of the Kingdom of 
 St. Stephen. 
 
 Down to the middle of the last century no one 
 of the languages spoken by the different racial 
 elements in Hungary acquired predominance. For 
 the purposes of every-day life each race was free 
 to use its mother tongue. During the mediaeval 
 period Latin was the medium of communication 
 among the cultured classes. Latin was gradually 
 superseded by the German language and the Slo- 
 vaks, though grieved at the wanton suppression of 
 their vernacular, did not feel that their national 
 existence had been threatened by the innovation. 
 But when, in 1867, Austria concluded with Hun- 
 gary the Act of Settlement, whereby the dual 
 system of government was introduced, and the 
 Magyars secured for themselves ascendency over 
 all the other races in the kingdom, the danger be- 
 came acute, and has been growing steadily since, 
 until now the Slovaks are menaced by denational- 
 ization. True, the Law of Nationalities was pro- 
 mulgated soon after the Act of Settlement, osten- 
 sibly for the protection of non-Magyars; but this
 
 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 117 
 
 law, in the words of Plutarch, " is like a spider 
 web and would catch the weak and the poor; but 
 may easily be broken by the mighty rich." Bitter 
 experience has shown that under the Law of 
 Nationalities, the very acts which the law was 
 designed to prevent or regulate, have been per- 
 petrated with impunity, either by omission or com- 
 mission. 
 
 Students of Slovak nationality have been ex- 
 pelled by school authorities from seminaries and 
 secondary schools for Pan-Slavic propaganda. 
 Pan-Slavism in the case of these unfortunate 
 youths consists in the reading, recitation, or cir- 
 culation of literature in one of the Slavic tongues. 
 
 Journalists are prosecuted or jailed for alleged 
 seditious articles against the Hungarian State; 
 newspapers are mulcted in ruinous fines, in many 
 cases tantamount to their suppression. In coun- 
 tries enjoying the blessing of freedom of speech 
 and press, de facto and not only de jure, the ar- 
 ticles which Hungarian prosecuting attorneys con- 
 strue as seditious, would be regarded as an honest 
 and fearless criticism of the acts of government. 
 There are few Slovak journalists who have not 
 served terms in jail or whose newspapers have not 
 been fined. 
 
 To plead one's case in the courts in the Slovak 
 language, notwithstanding the express provisions
 
 118 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 of the Law of Nationalities permitting this pro- 
 cedure, would be prejudicial to the litigant's case 
 in the lower courts and impossible in the higher 
 courts. 
 
 A patriotic Slovak may not hold a government 
 position of any trust or importance. One aspir- 
 ing to an office in any way connected with the 
 government, directly or indirectly, must of neces- 
 sity renounce his nationality or, in the alterna- 
 tive, conceal his true inward feelings, both before 
 his superiors and before his friends. 
 
 Apparently with the object of making the world 
 believe that Slovakland has always been Magyar, 
 the Hungarian Government is abolishing the an- 
 cient Slavic nomenclature of villages and towns, 
 replacing it with Magyar names, and this crusade 
 is undertaken in districts where from times im- 
 memorial no other speech had been heard but 
 Slovak.* 
 
 A visiting Hungarian statesman boasted before 
 an American audience in New York City that the 
 laws of Hungary were as broad and liberal as 
 those in the United States. If such were the case, 
 why are not Slovaks permitted to establish schools 
 and organize themselves into societies as freely as 
 
 The very words "Slovak," " Slovakland," " Slovak nation " are 
 tabooed in Hungary, and school books containing them prohibited. 
 Hungarian officialdom refers to Slovakland as the Hungarian High- 
 lands.
 
 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 119 
 
 in the United States? In the early seventies of 
 the last century the government closed all the 
 Slovak secondary schools (gymnasia) on the pre- 
 text that they fostered among the pupils and 
 professors Pan-Slavic propaganda. Since that 
 time, and despite the plain language of the Law of 
 Nationalities, assuring to every race education in 
 its native tongue, Slovaks have been unable to 
 obtain from the authorities consent to the reopen- 
 ing of even one higher school. Think of a nation 
 of two millions and a half, living in the heart of 
 Europe, not having one higher school for the edu- 
 cation of its youth ! In 1875 the government con- 
 fiscated the funds of an educational institution, 
 and with the money undertook to publish at Buda- 
 pest " a patriotic Hungarian journal." At the 
 University of Budapest, the Slovak idiom is studi- 
 ously ignored by the instructors, though the 
 Slovaks are heavy taxpayers, and even a biased 
 census concedes 10 per cent. Slovak population in 
 the country. Slovak elementary schools are fast 
 disappearing; those that still remain in Slovakland 
 are either mixed, that is Slovak-Magyar, or pure 
 Magyar. Under the provision of the Apponyi 
 Law, Magyar is the only recognized language of 
 instruction in elementary schools in Hungary 
 which are attended by twenty or more Magyar 
 children. Since the normal schools are all Magyar,
 
 120 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 it is obvious that the future teachers of Slovak 
 children will have no means, except by private 
 study, to learn the language of their little charges. 
 
 Neither Vienna nor Budapest will listen to their 
 appeal for justice. The Lord is too high and the 
 Emperor-King too far away to hear and see the 
 Slovaks. The Rumuns in Transylvania may hope 
 for succor from their motherland, Rumania; Ital- 
 ians in the unredeemed provinces may look for- 
 ward to the time when Italy will liberate them 
 from Austrian misrule; even the Serbs in South- 
 ern Hungary find new courage in resisting oppres- 
 sion by reason of their nearness to their brothers 
 in the Serbian Kingdom. Whence shall Slovaks 
 look for sympathy and help? Their nearest kins- 
 men, the Bohemians, who, of all the nations, best 
 understand them, are themselves held down by an 
 alien oppressor and unable to give them other than 
 moral aid. 
 
 " In comparison with the Government of Mag- 
 yarland the Government of Austria is a model of 
 tolerance." * 
 
 This is the opinion of an Englishman who 
 knows conditions in Hungary well. Exterminate 
 the race, suppress its language, obliterate every 
 evidence of its existence : that is now and has been 
 
 * London Times, January ao, 1915.
 
 THE SLOVAKS OF HUNGARY 
 
 for decades the policy of the Hungarian Govern- 
 ment toward the Slovaks. 
 
 Some time ago the American Slovaks formu- 
 lated a demand for autonomy in a memorandum 
 which they sent to influential friends and to those 
 whom they hope to win as friends. The memo- 
 randum " voices the sentiment and national aspira- 
 tions, not only of Slovaks living in the United 
 States, but also interprets the mind and the will 
 of their brothers, inhabiting, since times im- 
 memorial, the ancestral homelands of the race." 
 That the American Slovaks took the initiative in 
 issuing the memorandum is not hard to under- 
 stand. " The Slovaks at home are not permitted to 
 approach their king with grievances, the last depu- 
 tation to him having been denied admittance. 
 Slovaks, therefore, are made to feel that they have 
 no king, only a government a government, how- 
 ever, that knows no mercy, that feels no remorse, 
 that offers no hope, that fears no punishment. If 
 Slovaks are resolved to speak at all, if they wish 
 the world at large to know the measure of their 
 wrongs, under existing conditions, they can only 
 appeal through the medium of their compatriots 
 in the United States." 
 
 Of the Magyars as a nation the Slovaks do not 
 complain. It is the Hungarian Government which 
 they accuse of oppression.
 
 122 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 When the time approaches to re-draw the map 
 of Austria-Hungary, the Slovaks will ask to be 
 freed from the Hungarian yoke. And if they 
 cannot have a government of their own, their sec- 
 ond choice is to co-operate with the Bohemians 
 toward the establishment of a confederacy that 
 shall include the autonomous states of Bohemia, 
 Moravia, Silesia, and Slovakland. Thus to the 
 present ethnical unity of Slovaks and Bohemians 
 another bond would be added, that of political 
 unity. 
 
 THOMAS CAPEK. 
 
 References : The Slovaks of Hungary, The Knick- 
 erbocker Press, New York, 1906, by Thomas 
 Capek; Racial Problems in Hungary, Archibald 
 Constable & Co., Ltd., London, 1908, by Scotus 
 Viator. Die Unterdriickung der Slovaken durch die 
 Magyar en, Prague, 1903.
 
 Ill 
 
 WHY BOHEMIA DESERVES FREEDOM 
 
 BY PROFESSOR B. SIMEK OF THE STATE UNIVER- 
 SITY OF IOWA * 
 
 IN the present European crisis several nations 
 are hoping for a betterment of their political 
 fortunes. Among these not the least hopeful 
 are the Bohemians in the historic Kingdom of 
 Bohemia, now annexed to the Austrian Empire. 
 
 Many who are unfamiliar with the situation will 
 probably ask : Why should the Bohemians seek in- 
 dependence? Are they not more secure as a part 
 of a large empire? It is in anticipation of, and 
 in response to such questions that the following 
 facts are presented. 
 
 Bohemia has not received just treatment at the 
 hands of the Austrian Government. Her national 
 spirit has been offended or ignored, her people 
 have been oppressed, her schools are not ade- 
 quately maintained, and the scant support which 
 they now receive has been wrung from the gov- 
 
 * The writer is a representative type of the sturdy settler of Bo- 
 hemian ancestry who helped to build up the Northwest. He sojourned 
 in the birthland of his parents when the war broke out. 
 
 123
 
 124 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 ernment only by tremendous effort, and in times 
 of great political stress. Even now the people are 
 compelled to maintain schools in some parts of the 
 kingdom by voluntary contributions. The govern- 
 ment has done nothing for Bohemia either politi- 
 cally, intellectually, or industrially, excepting under 
 compulsion. Therefore there is no reason for a 
 grateful desire to perpetuate the present relation. 
 Bohemia has heretofore been loyal to Austria only 
 because she faced a greater danger from German 
 absorption. 
 
 The grounds on which the Bohemians ask the 
 right to shape their own destinies as a nation are 
 chiefly the following : 
 
 i. The historic right. The House of Hapsburg 
 was called to the throne of Bohemia by voluntary 
 election. The first Hapsburg to attempt to rule 
 Bohemia was Rudolph (1306-1307), who was 
 forced upon the country for a short time by the 
 German Emperor, and who attempted to secure 
 the color of a right to rule by marrying the widow 
 of the last Bohemian King of the Pfemysl line. 
 His right to rule was contested, and upon his death 
 the Bohemians selected several kings from other 
 ruling houses, and it was not until 1437 that an- 
 other Hapsburg, Albrecht, was again voluntarily 
 elected King of Bohemia. But after a brief rule 
 of two years, during which he violated his oath
 
 DESERVES FREEDOM 125 
 
 and his pledges to the Bohemian people, he was 
 again succeeded by a line of kings elected from 
 various ruling houses, and the greatest of them, 
 George of Podebrad, the Protestant king who 
 ruled from 1458 to 1471, from among their own 
 nobility. 
 
 It was not until 1526 that another Hapsburg, 
 Ferdinand I., was elected king by the Bohemian 
 Diet, but he soon destroyed the old charter in 
 accordance with which he was recognized as a 
 king by election, and usurped the power which the 
 House of Hapsburg continued to exercise for 
 some time. But in 1619 the Bohemians reasserted 
 their right to elect their kings and chose Frederick 
 of the Palatinate, thus precipitating the Thirty 
 Years' War. But notwithstanding the reverses 
 which the Bohemians suffered, Ferdinand II. of 
 Hapsburg, who ascended the throne, was obliged to 
 take oath " to maintain the privileges and liberties 
 of the kingdom " and to " govern the kingdom ac- 
 cording to the laws and usages of the kings, his 
 predecessors, and especially Charles IV." 
 
 During the long dark night which followed the 
 deep tragedy of the Thirty Years' War, the Haps- 
 burgs ruled over Bohemia, but the nation never 
 conceded them the right to incorporate their coun- 
 try in any other, and in 1868 formally declared 
 that " the Kingdom of Bohemia is attached to the
 
 126 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 empire by a purely personal tie," that is, through 
 the person of the king who was also Emperor 
 of Austria. Francis Josef himself soon after 
 recognized this right and promised to be crowned 
 King of Bohemia, but this promise was broken. 
 
 For the reasons here given the Bohemians claim 
 that their kingdom is still a distinct political 
 entity. 
 
 2,. Their political capacity. Time and again the 
 Bohemians have demonstrated their loyalty to high 
 political ideals and their capacity for self-govern- 
 ment. They never recognized the " divine right " 
 of kings to rule, unlike their German neighbors, 
 most of whom recognize the " right " to-day. 
 They elected their own kings, who were bound by 
 what was practically equivalent to our modern con- 
 stitution, and they sometimes chose these kings 
 from their own midst; before the outbreak of the 
 Thirty Years' War they were seriously contem- 
 plating a form of government not unlike that of 
 our own country; and to-day they are hoping for 
 a republic, or at least for a monarchy as liberal 
 and innocuous as that of England. Indeed, for 
 several centuries their political ideals have ap- 
 proached nearer to those of England than of any 
 other of the greater European nations. 
 
 3. Their intellectual power. A nation claiming 
 the right of self-government is usually expected
 
 DESERVES FREEDOM 127 
 
 to show competent intellectual capacity. This the 
 Bohemians have demonstrated beyond a doubt. 
 When we consider the great odds against which 
 they contended when they struggled to re- 
 establish their schools and their intellectual life, 
 the progress which they have made in the past 
 century is astonishing. The city of Prague is 
 to-day one of the greatest publishing centres in 
 Europe. The growth of Bohemian literature in 
 all its branches has been stupendous, and to-day 
 Bohemia leads the Empire of Austria with the 
 smallest percentage of illiterates and is one of the 
 leaders of Europe in this respect! 
 
 Nor are these educational and intellectual ideals 
 a gift of the Germans, as has been asserted in cer- 
 tain prejudiced quarters. Bohemia had a great 
 university, that of Prague, before a single institu- 
 tion of the kind had been established within the 
 limits either of the present German Empire or 
 any other part of the present Empire of Austria. 
 This has been claimed repeatedly as a German uni- 
 versity, but it was established in 1348 by Charles 
 IV., whose mother was a Bohemian, and whose 
 sentiments were wholly Bohemian. He was edu- 
 cated in the University of Paris, and that institu- 
 tion furnished the model for his new university. 
 Following the Paris plan he gave two votes to the 
 German nations in the management of the univer-
 
 128 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 sity (a courtesy which they have never been in- 
 clined to imitate), but like all other institutions 
 of that period the university was Latin, and not 
 in any sense German. Fifty years later it passed 
 wholly under the control of the Bohemians and 
 developed into one of the greatest universities of 
 Europe, sharing this honor with Paris and Oxford, 
 and for more than two centuries it continued to be 
 one of the world's great centres of intellectual 
 activity and inspiration. The Thirty Years' War 
 overwhelmed it, and transformed it into a German 
 institution for a long time, but a third of a cen- 
 tury ago it was re-established as a Bohemian in- 
 stitution, and has now far outstripped its German 
 rival in the same city which was forced upon the 
 nation in the effort to Germanize it. 
 
 It is also a matter of historic interest that as 
 early as 1294 a King of Bohemia, Vaclav II., at- 
 tempted to establish a university at Prague, but the 
 plan failed because of dissensions between the ec- 
 clesiastics and the nobility. 
 
 The Bohemian people have abundant intellectual 
 traditions of their own, and their devotion to their 
 educational interests has been tested repeatedly 
 and found not wanting. 
 
 4. The moral and ethical right. Why should 
 any other nation rule Bohemia? The Bohemian 
 people are intellectual, with high political ideals
 
 DESERVES FREEDOM 129 
 
 and splendid traditions, and they are industrially 
 progressive. They are competent to direct their 
 own affairs, and it is only the insolent usurper 
 who can assume to lay claim to the right to rule 
 over them. Bohemia is a fertile country blessed 
 with boundless riches which should be employed to 
 sustain a happy, busy, progressive nation, and not 
 a usurping military power, and that nation has a 
 right to be free ! 
 
 This briefly is the Bill of Rights of the Bohemian 
 nation. Whatsoever may be the form of the gov- 
 ernment which will come to liberated Bohemia, 
 all lovers of freedom will join in the hope of the 
 realization of the spirit of the prophecy of Doctor 
 John Jesensky of Jesen, one of the martyr leaders 
 of the Bohemians who were executed at Prague in 
 1621, who proclaimed from the scaffold: "It is 
 vain that Ferdinand gluts his rage for blood; a 
 king elected by us shall again ascend the throne 
 of Bohemia!"
 
 IV 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 
 
 BY HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER, PH.D., PRO- 
 FESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, OBERLIN COLLEGE, 
 OHIO* 
 
 THE mental and moral characteristics of any 
 social group are the product of a wide 
 variety of complex influences of a pre- 
 eminently psychological nature. The suggestions 
 that come through tradition and history result in 
 mental reactions that become so typical of the 
 group that it is popular to call them inborn and 
 racial. The easy assumption of this explanation 
 hinders the more fundamental discovery of why 
 certain characteristics prevail. The Bohemians 
 illustrate this principle of the creative influence of 
 definite ideas. 
 
 A Bohemian is a Slav. The influence of this 
 relationship is the broadest and most general. It 
 has become self-conscious only in comparatively 
 recent times, i.e., two or three generations. Previ- 
 
 * Professor Miller has traveled in Bohemia and is gathering mate- 
 rial on the history of that country. 
 
 130
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 131 
 
 ously there was much changing from Slav to Teu- 
 ton and vice versa. Unquestionably a very large 
 proportion of Prussians have a considerable in- 
 fusion of Slavic blood, and many Bohemians have 
 German ancestors. In centres like Pilsen or 
 Prague, where the two races have lived together for 
 a long time, it is absolutely impossible to tell them 
 apart until they begin to speak, and then the iden- 
 tity may be concealed by using the other language. 
 Within the last seventy-five years there has been 
 a clear recognition of the Slavic relationship which 
 has taken the form of conscious efforts to preserve 
 certain Slavic characteristics, and to join with the 
 others in withstanding the influence and authority 
 of the Germans. There have been certain other 
 Slavic characteristics that have persisted in all the 
 Slavic groups which will be mentioned later when 
 we consider their contribution to democracy. 
 
 For something over five hundred years the Bo- 
 hemians have been clearly conscious of their 
 Bohemian nationality and much that is distinctive 
 of them has been developed and is still being de- 
 veloped in them by this national history, and 
 nothing of it can be understood except in the light 
 of this historical influence. The two most influen- 
 tial forces have been John Hus, who made Bohemia 
 Protestant a century before Luther, and who was 
 burned at the stake in 1415; and Comenius the
 
 132 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 world educator, who was exiled for his connec- 
 tion with the Protestant Church of Bohemian 
 Brethren. These two national heroes planted the 
 seeds which differentiated the Bohemians from the 
 rest of the Slavs in religious freedom and respect 
 for education. Hus also was the symbol for the 
 development of nationalism and the consequent 
 revival of the language which have occupied such a 
 large place in the attention of the Bohemian people. 
 The two most characteristic expressions of these 
 influences are now found in Nationalism and Free- 
 thought, and no appreciation of the condition and 
 purposes of the people can be complete without 
 reckoning with these facts. 
 
 From about 1400 for more than two hundred 
 years Bohemia was a leader in European culture, 
 but the Thirty Years' War crushed her so that 
 some claim that she has had no history since 1620. 
 Count Liitzow says that " Bohemia presents the 
 nearly unique case of a country which was formerly 
 almost entirely Protestant and has become almost 
 entirely Catholic. The popular optimistic fallacy 
 which maintains that in no country has the re- 
 ligious belief been entirely suppressed by persecu- 
 tion and brute force is disproved by the fate of 
 Bohemia." As a matter of fact, instead of being 
 suppressed, it was smouldering during the cen- 
 turies and now constitutes an amazing unanim-
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 133 
 
 ity of mind and feeling among the nation in regard 
 to religion. Immediately after the Act of Toler- 
 ance in 1781 there sprang up here and there 
 churches which took up the old faith exactly where 
 it had been left more than a hundred and fifty 
 years before. Free-thinking is in part a philos- 
 ophy, but it is more particularly a sign of national 
 character. 
 
 In the past it has been the custom of nations 
 to try to absorb all within their political bound- 
 aries into the character of the governing group, 
 however much they may have differed in traditions 
 and customs. Austria not only tried to make Bo- 
 hemians Catholics but Germans, and the history 
 of the effort ought to make clear for ever that 
 political science must adjust itself to the laws of 
 human nature, and that the way to develop the 
 individualism of a people is to try to blot it out. 
 Whatever may be said about the superiority of 
 one culture over another it cannot be imposed by 
 force, and the Germans have been stupidly slow 
 in discovering this fundamental fact. Bohemia is 
 but a single example of this new consciousness 
 which is called Nationalism. The Poles, Lithua- 
 nians, Finns, Magyars, Irish, and all the Slavic 
 groups are showing that there is a psychological 
 force to be reckoned with which military force 
 cannot overcome. The contribution of the variety
 
 134 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 of cultures is what will enrich the life of civiliza- 
 tion and not the pre-eminence of one, whatever 
 that one may be. Some evidence of the way in 
 which the revival of nation spirit is taking place 
 among the Bohemians will show what a tremen- 
 dous force this spirit is. 
 
 Count Liitzow, in an address given in Prague 
 in 1911, brings out the present situation: " One of 
 the most interesting facts that in Bohemia and 
 especially in Prague mark the period of peace at 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century is the re- 
 vival of the national feeling and language. . . . 
 The greatest part of Bohemia, formerly almost 
 Germanized, has now again become thoroughly 
 Slavic. The national language, for a time used 
 only by the peasantry in outlying districts, is now 
 freely and generally used by the educated classes 
 in most parts of the country. Prague itself, that 
 had for a time acquired almost the appearance of a 
 German town, has now a thoroughly Slavic char- 
 acter. The national literature also, which had al- 
 most ceased to exist, is in a very flourishing state, 
 particularly since the foundation of a national 
 university. At no period have so many and so 
 valuable books been written in the Bohemian lan- 
 guage." 
 
 About sixty years ago several Bohemian writ- 
 ers were bold enough to write in their own Ian-
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 135 
 
 guage instead of German and from that time the 
 Bohemian spirit has grown until opposition to the 
 overbearing Germanism became almost a passion. 
 Wherever the Germans were in a majority only 
 German public schools were provided, but wherever 
 the municipality had fewer Germans than Slavs 
 German as well as Bohemian schools were pro- 
 vided. To meet this discrimination Bohemians, 
 both at home and in America, have contributed to a 
 remarkable degree for the " Mother of Schools " 
 (association) which supports Bohemian schools of 
 first caliber in the minority communities. There 
 are no other Slavs who compare with the Bohe- 
 mians in the high regard for schools. As one 
 goes through the country he is struck by the palatial 
 school building even in poor peasant villages. It 
 seems to bear a relation similar to the prison and 
 church in a Russian town. The inevitable result 
 of this universal spirit is the gradual elimination 
 of the German language. German had nearly 
 vanished from the streets of Prague. One fared 
 ill in a restaurant if his German were good enough 
 to sound genuine though the waiter understood 
 perfectly. Business men were beginning to take 
 pride in the fact that they could succeed without 
 knowing any German, and fathers who were reared 
 with German as a mother tongue taught their chil- 
 dren Bohemian instead. The unifying force of
 
 136 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 this national feeling has been going on with great 
 rapidity in the face of the disrupting force of 
 eleven political parties, besides the sharp spiritual 
 division into Catholics and anti-Catholics. 
 
 It could not fail to be a distinct disadvantage 
 for a people of seven or eight million to cut itself 
 off from the opportunities of the environing Ger- 
 man culture, science, and commerce, but those who 
 saw this most clearly deliberately assumed the cost 
 in their struggle for the freedom of the spirit. 
 When we remember that prestige was on the side 
 of the German one sees a sacrifice approaching 
 nobility. At the time the Olympic games were be- 
 ing held in Europe and attracting the attention of 
 the world a far more important athletic meet was 
 being held in Prague. This was Slavic in its mem- 
 bership, though Bohemian in its origin. More 
 than twenty thousand persons took part, and at 
 one time eleven thousand men, speaking several 
 different languages, were doing calisthenic exer- 
 cises together. With the exception of the Poles, 
 who would not come because the Russians were in- 
 vited, there were representatives of all the Slavic 
 nationalities, and the keynote of every speech was 
 " Slavic ! Slavic ! " and when it was uttered the 
 crowds would go wild. There were a quarter of 
 a million visitors in the city, and illustrated re- 
 ports of the exhibition went to the ends of the
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 137 
 
 Slavic world. A few weeks afterwards I saw some 
 of them pasted on the wall of a primitive factory 
 in the back districts of Moscow. But the German 
 papers completely ignored the whole thing and no 
 self-respecting German could attend, though it was 
 undoubtedly the greatest thing of the sort ever 
 held. 
 
 Two years ago when war was threatening be- 
 tween Austria and Serbia, Bohemians who were 
 being entrained from their garrison for mobiliza- 
 tion on the Serbian border, in more than one case 
 sang the Pan-Slavic hymn, " Hej Slovane ! " fa- 
 miliar to all Slavic nations, but forbidden to Aus- 
 trian soldiers in service. They used a popular 
 parody in this enthusiastic and powerful hymn, 
 full of encouragement to the Slavs, telling them that 
 their language shall never perish nor shall they 
 " even though the number of Germans equal the 
 number of souls in hell." It is said that at this 
 time at least seventy thousand Slavs in Austria 
 eligible to military service quit the country. 
 
 The Germans have succeeded in making the Bo- 
 hemian culture almost identical with theirs, and it 
 is difficult to find in the German any traits that 
 can be called specifically Bohemian. Only a long 
 future can tell whether there are actually inherent 
 psychological differences which can account for 
 aggressiveness in the one and passivity in the other.
 
 138 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 We may assume, however, that we have not had 
 time to test the subtle forces which work on social 
 groups and give them a cast of thought that 
 seems biologically inherent. No Slavic people has 
 exhibited the individualistic character of the Teu- 
 ton, but we have no assurance that this Teuton 
 habit of mind is the result of anything except the 
 history and the philosophy which have been appro- 
 priated in comparatively modern times. There 
 are two ways of explaining the relative passivity 
 of the Slavic mind. One is the fact that having 
 been for so long a subject people they have no tradi- 
 tions of success. Even the Russians are ruled by 
 a bureaucracy with which they have no sympathy. 
 The other is that the Bohemians and the others 
 have retained the democratic characteristics which 
 are common to the Slavs. There has been some 
 influence from both. 
 
 One peculiarity of Bohemians both in America 
 and Bohemia is the habit of criticising any of their 
 own people who acquire any eminence or leader- 
 ship in any field. One never feels free to speak 
 with enthusiasm about a successful Bohemian lest 
 he invite a dash of cold water. There seems to 
 be universal suspicion of the motives or methods 
 underlying the success. If a leader were to appear 
 he would not get followers. Such a habit of mind 
 can never bring anything that corresponds to im-
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 139 
 
 perialistic success. Count Liitzow says " that the 
 evil seed of hatred and distrust sown by the op- 
 pressors in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies bears evil fruit up to the present day. Bo- 
 hemian peasants even now instinctively distrust 
 the nobles of their own race who are in full sym- 
 pathy with the national cause. This antagonism 
 has frequently contributed to the failure of the 
 attempts of the Bohemians to recover their 
 autonomy." 
 
 There is a great difference in an individual or 
 a people that has been accustomed to accomplish- 
 ment. The attitude in Bohemia has been that of 
 pessimistic resignation. Their devotion to certain 
 ideals and causes is magnificent, but the inability 
 to organize unanimously is indicated by the eleven 
 political parties, most of which are nationalistic 
 and none of which has the active co-operation of 
 the masses. They follow an ideal rather than a 
 person, and the symbol of the ideal is always a 
 person who is dead. The look is thus backward 
 rather than hopefully forward. Hus is the great 
 hero, but also Comenius, Palacky, Havlicek, and 
 many others of more or less remoteness are the 
 real leaders, and the reinstatement of national self- 
 direction and the Bohemian language are the ideal 
 objects. 
 
 In Bohemia these result in an impracticalness
 
 140 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 which magnifies the aesthetic even to sentimental- 
 ity. They will talk as though art were the end 
 of life. For many the aesthetic life consists of 
 sitting in restaurants night after night listening 
 to the band and talking over their beer. In spite 
 of this industry has made great progress in Bo- 
 hemia, and when they come to this country they 
 forget their objection to the practical. There are 
 probably no other immigrants in America who 
 make such direct efforts to own their own homes 
 as the Bohemians. At a gathering of instructors 
 of the University of Prague to organize a soci- 
 ological institute, I was asked to tell some of the 
 things we do here. I tried to show how we com- 
 bine theory with practice and emphasized my own 
 interest which is theoretical, but they unanimously 
 said that our methods were too practical to be 
 used by them. 
 
 A comparison of Poles and Bohemians who be- 
 long to the same race shows the influence of cul- 
 ture on the Bohemian. In 1900 the percentage 
 of illiterates among the Bohemians entering the 
 United States was 3. and of Poles 31.6. The 
 Poles are as strongly the Catholic as the Bohe- 
 mians are Free-thinkers. 
 
 In Austria there are fourteen times as many 
 cases of litigation in the courts among the Poles 
 as among the Bohemians. A Bohemian in Chi-
 
 cago who does a large mail order business among 
 all Slavs says : " We will not do business with the 
 Poles at all because they will not pay. To the 
 Serbians we send everything C.O.D., but the 
 Croatians, Ruthenians, and the rest we trust." 
 
 The family life is an important sign of the 
 morality of a people, and we find among the Bo- 
 hemians many interesting qualities. The follow- 
 ing statement in " Hull House Papers " derived 
 from a study of Bohemians says : " The family 
 life is affectionate, and it is the prevailing custom 
 among the working class to give all the wages to 
 the mother." I have often noticed that in families 
 the income is naturally estimated as the total 
 earnings of husband and children and that the 
 mother gives even to the larger children who are 
 earning good wages what money they need, and al- 
 ways with cheerfulness and perfect understanding. 
 The attachment for the home is very strong, and 
 they take pride in large families which stick to- 
 gether. It is probable that ownership of the home 
 works both ways in this matter, having the home 
 integrates the family and having the family unity 
 makes it desirable to own a home. 
 
 In sex morality we must remember that the 
 Bohemians are European and not American, but 
 on the streets of Prague there is less public display 
 of immorality than in Chicago. Modesty is ob-
 
 142 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 served as an important virtue. The Bohemians, 
 like all other people, have prejudices that make it 
 difficult for them to see clearly values not meas- 
 ured by their own standard, but there can be no 
 question but that their standard measures up well 
 with any people in Europe. The important thing 
 to civilization is whether they have any peculiar 
 traits of mind or character that will be a contribu- 
 tion to progress. I think that the Bohemians have 
 this in common with the other Slavs to a very 
 marked degree and in a direction which has 
 hitherto been entirely unrecognized, and this is the 
 contribution to democracy. 
 
 However else the Germans may justify the pres- 
 ent war, they sincerely believe that on their suc- 
 cess hangs the salvation of civilization from the 
 barbarism of the half-civilized Slav. Professors 
 Eucken and Haeckel have voiced a widespread in- 
 dignation that England could so far forget her 
 ideals as to join with Russia against the forces of 
 enlightenment. Americans, even those whose 
 sympathies are hostile to Germans, dread success 
 of the Russians. The socialists who are opposed to 
 all war feel convinced that Russia is a menace to 
 all their plans. In fact they have tacitly admitted 
 more than once that it might be necessary to resist 
 encroachments of Russia by force. It is my con- 
 tention that the Slavic people, of whom the Rus-
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 143 
 
 sians are the largest group, have more to con- 
 tribute to what the world needs next than any 
 other people, and that all that is best in socialism 
 will find its fruition among them as nowhere 
 else. 
 
 A learned Bohemian friend, in reply to my letter 
 to Bohemia, in which I spoke of the political prog- 
 ress America was making, said that it could but 
 fill the heart of a Bohemian " with a feeling of sad 
 resignation " ; but he adds, " I am not pessimistic 
 enough to give up all hope that Providence may 
 have yet some good things in store for the Slav. 
 What keeps me up is a certain hazy impression 
 that human development may sometime be in want 
 of a new formula, and then our time may come. I 
 conceive ourselves under the sway of the German 
 watchword which spells Force; and as watch- 
 words, like everything else human, come and go, 
 perhaps the Slavs may sometime be called on to 
 introduce another, which I should like to see 
 spelled Charity." 
 
 There is no literature in the world which has 
 contributed so much toward such a sentiment as 
 that of the Slavs. Tolstoy is the great example, 
 and his very greatness enabled him to propose a 
 program even beyond present imagination, but 
 many other writers, some of whom have been 
 translated and some not, have expressed the same
 
 144 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 ideal of needed radical reform. We must not 
 make- the mistake of thinking these writers the 
 originators of their doctrines. A popular prophet 
 expresses the heart of the people, and is a product 
 of their ideals. The great vogue of these writers 
 is among their own people. The government of 
 Russia is hostile to Tolstoy, but it could not re- 
 sist the demands of the students that an heroic 
 statue of this radical be placed in the great govern- 
 ment technical school. 
 
 The ultimate goal of society is democracy and, 
 strange as it may sound, the Slav has more to 
 contribute to this end than anyone else. Russia, 
 whose name is the synonym of despotism, is already 
 in reality the most democratic country in the world. 
 Democracy means the opportunity for the indi- 
 vidual to express himself to the utmost, to have 
 his expression count according to its value, and if 
 he does not predominate to yield gracefully to 
 the expression that does prevail. This habit of 
 mind cannot be obtained without practice, and up 
 to the present time in the world's history would 
 not have been as efficient as the leadership of indi- 
 viduals who, right or wrong, obtained results. 
 Now by means of rapid communication and a 
 clearer understanding of social purposes the 
 method of democracy can be applied with increas- 
 ing efficiency. Nurture in democratic practice is
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 145 
 
 the contribution the Slavs will make, and we can- 
 not realize how rich this will be. 
 
 The despotism of Russia is no more an expres- 
 sion of the real Russian people than Tammany 
 Hall is an expression of American democracy, and 
 the influence of both institutions on national char- 
 acter has been practically nothing. Despotisms 
 come and go, but the traditions, and customs of 
 the people persist. It was formerly thought that 
 ideals were imposed from above, but now we are 
 becoming pretty thoroughly convinced that this is 
 not the case. Imitation is horizontal between 
 people of the same class and not vertical between 
 classes. Polish nobles had glass windows for 
 years, but it did not occur to the peasants to have 
 them until the idea was brought back from Amer- 
 ica by people of their own sort. And so influences 
 and habits may go on for centuries upon centuries 
 without being affected by a different culture. This 
 fortunate fact has enabled us to preserve what 
 would have been eliminated by the contemporary 
 values and customs that were not valuable for 
 the time. 
 
 Any observant traveler entering Russia, after he 
 gets over the first fear which everyone seems to 
 feel, will gradually be impressed with the contrast 
 to the Germans and Austrians whom he has just 
 left. There he was never addressed without his
 
 146 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 full title of Herr Professor, Herr Journalist, or 
 whatever he might claim for his distinction. Here 
 his self-esteem suffers a shock, for, in the lan- 
 guage of the country, he becomes simply " Mister." 
 This universal custom, unimportant in itself, is 
 significant of a national habit of mind. Men in 
 high places, as heads of universities, are addressed 
 by their colleagues by their first names. In the 
 familiar Russian and Polish novel we find nobles 
 and military leaders regularly with the simple 
 title Pan (Mr.), which is a term of respect but not 
 of distinction. In fact the attitude of the noble 
 and the peasant toward each other is not that of 
 superiority and servility, but as elder and younger 
 brother. The name Little Father which is applied 
 to the Czar expresses the attitude of familiarity 
 rather than of awe. Compare this with the wor- 
 ship of uniform in Germany, where a policeman 
 will not answer your question unless you salute 
 him and an omitted title is an insult. In Petrograd 
 during student riots it is not an uncommon thing 
 for the students to kick the shins of the police 
 and no one thinks of it as lese majeste. The Rus- 
 sian officer and soldier are more nearly comrades 
 than in any other army in the world. 
 
 These habits have, not been assumed deliberately, 
 but are the product of underlying institutions out 
 of which they have grown naturally. At least
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 147 
 
 fifty million people in Greater Russia and Siberia 
 live in Mirs or Communes. In these from time 
 immemorial they have practiced a degree of co- 
 operation and local self-government which has 
 never been equalled by deliberate action in the 
 most enlightened nations, and which the most 
 despotic government, not being able to overthrow, 
 has recently incorporated into its governmental 
 method. In the Mir the land which is owned in 
 common is regularly reallotted among the house- 
 holders according to their working capacities and 
 needs. The Mir elects its own executive and may 
 undertake all kinds of work of public utility. 
 Occasionally a woman is elected as executive, and 
 when the man representing the household is away 
 or dead the woman votes and takes part in the 
 assembly. The Mirs are united into larger bodies 
 with similar jurisdiction. The interesting thing 
 about it is that it prevails so widely and among 
 people between whom there has not been the slight- 
 est possibility of intercommunication. The prom- 
 ise of the Mir is not communism, but a habit of 
 mind that can be applied in more general and 
 complex affairs. 
 
 Complaint has more or less justly been made 
 that the Slav is deficient in political leadership ex- 
 cept in the smallest units. This can have been 
 true in the past while holding for a future under
 
 148 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 quite different conditions. Ease of communication 
 has enlarged social units so that common ideas 
 may result in common action over wide areas as 
 easily as in a common room. At any rate the 
 Slavs have succeeded in carrying over their custom 
 in a very remarkable manner. The artel, which is 
 a co-operative productive organization, embraces 
 most diverse enterprises throughout Russia, and 
 is efficient in a manner only dreamed of else- 
 where. Tiffany's finest silver enamel is mostly 
 made by peasant artels in Moscow. In one small 
 factory where most of the men were away get- 
 ting in their harvests, the rest were making beau- 
 tiful inlaid Easter eggs, and a special order of ice 
 cream dishes worth a hundred dollars apiece, yet 
 these work-owners were so untouched by modern 
 customs and the civilization for which they were 
 producing that they ate their dinner from a com- 
 mon dish with wooden spoons. The porters at 
 the railroad stations are artels governed by their 
 own rules and sharing the proceeds. Many banks 
 and large enterprises are carried on in the same 
 way. One of the largest restaurants in Petrograd 
 is owned by the men who do the work. Fishing is 
 also co-operative in its methods. Undertakings 
 of this sort could not possibly be carried through 
 so generally and so successfully if it were not for 
 the great background of experience in which co-
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 149 
 
 operation and acquiescence to the will of the peo- 
 ple is accepted as a matter of course. 
 
 We recognize that one of the greatest problems 
 of our time is that of class consciousness between 
 labor and capital, and economists have suggested 
 co-operation as the only cure for the deadlock that 
 threatens, but it has not succeeded where tried. 
 The Russians have succeeded without being con- 
 scious that they were doing any but the most 
 natural thing. For people who have been forbid- 
 den so much that is thought to be essential to 
 freedom, it is nothing short of remarkable, that 
 in the recent years of industrial progress and in- 
 creasing complexity, they should have been able 
 to adapt their democracy to fit the needs. No- 
 where are labor unions formed more easily, and 
 while meager in their activities, as compared to 
 American or English, they have coherence. 
 
 The church has developed in line with the 
 characteristics of the people. Although the Or- 
 thodox Church is magnificent in its equipment, and 
 its priests most richly caparisoned, yet it offers 
 a marked contrast to the aristocratic system of 
 the Roman Catholic Church. The Russian most 
 devoutly takes off his hat in passing a church or 
 holy image, but he keeps it on when passing the 
 priest, and he kisses the priest on the cheek rather 
 than the hand.
 
 150 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Among other Slavs there is the same widespread 
 prevalence of democratic customs. In Serbia the 
 Mir is found in much the same form as in Russia, 
 and in Poland in numerous instances the Zadruga 
 is a community of from ten to sixty or more liv- 
 ing in one house and settling important matters by 
 vote. The head of the Zadruga is generally the 
 oldest man, but this is not necessary, and not in- 
 frequently a woman is head. In the days of its 
 independence the Polish king was always elected. 
 The suffrage was restricted to the nobles, and 
 much turbulence prevailed at the time of election, 
 but the people were very jealous of the privilege. 
 
 Of all the Slavs the Bohemians have come most 
 under German influence and it has often been said 
 that the assimilation is all in the direction of 
 the German. In many characteristics this is true, 
 but some of the traditional habits of mind have 
 clearly been preserved. They have not lost these 
 by being transferred to America and are able to 
 carry on certain forms of association with phe- 
 nomenal success. In Chicago they have 104 Build- 
 ing and Loan Associations incorporated under the 
 laws of Illinois. All are prosperous, only one has 
 ever failed. Each has only one paid officer, a sec- 
 retary who receives from five to ten dollars a 
 week. One association has assets of $600,000, 
 and all of them aggregate about $14,000,000 and
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CHARACTER 151 
 
 20,000 members. They also have numerous 
 benevolent lodges with an aggregate membership 
 of over 100,000 in the United States, which man- 
 age insurance systems on a most democratic and 
 safe basis. This management in almost all cases 
 includes women in exact equality. The same thing 
 is true of the Sokol or gymnastic society which is 
 organized in all Slavic countries. In the numer- 
 ous deliberative meetings of Bohemians that I 
 have attended the women have shown themselves 
 quite the equal of the men in debate. 
 
 The ultimate democracy must include universal 
 suffrage, which we see has its roots in the Slavic 
 institutions. The Bohemians have the arguments 
 of the Germans about the place of women, but 
 their practice is more subtly democratic than they 
 are aware of. Until it was confused with the 
 prohibition question Bohemians have consistently 
 advocated equal suffrage, before it became gener- 
 ally popular. The Germans have as consistently 
 opposed it. 
 
 Whatever the outcome of the war the Slavs will 
 inevitably become an increasing influence in the 
 world's progress because of their higher birth 
 rate and because they possess the richest natural 
 resources in the world. It is perhaps an occasion 
 for gratitude that in the midst of the apparently 
 insoluble problems about the exploitation of
 
 152 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 natural resources and labor conflicts, a people 
 that has been nurturing in what we have called 
 barbarism the traits most desirable for dealing with 
 such problems, is now about to come upon the 
 stage. 
 
 To be sure, most of the Slavic world is per- 
 meated by ignorance and dominated by bureau- 
 cracy, but education is only a generation deep, and 
 political reorganization is the most rapid and re- 
 markable fact of our era. The Bohemians have 
 shown us that under modern conditions these 
 traits are not lost. Civilization may have a tempo- 
 rary setback, but it cannot be as great as that now 
 arising from militarism, but in the end the Slav 
 will contribute to the social fabric that for which 
 it is now peculiarly ready. In the words of an 
 ancient writer we may say that the stone which 
 the builder rejected is become the head of the 
 corner.
 
 V 
 
 PLACE OF BOHEMIA IN THE CREATIVE 
 ARTS 
 
 BY WILL S. MONROE, PROFESSOR STATE NORMAL 
 SCHOOL, MONTCLAIR, N. J., AUTHOR OF " BO- 
 HEMIA AND THE CECHS," " COMENIUS AND THE 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM," ETC.* 
 
 IT remains to call attention to the place of 
 Bohemia in letters, art, music, education, 
 social and religious reform. In this connec- 
 tion it may be pointed out that the civilization of 
 the Bohemians is distinctly older than that of the 
 German-Austrians, and that it developed wholly 
 independent of the Teutonic art movements in 
 Germany and Austria. 
 
 In the matter of literature, Bohemia occupies a 
 place of distinction and priority. The development 
 of the vulgar tongue took place at a comparatively 
 early period. Some of the most ancient of the 
 poetic documents date back to very early times. 
 Indeed, the prose literature of Bohemia, after the 
 
 * Professor Monroe has made numerous pilgrimages to Bohemia 
 and his knowledge of Bohemians is intimate and thorough. He is a 
 " Bohemian by adoption." 
 
 153
 
 154 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Greek and Latin, is one of the oldest in Europe. 
 The three centuries from the time of Charles IV. 
 to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War covers 
 the early brilliant period in literature. Two cen- 
 turies of intellectual barrenness followed the fatal 
 battle of the White Mountain and the usurpation 
 of the Bohemian Crown by the, House of Hapsburg. 
 The ancient constitution of the kingdom was sup- 
 pressed and it was replaced by a slightly veiled 
 system of Teutonic absolutism. The lands of the 
 Bohemian nobles, who had been patrons of letters, 
 were confiscated and given to generals in the Aus- 
 trian army and to Austrian noblemen. The in- 
 habitants of the flourishing cities, that had been 
 strongholds of the national language and litera- 
 ture, were driven into exile and their places were 
 taken by immigrants of non-Bohemian birth. 
 The country people were reduced to a state of serf- 
 dom and attached to the soil. The pillory, the 
 gallows, and the whipping-post were the sinister 
 arguments that were employed to obliterate all 
 traces of national culture. 
 
 Not only was there a complete arrest in the re- 
 markable literary movement that intervened be- 
 tween the Middle Ages and the beginning of the 
 Thirty Years' War, but most of the literary treas- 
 ures of the previous centuries were destroyed by 
 the royal edicts of the reactionary Hapsburg
 
 BOHEMIA IN THE CREATIVE ARTS 155 
 
 rulers. This was done with the notion that the 
 brilliant period of Bohemian existence might be 
 blotted out and forgotten. The book-destroyers 
 that were turned loose in the land burned not only 
 all historical and theological works, but every 
 form of literary composition that might suggest 
 to the Bohemian people their glorious past. One 
 book-destroyer, an Austrian priest, boasted with 
 pride that he had burned 60,000 Bohemian books. 
 Many works were carried by the Bohemian exiles 
 to Saxony, Slovakland, and other countries, and 
 preserved; and these, together with others that 
 escaped the fury of pillaging soldiers during the 
 Thirty Years' War, constitute the fragments out 
 of which the literary history before the seventeenth 
 century must be constructed. But these fragments 
 are little more than the planks of a ship that was 
 wrecked on the ocean of national vicissitude. 
 
 The modern Bohemian literary movement dates 
 back only one hundred years. Joseph Dobrovsky 
 (1753-1829), the patriarch of Slavic philology, 
 initiated the literary movement at the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century. The few other Bohe- 
 mian scholars of the day Jungmann, Palacky, 
 Kollar, Safafik, and the incomparable publicist 
 Charles Havlicek lent their services to the re- 
 habilitation of a national language that was long 
 supposed to be dead. The letters of Jungmann
 
 156 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 give us our most intimate accounts of the strug- 
 gles of himself and his co-patriots during the early 
 day of the modern Bohemian literary renascence.* 
 During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 the Austrian Government had penalized the pub- 
 lication of books in the Bohemian language and 
 the teaching of the vernacular in the schools of 
 the kingdom. But in spite of prohibitions of the 
 Hapsburg rulers, the vernacular continued to be 
 spoken in the country districts. This fact facili- 
 tated the extraordinary progress made in the fields 
 of poetry, drama, fiction, criticism, and historical 
 works during the last fourscore years. The 
 satirical writings of Jan Neruda, the historical 
 dramas of Alois Jirasek, the rich lyrical poetry of 
 Jaroslav Vrchlicky (Frida), the bold imaginative 
 compositions of Julius Zeyer, the modernist poetry 
 of J. S. Machar, the great national epics of 
 Svatopluk Cech, the historical works of Francis 
 Palacky, and the political and sociological writings 
 of Thomas G. Masaryk have made notable con- 
 tributions to the literary history of modern Bo- 
 hemia. When one recalls the dearth of literature 
 from Teutonic writers in Austria during the same 
 period, the contrast is marked indeed. 
 
 * The story is too long to be told in this connection; ?nd the in- 
 terested reader is referred to " History of Bohemian Literature," by 
 Count Liitzow (London and New York, 1899), and " Bohemia and 
 the Cecbs," by Will S. Monroe (Boston and London, 1910).
 
 BOHEMIA IN THE CREATIVE ARTS 157 
 
 In matters of art also Bohemia was early in the 
 field. The Prague school of painting that came 
 into prominence during the reign of Charles IV. 
 (1316-1378) took favorable rank with similar 
 early art movements in Italy. Painters, sculptors, 
 and architects trained in Bohemia are represented 
 to-day at most of the great cities in Europe where 
 art treasures are preserved. The zealous and 
 promising artistic movement inaugurated in the 
 country by the followers of the Prague school, 
 like most of the other culture movements in the 
 kingdom, was well-nigh extinguished by the at- 
 tempted Teutonization of the country by the Haps- 
 burg rulers after the fatal Bila Hora. 
 
 The political and literary activity in Bohemia 
 during the opening years of the last century re- 
 acted favorably on the art life of the nation. A 
 society of the fine arts, that was distinctly Bohe- 
 mian and national in character, was organized at 
 Prague in 1848; and this was followed by annual 
 expositions of the chief productions of Bohemian 
 and foreign artists. As an immediate result of 
 these activities, Bohemia produced an astonish- 
 ingly large number of painters who took high rank 
 in their art, artists of the rare talent of Hellich, 
 Manes, Cermak, Schwaiger, Ales, Brozik, Mucha, 
 Uprka. In sculpture, too, modern Bohemia has
 
 158 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 taken a place of distinction in the works of 
 Myslbek, Simek, Seidan, Sucharda, and Saloun. 
 
 Bohemia's music is probably better known 
 throughout the civilized world than any other 
 branch of her creative art This is largely due to 
 the universal character of the language of music 
 and to the eminence of her great tone poets, 
 Smetana and Dvorak. Not that the history of 
 music in the country begins with these two mod- 
 ern composers, but because they spoke in such 
 musical forms and with such musical force that 
 they arrested the attention of the world. 
 
 We read in the chronicles of the mediaeval his- 
 torians of the role played by music in the life of 
 the Bohemian people; and we know that during 
 the Hussite period the Bohemian hymnology at- 
 tained a degree of excellence that has not been 
 surpassed by later ages. The Bohemian school of 
 music of to-day takes foremost rank among the 
 music schools of modern Europe. 
 
 Bohemia's position in the matter of education 
 is likewise distinctive. Education of an elemen- 
 tary and secondary character was general in Bo- 
 hemia several centuries in advance of Austria and 
 Germany. The University of Prague antedated 
 similar institutions in Germany by more than 
 half a century. John Amos Komensky (known in 
 America and England by the Latinized form of his
 
 BOHEMIA IN THE CREATIVE ARTS 159 
 
 name, Comenius) was a Bohemian, and in the 
 judgment of competent historians of education he 
 was the real evangelist of modern pedagogy. Most 
 of the school systems of progressive and culti- 
 vated European peoples are based directly upon 
 ideas that he formulated. 
 
 In the domain of religion and ethics, Bohemia 
 has given the greatest moral reformer of the past 
 five hundred years in Jan Hus, the forerunner of 
 Martin Luther, John Calvin, and William E. 
 Channing. And in Jerome of Prague, the con- 
 temporary of Hus, she produced another spiritual 
 leader of great power.
 
 VI 
 
 THE BOHEMIANS AND THE SLAVIC 
 REGENERATION 
 
 BY LEO WIENER, PROFESSOR OF SLAVIC LAN- 
 GUAGES AND LITERATURES AT HARVARD UNI- 
 VERSITY * 
 
 BOHEMIA is the westernmost Slavic coun- 
 try and its fortunate geographical position 
 between the West and the East of Europe 
 and half-way between the Slavs of the Balkans 
 and those of the North has in past ages determined 
 its cultural mission, which has been that of mediat- 
 ing between the Latin civilization 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 the im- 
 portant role which Bohemia has played in for- 
 warding that Carolingian civilization which the 
 
 * Professor Wiener is a distinguished Slavic scholar whose latest 
 work, " An Interpretation of the Russian People," has just been pub- 
 lished. 
 
 160
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 161 
 
 Visigoths, expelled by the Arabs from Spain and 
 settled by Charlemagne in southern and central 
 France, caused to radiate to the whole Germanic 
 world and, through Bavaria, grafted on the neigh- 
 boring Cechs. 
 
 It is well known that the first Christian activity 
 in Bohemia proceeded from German missionaries, 
 but it is only a recent discovery on the origin of 
 the so-called Gothic Bible which has revealed to 
 me the extraordinary extent of the Visigothic liter- 
 ary and cultural influences upon the Bavarians and 
 the Cechs. In the light of this discovery, which 
 I am now subjecting to a close scrutiny, it appears 
 that a tremendous proportion of the Slavic vocabu- 
 laries, from Russia 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 intel- 
 lectual 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 standing 
 aloof from the Roman civilization of the early 
 Middle Ages, the Slavs have been equal par- 
 ticipants with the Teutons in the benefits of the 
 Visigothic culture, which shows hardly any traces
 
 162 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 of Teutonism, but a curious mixture of Western 
 Roman, Southern French, and Arabic elements. 
 The linguistically strongest of these is the Arabic, 
 for my discovery goes to show that the so-called 
 Gothic Bible was written only about the year 800 
 and in Southern France. 
 
 It was only in 813 that Charlemagne introduced 
 the Germanic languages to the knowledge of the 
 educated, by ordering that homilies should be writ- 
 ten in the native dialects. There does not exist 
 the slightest evidence that, with the possible excep- 
 tion of some Gothic tracts, which Bishop Ulphilas 
 is said to have written 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. Hence it appears that the 
 literary Teutonic activity is very little, if at all, 
 ahead of the distinctively Slavic literary activity, 
 which, so far as we know, begins, at the end of the 
 ninth century, with the translation of the Bible 
 by the proto-apostles of the Slavs, Cyril and 
 Methodius, for the Cechs of Bohemia. 
 
 In the present stage of philological science it 
 is impossible to ascertain the precise dialect in 
 which these Bulgarian monks wrote, though the
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 163 
 
 reasonable assumption is that it was that of their 
 native Thessalonica. But the existence of a dis- 
 tinct Slavic alphabet, the Glagolica, of which 
 Cyril's alphabet is but a simplification, and the 
 existence of the Freisingen fragments which, al- 
 though not older than from the eleventh 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 com- 
 posed in a language which was already permeated 
 by the Christian conceptions which were the com- 
 mon possession of the Cechs in Carolingian times. 
 This is proved by the precious Kiev fragments, of 
 the eleventh century, which contain the most primi- 
 tive form of the Old-Slavic language and, at the 
 same time, use distinctively Cech words of the 
 Roman Catholic liturgy. It is, therefore, plausible 
 that whatever dialect was later chosen by Cyril and 
 Methodius in their religious activity in Moravia 
 and Bohemia, it was based on the vocabulary which 
 was already familiar to the Cechs from their previ- 
 ous relations with the German missionaries. 
 
 The Slavic liturgy did not survive long in Bo- 
 hemia. After the death of Methodius in 885 the 
 Slavic priests were banished and Moravia and 
 Bohemia became Roman Catholic once more. Only 
 the Abbey of Sazava continued to use the Slavic
 
 164 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 liturgy until the year 1096, after which nothing 
 more is heard of the Slavic Church. Cyril and 
 Methodius, who had come to Moravia at the re- 
 quest of Prince Rostislav, had in 867 been accused 
 by the German missionaries of heresy, which ac- 
 cusation, 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 Bo- 
 hemia, so it was in the eleventh century again Ger- 
 man priests who destroyed the last vestige of the 
 incipient Slavic culture. The Slavic liturgy left 
 the country to become permanently associated with 
 the Greek Catholic Church in Russia, Serbia, and 
 Bulgaria. What might have formed a bond be- 
 tween the various Slavic nations had been sense- 
 lessly destroyed in Bohemia by the machinations 
 of the German clergy. 
 
 Again it was Bohemia which was the first coun- 
 try, not only among the Slavs, but in the whole 
 of Europe, to carry high the banner of religious 
 freedom. The Germans boast of the contribu- 
 tion to freedom of thought by their Luther, and 
 they constantly forget that a century before him 
 Hus had prepared the ground for that religious 
 dissent which was voiced by Luther and his 
 contemporaries. In the fourteenth century Bohe-
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 165 
 
 mians were 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. Matej 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 Cech 
 national feeling. Hus was opposed not only to 
 the corruptions that had crept into the Church, 
 but also to the anti-nationalistic activities of the 
 Germans, and so headed the movement which 
 had for its purpose a Cech regeneration. 
 Cech became the language of intercourse, and a 
 large number of translations of the Bible into 
 Cech was made between 1400 and 1430, the most 
 remarkable being that written by a Taborite mil- 
 ler's wife. 
 
 Hus became the first rector of the Cech Prague 
 University, after the German students had with- 
 drawn to the newly formed University of Leipsic. 
 Bohemia was rent by disorder, not only from with- 
 out, but also within the Husitic movement itself. 
 Husitism stood not only for religious freedom, 
 but also for democracy, and for a time the Husites 
 got along without a king. The most advanced of 
 these democratic protagonists of that time was
 
 166 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Chelcicky, who dreamed of a millennium, not un- 
 like the one represented in literature at the pres- 
 ent time by Tolstoy. His chief desert lies in hav- 
 ing, by his writings, promoted the formation of 
 the Church of Bohemian Brethren. The idea of 
 Slavic nationality was not confined to Bohemia 
 alone. The growth of a similar national feeling in 
 Poland may be discerned as the result of this Cech 
 renascence, and the Southern Slavs, too, were di- 
 rectly and indirectly influenced by the nationalism 
 in the North. Indeed, the golden age of Polish 
 and Serbian literature is but a century older than 
 the rebirth of the Slavic idea in Bohemia. 
 
 Again it was a Bohemian who, at the end of 
 the eighteenth and in the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century, became the founder of Slavic 
 philology and the new Slavic literary movements 
 throughout Europe. Jagic begins his stupendous 
 " Encyclopedia of Slavic Philology " with a defini- 
 tion of Slavic philology, after which he says: 
 " Only at the end of the eighteenth century did the 
 whole volume of Slavic philology, as an independ- 
 ent 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 at- 
 tempt a determination of the degree of relation-
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 167 
 
 ship between the separate Slavic dialects by means 
 of a scientific classification. It was he who intro- 
 duced into the circle of scientific interests the ques- 
 tions from the literary and cultural history of the 
 Slavs, for example, the question of the educational 
 activity of Cyril and Methodius, and finally also 
 from social history, such as archeological and 
 ethnographical questions. . . . The critical spirit 
 of Dobrovsky with his broad views has created 
 Slavic philology. He is the father of this science." 
 In the second half of the eighteenth century it 
 looked as though the Slavic languages were doomed 
 to perdition. Poland lost its independence and 
 was parceled out among three nations; Bohemia 
 had become a mere dependency of the Hapsburg 
 Empire; Serbia and Bulgaria were under the Turk- 
 ish yoke and did not even dream of a separate 
 political existence. Nor did matters stand better in 
 the national literatures. The Polish and Bohemian 
 literatures 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 slight-
 
 168 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 est conviction that the homely native dialects had 
 a right to exist by the side of the more fortunate 
 German, while of the past of the Slavic languages 
 but the faintest surmises had been uttered by men 
 untutored in historical and philological lore. But 
 if it was the preponderant influence of German 
 culture that put the Slavic into the shade, it was 
 also the result of German philosophy which gave 
 the Slavic national idea a new lease of life. 
 
 German literature had itself been decadent for 
 some time, and was obliged to yield to the more 
 universal French culture which ruled even at the 
 Prussian court. The revolt against French pseudo- 
 classicism and encyclopedism was, however, voiced 
 by a few German writers who began to look in the 
 native elements of the intellectual life for a basis 
 for a native poetry and belles lettres in general. 
 Thus arose the German Romanticism, which be- 
 lieved that in the creations of the popular mind 
 could be found truer, more natural sentiments for 
 literary expression than in the artificial productions 
 of a select upper class. Possibly the chief activity 
 in the direction of a simpler literature was de- 
 veloped by the brothers Grimm, who, by their col- 
 lections of fairy tales and mythological lore, laid 
 the foundation for a nationalistic movement which 
 was soon to sweep over Europe. Not only did Ger- 
 man literature successfully establish itself against
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 169 
 
 the French fashion, but all the smaller nations, 
 who had almost forgotten of their historical exist- 
 ence, began to discover themselves. If the popular 
 creation was truer and more important than the 
 traditional literatures of the Grseco-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 jia- 
 tionalistic idea began to grow out of proportion 
 to the folklore which could conveniently be mus- 
 tered in proof of native superiority, and where 
 there was such a disproportion it became necessary, 
 so unscrupulous nationalists thought, to manufac- 
 ture such material. Everybody knows the huge 
 literary forgery of Macpherson, whose Ossianic 
 poetry none the less had a great influence upon sus- 
 ceptible minds, even in the East. Another such 
 forgery was that of the Bohemian Hanka, whose 
 Queen's Court Manuscript still finds overzealous 
 defenders among a certain class of unwise na- 
 tionalists. It is not the forgery of Hanka which 
 has had most widespread influences upon the dis- 
 semination of the nationalistic idea among the 
 Slavs, but the legitimate and scholarly activity of 
 the father of Slavic philology, Joseph Dobrovsky. 
 Having studied Eastern languages at the Uni- 
 versity of Prague, he had hoped to become a mis-
 
 170 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 sionary in India, but he soon abandoned this in- 
 tention and devoted himself to the study of Slavic 
 antiquity. In 1779 he made his appearance in 
 criticism with a periodical which set itself the task 
 of telling " the truth, the naked, unvarnished 
 truth " without regard for persons. He at once 
 attracted attention by his sharp, critical acumen. 
 His main interest lay in the purification of the 
 Cech 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 
 Cech origin. In the same year appeared his " His- 
 tory of the Bohemian Language and Literature," 
 in which he described the struggles of the Cech 
 language against the German and Latin from the 
 time of Hus until his day, and showed what rela- 
 tion it bore to the other Slavic languages. The 
 effect of this work upon the nationalistic feeling 
 was very great. Especially his grammar of the 
 Cech language which he published in 1808 formed 
 the basis for all Slavic grammars written in the 
 first half of the nineteenth century. Dobrovsky 
 was a voluminous writer, and his scientific cor- 
 respondence, lately edited by Jagic, contains an 
 immense amount of material which throws a light 
 upon the history of the Slavic renascence.
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 171 
 
 Dobrovsky soon gained many disciples in the 
 Slavic world. The Russians Vostokov, Kalay- 
 dovich, Stroev, and many others, the Slovenes 
 Kopitar and Vodnik were his followers, and the 
 great Slavists Safarik and Miklosich carried on 
 the work of philology after him. He enjoyed 
 the friendship of German scholars and poets, 
 Goethe, Jacob Grimm, Pertz, and others. Goethe 
 wrote of him : " Abbe 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 his- 
 tories with genial industry and Herodotic travels, 
 rejoiced in reducing his gains to the study of the 
 Bohemian people and country, and thus united 
 with the greatest glory in science the rare reputa- 
 tion of a popular name. The master is visible in 
 whatever he attempts. He everywhere grasps his 
 subject and deftly unites the fragments into one 
 whole." 
 
 It cannot be said that the strong nationalistic 
 movement which developed in Bohemia was en- 
 tirely beneficial, for it not only led to unhealthy, 
 ecstatic moods in the Bohemian literature of the 
 first part of the nineteenth century, but even to 
 a series of literary falsifications which still form 
 the subject of discussion among laymen. But it 
 must not be forgotten that the Bohemian national-
 
 172 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 ism was a reflex of the nascent German nationalism 
 and was fanned to exaggerated manifestations by 
 the obscurant absolutism of Emperor Francis I. 
 Indeed, the Cech nationalism was to a great extent 
 encouraged by the Austrian Government, as a pro- 
 tective 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 classes only, which seemed sufficient 
 to Dobrovsky, but set about to create a literary 
 norm for the whole of the Bohemian people. 
 Jungmann was especially successful in translating 
 from foreign languages, and the Slovaks Safarik 
 and Kollar, and the Moravian Palacky, not only 
 imitated the activity of their teacher Jungmann, but 
 became even more important in the dissemination 
 of the Slavic idea, both at home and abroad. 
 
 In the twenties of the nineteenth century the 
 fame of these ardent Slavists had spread to all 
 the Slavic countries, and in Russia the question 
 of founding a chair of Slavic philology, to be oc- 
 cupied by some Bohemian scholar, was seriously 
 considered. In 1830 the Russian Government 
 offered a chair of Slavic philology to Safafik, but 
 nothing came of it, chiefly through the machina- 
 tions of the forger Hanka, who sided with the 
 Russian autocracy, while Safafik publicly ex-
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 173 
 
 pressed himself in favor of the Poles in the revo- 
 lution which had just broken out in Russia. But 
 Safafik continued to exert a great influence on 
 Slavic science in Russia through his friend 
 Pogodin, who never gave up the hope that Safafik 
 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 Safafik and learn something from personal 
 contact with him. Indeed, the main activity of 
 Bodyanski consisted in translating into Russian 
 the works of Safafik and other Bohemian Slavists. 
 Similarly Sreznevski, in his inaugural lecture at 
 the university, pointed out the fact that there had 
 existed no interest in Slavic studies in Russia until 
 such had been created by the Bohemian and Ser- 
 bian scholars. As Bodyanski stood in relation to 
 the Russian Slavophiles, it is certain that the 
 Slavophile movement in Russia received some of 
 its ideas directly or indirectly from the Bohe- 
 mian nationalists. 
 
 From the humble beginnings in the first part of 
 the nineteenth century Bohemian literature has 
 developed in a remarkable manner, borrowing 
 what is best in all literatures, and to a consider- 
 able extent falling under the influence of the great
 
 174 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 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 read- 
 ing public, if it could be induced to read transla- 
 tions of this almost unknown literature. Its 
 poetry is especially attractive and varied, and the 
 poets have reveled in the discussion of those social 
 problems which elsewhere have been relegated to 
 the field of prose. 
 
 Whatever the interest of the outsider may be in 
 Bohemian literature, it deserves the highest atten- 
 tion on the part of the Slavs, who owe their very 
 regeneration to the labors of the Bohemian 
 scholars a century ago. If, in addition, we con- 
 sider what Bohemia did for freedom of re- 
 ligious thought a hundred years before the days 
 of Luther, and still more, the great obligation 
 under which the Greek Catholic Church is to Bo- 
 hemia for its very ecclesiastic language and na- 
 tional alphabets, the sympathies of the world 
 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 Bo- 
 hemia to its former freedom and glory, if they are 
 not blinded by selfishness and useless conceit.
 
 THE SLAVIC REGENERATION 175 
 
 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 the best German thought and the 
 growing Slavic civilization, if the Germans do not, 
 as in the past, rouse the Slavic antipathies. Of all 
 the Slavs, the Bohemians understood the German 
 ideas best, and Dobrovsky and other Bohemian 
 Slavists promoted the Slavic idea by means of 
 the German language. That, of course, can never 
 happen again, for the nationalist life is there 
 permanently established. But there is no reason 
 for racial antagonism in a country where Ger- 
 mans and Slavs have lived together for centuries.
 
 ADDENDA 
 THE BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS 
 
 BY EMILY GREENE BALCH, PROFESSOR OF ECO- 
 NOMICS AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE * 
 
 IN some cities, as for instance Cedar Rapids, 
 and in some states, as for instance Nebraska, 
 Bohemians are a large enough element in the 
 population to be fairly well known; but they are 
 not so numerous in the United States as a whole, 
 as to be clearly present to the minds 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 colony there, the largest in the country ; 
 but in general if people know anything about Bo- 
 hemians they probably " know a great many things 
 that aren't so," misled by the fact that the French 
 word for Gipsies is Bohemians, much as our word 
 for the American aborigines is Indian. 
 
 Yet from the colonial period individual Bohe- 
 
 * Author of " Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens." Miss Balch studied the 
 Slav in the United States and " at the source," in Europe. 
 
 176
 
 BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS 177 
 
 mians have come to this country, and in 1906, the 
 latest year for which I have estimates, the Bo- 
 hemian group was put at a round half-million. 
 
 Some of these early settlers are picturesque and 
 not unimportant figures like Herman and Phillipse, 
 but it was not till the disturbed period of 1848 that 
 Bohemians came to this country in appreciable 
 numbers. At this time there was a triple ferment 
 in Bohemia: first, a desire for political independ- 
 ence; second, a resurrection of national self-con- 
 sciousness symbolized by the revival of the 
 Bohemian language, the use of which among cul- 
 tivated people had been abandoned for German; 
 and third, a spirit of religious questioning and 
 vehement challenge of current Christianity, largely 
 due to reaction against the influence of a corrupt 
 Austrian clericalism. 
 
 Another possible influence was the discovery of 
 gold in California in 1849, which is said to have 
 brought Bohemian gold-seekers and to have stimu- 
 lated the activity of ship agents. 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 sixties there was a pretty steady outflow 
 from Bohemia, most of it directed to the United 
 States. This early emigration was a movement of 
 settlers, whole families going together.
 
 178 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 With 1867 came a fresh impulse to emigration. 
 Besides the newly granted right to emigrate freely, 
 the disastrous war with Prussia in 1866 gave added 
 reasons for going, while in the .United States the 
 Civil War was over and everything invited the 
 settler. 
 
 The earliest colony of Bohemians was in St. 
 Louis, where in 1854 they had already established 
 a Catholic church, and this city has always re- 
 mained an influential Bohemian centre. 
 
 More important, however, was the movement to 
 the states further West the largest numbers set- 
 tling in Wisconsin, later Iowa, later Nebraska 
 and the two Dakotas, though a considerable settle- 
 ment also grew up in Cleveland. In general, how- 
 ever, in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois land was 
 already too dear for the newcomers, and they con- 
 tinually settled further west as the years went on. 
 In the 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 official 
 solicitation of immigrants that was carried on for 
 years by various states. Wisconsin, like many
 
 BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS 179 
 
 other states, appointed a Commissioner of Immi- 
 gration to stimulate the inflow. In 1852 the first 
 man to fill this office reported to the Governor 
 that he had been in New York distributing pam- 
 phlets in English, German, Norwegian, and Dutch, 
 describing the resources of the state. 
 
 After four years this state canvass for immi- 
 grants was suspended for a time, but in 1864 the 
 Wisconsin Legislature memorialized Congress for 
 the passage 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 or not as a consequence of 
 this request, Congress did in the same year pass 
 an act to encourage immigration, which, however, 
 was repealed in March, 1868. 
 
 Again, in 1879, Wisconsin established a State 
 Board of Immigration to increase and stimulate 
 immigration, with authority to disseminate infor- 
 mation. The official circulars mentioned as in- 
 ducements the following points: climate, rich 
 lands at a nominal price, free schools and a free 
 university, equality before the law, religious lib- 
 erty, no imprisonment for debt, and liberal ex- 
 emption from seizure 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
 
 180 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 become one having been declared) ; and full eligi- 
 bility to office for all actual citizens. " There is 
 never an election in the state," one circular con- 
 tinues, " that does not put some, and often very 
 many, foreign-born citizens into office. Indeed, 
 there is no such thing as a foreigner in Wisconsin, 
 save in the mere accident of birthplace; for men 
 coming here and entering into the active duties of 
 life identify themselves with the state and her 
 interests, and are to all intents and purposes 
 American." We are told " The language above 
 used is, except in rhetoric, identical " with that in 
 an edition of 1884. 
 
 Besides this direct encouragement by the state 
 " a similar canvass was maintained by counties and 
 land companies, and at a later stage by railway 
 companies, some of them sending agents to travel 
 in Europe." Of such solicitation at the very be- 
 ginning of Bohemian immigration I found tradi- 
 tion still mindful in the old country. Thus 
 immigrants have felt themselves directly and offi- 
 cially invited and urged to come, and it is not 
 surprising that one often finds them aggrieved 
 and hurt at the tone of too many current refer- 
 ences making foreigners synonymous with every- 
 thing that is unwelcome. 
 
 Many of the Bohemians were pioneers in the 
 unbroken wilderness, and a very large part were
 
 BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS 181 
 
 farmers. A large proportion, however, had trades, 
 and this is characteristic of Bohemian immigra- 
 tion in general. The common estimate is that one- 
 half of the Bohemians in the country are living 
 in country places, occupied either with farming 
 or with some one of the various employments in- 
 cident to rural life, from shoemaking to keeping 
 store or acting as notary public. If the compari- 
 son be extended to all groups of foreign parentage, 
 Bohemia shows a larger proportion engaged in 
 agriculture than any foreign countries except 
 Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway, surpassing 
 even Germany and Sweden. It is interesting to 
 note that Italy has a very low rank in this regard ; 
 even Poland and Russia surpass her, lowered as 
 their place is by the large non-agricultural Jewish 
 element, and only Hungary is below her. 
 
 As to the quality of Slavic farming, one natu- 
 rally hears different reports. I suspect that the 
 American often thinks the Pole or Bohemian a 
 poor farmer because he works on a different plan, 
 while the foreigner, used to small, intensive farm- 
 ing, thinks Yankees slovenly and wasteful. Espe- 
 cially when he takes up old, worn-out farm lands, 
 he has small respect for the methods of his prede- 
 cessor, who, he says, " robbed the soil." 
 
 The American business agent of a Bohemian
 
 182 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 farming paper, already quoted, could not say 
 enough in praise of the Bohemian farmers. They 
 farmed better than the Americans. They invested 
 freely in farm machinery. 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 some- 
 thing to which you could find nothing parallel in 
 the same area anywhere in the United States. The 
 Bohemian paper of which he was agent had seven 
 times more advertising of farm implements 
 than any other paper in the United States, he 
 said. 
 
 While the above statements are those of an in- 
 terested party, all the available evidence points the 
 same way. It would seem, moreover, as though 
 in certain lines, new to us and familiar in Europe, 
 the immigrant should be able to supply very valu- 
 able skill. This seems to be especially the case 
 in the sugar-beet industry, in which the labor of 
 Bohemians, who understand beet culture well, is 
 much sought. 
 
 Of Bohemian women at work, nearly a quarter 
 were in 1900 servants and waitresses, and more 
 than another quarter workers at tailoring or in to- 
 bacco. This corresponds to the fact that many 
 Bohemians in the cities are engaged in the two 
 latter branches; many too are mechanics or trades-
 
 BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS 183 
 
 people, often carrying on a small business of their 
 own. 
 
 The Bohemians, like other Slavic groups in this 
 country, are much given to organizing into socie- 
 ties. Many of their associations are small local 
 affairs of the most various sorts. In a New York 
 Bohemian paper I found a list of 95 local societies 
 among this group of perhaps 45,000 people. 
 Many were mere " pleasure clubs," to use the cur- 
 rent 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- 
 Slavonic Benevolent Society, or as it is commonly 
 called, by the initials of this name in the vernacu- 
 lar, the C. S. P. S. In the religious controversies 
 which soon divided American Bohemians into two 
 camps, this came to represent the free-thinking, 
 anti-Catholic side. It numbers about 25,000 
 members. 
 
 The Sokols, which correspond to the German 
 " Turnerbunds " or gymnastic societies, are as 
 popular and widespread as they are desirable. 
 They give opportunity for exercise dignified by 
 a sense of the relation between good physical con- 
 dition and readiness for service to one's country. 
 Women and children, as well as the men, have
 
 184. BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 their own divisions, classes, and uniforms, and the 
 Sokol exhibitions are important and very pretty 
 social events. In Prague, in the summer of 1906, 
 the Bohemian Sokols had an anniversary interna- 
 tional meet, at which the American societies were 
 also represented, and performed evolutions, liter- 
 ally in their thousands, in the open air. 
 
 Theatricals, whether given in some local hall or 
 in a regular theatre hired for the occasion, are, as 
 in Europe, a favorite employment for Sunday 
 afternoons or evenings. Classic pieces, both liter- 
 ary and operatic, are much enjoyed; for instance, 
 among the Bohemians, Smetana's opera, " 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 fami- 
 lies and neighbors. It is an especial pleasure to 
 them to reproduce the pretty costumes of their 
 old-world youth. Worthy of especial mention are 
 the club called Snaha (Endeavor), of Bohemian 
 professional women in Chicago, and the clubs or- 
 ganized for reading and study among Socialists 
 of different nationalities. 
 
 There are numerous Bohemian papers and 
 periodicals, including the Bohemian " Hospodar " 
 (" Farmer ") of Omaha and the " Zenske Listy "
 
 BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS 185 
 
 of Chicago, the latter being an organ of a woman's 
 society, printed as well as edited by women. It 
 is not devoted to "beauty lessons" and "house- 
 hold hints," but to efforts toward woman's suffrage 
 and the " uplifting of the mental attitude of work- 
 ing-women." Its 6,000 subscribers include dis- 
 tinguished Bohemians all over the country, men 
 as well as women. 
 
 In religion the Roman Catholics claim a large 
 number of Bohemians, but there is a substantial 
 Protestant minority ; outside the church fold is the 
 numerous and very interesting group of Free- 
 Thinkers. 
 
 The Bohemians are among the most literate of 
 our immigrants. Taking the data for 1900, which 
 I happen to have worked out, we find that of im- 
 migrants of all nationalities 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 
 3.0 per cent. ; among Scandinavians, under 0.8 
 per cent. Certainly to supply only about one-half 
 as many illiterates per hundred as the Germans is 
 a notable record. 
 
 All of this is quite borne out by the impression 
 one gets of Bohemians both in the United States 
 and in Bohemia. In development and conditions 
 they rank with the immigrant from northwestern
 
 186 BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS 
 
 Europe. The struggle with the Germans is in a 
 sense the master-thread in their whole history, and 
 this contact, even though inimical, has meant inter- 
 penetration and rapprochement. No other Slavic 
 nationality is more self-conscious and patriotic, not 
 to say chauvinistic, in its national feeling, and at 
 the same time none begins to be so permeated with 
 general European culture and so advanced eco- 
 nomically. 
 
 As to character, if it is impossible to indict a 
 whole people, so is it impossible to draw a portrait 
 of such a collective group. Nevertheless, no one 
 can doubt that one characteristic of the country- 
 men of Smetana and Dvorak is their noble gift 
 for music. Their sense of color, too, is very 
 marked, and they, beyond all people I know, love 
 the dance. Yet with all their "gemuthlich" and 
 temperamental qualities I find them reserved, 
 delicate, shy, intensely family-loving, cherishing 
 privacy. 
 
 The Bohemians are a people of high conscien- 
 tiousness, and by nature loyal. In the Civil War 
 their anti-slavery feeling and their devotion to 
 their new country both were shown, and the first 
 company that went from Chicago to fight for the 
 Union is said to have been a Lincoln Rifle Com- 
 pany that some young men of that nationality had 
 organized in 1860. The dominating feature in the
 
 BOHEMIANS AS IMMIGRANTS 187 
 
 great Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago is 
 the soldiers' monument, just such a monument as 
 stands on every village common in New England ; 
 and perhaps nothing so much as this visible sign of 
 blood shed in the same cause bridges the difference 
 of national feeling. 
 
 They are interested in ideas for their own sake, 
 as are the Latin peoples, and especially in ques- 
 tions of religion. The older people love their past, 
 their language, their old home, yet they cannot 
 hand on these interests in their pristine intensity 
 to the younger people, absorbed in the life about 
 them, dropping their Bohemian speech and ways 
 and gradually, only gradually, completing the 
 transition to the New World and its ways. 
 
 NOTE. I have to thank the publishers of my book, Our 
 Slavic Fellow-Citisens, for permission to borrow here and 
 there from its pages. 
 
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 The Martyr Who Blazed the Way to 
 Religious Freedom 
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 ==OF=== 
 
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 The Martyr of Bohemia 
 By W. N. SCHWARZE, Ph.D. 
 
 Illustrated, 16mo, Cloth, Net 75 cts. 
 
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