czech national consciousness in the baroque era

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H,rrory of European Ideas. Vol. 16, No 4-6. pp. 935-941, 1993 0191-6599/93 $6.00+0.00 Printed ,n Great Britain 0 1993 Pergamoo Press Lfd CZECH NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BAROQUE ERA JOSEPH FREDERICK ZACEK* The study of the complicated origins of modern Czech nationalism has a rich history of its own. A milestone in that investigation was the debate stimulated by the view of the Czech philosopher, T.G. Masaryk (1850-1937), who explained the Czech National Revival of the late 18th and early 19th centuries as an organic continuation of the religious and humanitarian traditions of the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren. An opposing standpoint was stated by the Czech historian, Josef Pekai (1870-1937) who insisted that there was not only a great chronological but also a great ideological gap between the Hussite reformers and the Czech ‘Awakeners’, and that the roots of modern Czech nationalism should be sought in the Baroque Catholic culture of Bohemia that followed the disastrous defeat at White Mountain (1620). Certainly the National Revival, closely connected with the broad wave of general European Romanticism, played a key role in the process of the creation of the modern Czech nation. During most of the preceding two centuries, the Czechs were forced to live under heavy political, religious and cultural restrictions, and their national develop- ment was delayed in contrast with that of other, more mature European peoples. The goal of the ‘Awakeners’ was to make up this delay, to prepare the Czechs quickly to compete with other nations, especially with the neighboring Germans. It does not automatically follow, however, that before 1800 the Czech language, the national hallmark, had almost disappeared, remaining only as the speech of the kitchen and the stable, as is often held, even by reputable authorities. Not only did Czech continue to exist as a developed and functioning literary language during the 17th and 18th centuries, but one also encounters a significant continuing Czech national consciousness during this period, chiefly in clerical and bourgeois circles, in the form of sorrowful historical reminiscences of past Czech greatness, heated defenses of the Czech language, and sometimes sharp criticisms of the centralising, germanising, catholicising Habsburg regime, These nationalistic manifestations after 1620 have not escaped the attention of previous generations of Czech historians. But a reliable, nuanced, comprehensive exposition of Czech Baroque political-cultural nationalism in its broad social, economic, and religious context is not yet available. Even its specific wellsprings and bearers still remain, in large part, to be identified.’ One encounters expressions of Czech national consciousness far back in Czech history, in particularly clear forms in such periods as the reign of Charles IVand the Hussite Revolution. This national self-consciousness grew steadily in the period before White Mountain, provoked by the growing numbers and influence of German settlers, particularly in the western regions of Bohemia, a stimulus-response pattern that was not broken by the tragedy of 1620. The *Department of History, SUNY at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, U.S.A. 935

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H,rrory of European Ideas. Vol. 16, No 4-6. pp. 935-941, 1993 0191-6599/93 $6.00+0.00

Printed ,n Great Britain 0 1993 Pergamoo Press Lfd

CZECH NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BAROQUE ERA

JOSEPH FREDERICK ZACEK*

The study of the complicated origins of modern Czech nationalism has a rich history of its own. A milestone in that investigation was the debate stimulated by the view of the Czech philosopher, T.G. Masaryk (1850-1937), who explained the Czech National Revival of the late 18th and early 19th centuries as an organic continuation of the religious and humanitarian traditions of the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren. An opposing standpoint was stated by the Czech historian, Josef Pekai (1870-1937) who insisted that there was not only a great chronological but also a great ideological gap between the Hussite reformers and the Czech ‘Awakeners’, and that the roots of modern Czech nationalism should be sought in the Baroque Catholic culture of Bohemia that followed the disastrous defeat at White Mountain (1620). Certainly the National Revival, closely connected with the broad wave of general European Romanticism, played a key role in the process of the creation of the modern Czech nation. During most of the preceding two centuries, the Czechs were forced to live under heavy political, religious and cultural restrictions, and their national develop- ment was delayed in contrast with that of other, more mature European peoples. The goal of the ‘Awakeners’ was to make up this delay, to prepare the Czechs quickly to compete with other nations, especially with the neighboring Germans. It does not automatically follow, however, that before 1800 the Czech language, the national hallmark, had almost disappeared, remaining only as the speech of the kitchen and the stable, as is often held, even by reputable authorities. Not only did Czech continue to exist as a developed and functioning literary language during the 17th and 18th centuries, but one also encounters a significant continuing Czech national consciousness during this period, chiefly in clerical and bourgeois circles, in the form of sorrowful historical reminiscences of past Czech greatness, heated defenses of the Czech language, and sometimes sharp criticisms of the centralising, germanising, catholicising Habsburg regime, These nationalistic manifestations after 1620 have not escaped the attention of previous generations of Czech historians. But a reliable, nuanced, comprehensive exposition of Czech Baroque political-cultural nationalism in its broad social, economic, and religious context is not yet available. Even its specific wellsprings and bearers still remain, in large part, to be identified.’

One encounters expressions of Czech national consciousness far back in Czech history, in particularly clear forms in such periods as the reign of Charles IVand the Hussite Revolution. This national self-consciousness grew steadily in the period before White Mountain, provoked by the growing numbers and influence of German settlers, particularly in the western regions of Bohemia, a stimulus-response pattern that was not broken by the tragedy of 1620. The

*Department of History, SUNY at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, U.S.A. 935

936 Joseph Frederick Zacek

structure of the Bohemian nobility, of the national leadership, did change drastically after the failed rebellion, of course. After the confiscations following White Mountain, many Bohemian estates acquired new owners from Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and elsewhere. Even the remaining native Czech nobility was denationalised to an extent, though this rather in the 18th century, as a result of the Habsburgs’ centralising administrative reforms. Legislation after 1620, especially the Renewed Land Ordinance of 1627, guaranteed the German language equality with Czech, in practice preference to Czech. But the native tongue, throughout the entire 17th century and even into the 18th, managed to hang on in royal, municipal and patrimonial offices.

A good deal has been written about the national consciousness of the Bohemian nobility in this period.* Some authors have been prone to find it in every recorded pro-Czech utterance and to confuse the nobles’ territorial patriotism (Landespatriotismus-affection for the geographical region and a defense of the historical rights and privileges of the kingdom) with devotion to Czech cultural concerns. Others have seen the Bohemian nobility as totally estranged from the Czech popular masses, as a cosmopolitan and heavily germanised stratum exclusively preoccupied with its own welfare. Both views are overly simplified and, in that sense, incorrect. It is true that, even before the Thirty Years’ War, the Bohemian nobility, through marriage and education, had acquired a certain international and cosmopolitan character and had begun to distance itself from the Czech nation. Though this trend was accelerated after 1620, a significantly numerous segment of the nobility continued to identify itself with the historical traditions and culture of Bohemia, especially such old Czech families as the ValStejns, Lobkovices, KinskLs, ternins, Kolovrats, Sternberks, Nostices, Choteks and others. Expressions of territorial patriotism usually appeared when the Bohemian nobles felt they were being ignored or injured by Vienna (through heavy military or tax levies, for example) and in particularly tense periods and crises (e.g. during the negotiations over the Renewed Land Ordinance, following Wallenstein’s murder in 1634, and in the 1680s). To be sure, Bohemian aristocratic resistance to Vienna was generally rather tame and never approached the level of that of the neighboring Hungarian nobles. The only open rebellion in Bohemia against the monarchy took place at the accession of Maria Theresa to the throne in 1741, when part of the nobility sided shortsightedly and naively with the Bavarian king. One cannot deny that the Bohemian nobility generally did ignore the needs and problems of the other social strata in the land, and that the ultimate alienation of the Bohemian nobility from the Czech nation at large begins in the Baroque era. The long-term consequences of this schism were very negative for the maintenance of Czech national consciousness and the growth of Czech nationalism. Save briefly in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the nobility (especially the rapidly waning gentry element) did not play the traditional role in the formation of the modern Czech nation that was played by the nobles of other nations, such as those of western Europe, Germany and Poland. A nation bereft of its historic leadership element is in an usually difficult position, and this situation had an important shaping influence upon the Czech national character and behavior pattern.

To the loss of some Czech-oriented nobles by forced emigration after the war, one must add the gradual denationalisation of others. One example of the latter

Czech National Consciousness 937

was beautifully illustrated by Zden5 k Kalista in his book, Mkidi Humprechta Jana cernina z Chudenic: Zrozeni barokniho kavalira.’ Born eight years after White Mountain to ardently Czech parents, Humprecht Jan Cernin was sent at age nine to the Jesuit College of St Ignatius in Prague. As his correspondence testifies, there and in subsequent studies and travels through Europe, like many of his young peers, he soon developed a cosmopolitan outlook and progressively lost interest in his troubled little homeland. The creation of a cultured, worldly Baroque cavalier was completed when he married the Italian marquise, Diana Maria Gazoldo, and soon after, on the death of his mother, he severed his last tie with his birthplace. It is only fair to mention, on the other side, that there were also young nobles who chose to continue to live and work within their Czech milieu. Interestingly, we can find among these even representatives of foreign families only recently arrived in Bohemia. Such were, to an extent, the Schwarzenbergs, who controlled almost all of southern Bohemia and rejected careers at court to devote themselves rather to their extensive domains.

An incomparably greater and more lasting contribution to the preservation of the Czech nation in the Baroque era was made by the bourgeoisie, whose numbers and importance were generally underestimated by the older historiography. Although a segment of the most nationally conscious Czech burghers also had to emigrate, the Czech language and Czech national consciousness never completely disappeared from the towns of Bohemia, To be sure, the situation varied from town to town and from group to group-the state of research on this subject is embryonic, with detailed histories of towns largely lacking. It is, of course, very difficult to capture the national consciousness of merchants, artisans and petty entrepreneurs of the 17th and 18th centuries. Devoted to physical and practical work and fully occupied with daily concerns, they have left behind comparatively little testimony of their thoughts and feelings, save for isolated references to their towns, their land and their language in town chronicles and official record books. We can, however, refer also to the more abundant testimony of the urban priesthood, the secular clergy, and even some members of regular orders located in towns. To be sure, these are not primary representatives of the bourgeoisie, but they are closely bound to the latter by their labors and, very often, their social origins.

The older generation of city officials, chroniclers, and ordinary citizens who lived during and immediately after the Thirty Years’ War represents an organic continuation of pre-war national traditions, even among those individuals who converted to Catholicism. Such a one was Jifi Kezelius Bydiovsky. First imprisoned for his Protestantism, then fleeing to Germany, he returned to Bohemia in 1639 with the Swedes and converted to Catholicism. In his chronicle of Mlada Boleslav he vehemently denounced his countrymen for the apathy and division that had brought the Czech nation to ruin. A similar figure was Vaclav Fr. Coelestinus (Nebesky z Blumenberka), a patrician and provost of St Vitus in Prague, who, writing about the Habsburg dynasty, complained of discrimination against Czechs in his chapter. Many native nationally-conscious Czech Catholics inhabited western Bohemia. Such patriots were Sebestian Vojtgch BerliEka (Scipio Plzefiskjr), a native of Pilsen, who lamented the glorious Czech past, ‘when Czech piety and saintliness spread throughout the world’, and fellow clerics and Pilsenities Ji?i Plachy (devoted to propagating ‘the holy patriots and

938 Joseph Frederick Zacek

patrons of the Czech lands’) and Jan Tanner (author of a history of Pilsen). From Hors”ovskjr Tyn came such Czech defenders as Felix Kadlinsky, whose life of St Ludmila was laced with ardent Czech feeling, and the church dignitary, Rafael Sobihrd Mnis’ovskjr ze Sebuzina. In the introduction to his Stare Pam&i kutnohorskt (1675), Jan Koiinek, a native of Caslav and a Jesuit, tells what induced him to write in Czech:

Three reasons:. . . First, to prove that, unlike many misguided Czechs, I am not ashamed of my mother tongue. . . . Second, to give pleasure to and suit the tastes of local miners (who are mostly Czechs). . . . And Third, dealing with mining matters, I had to speak in many places “PO hornicku” [i.e., to use Czech mining terms].

Not all Bohemian town chroniclers were churchmen. Among their lay counterparts were the Pilsen burgher, Antonin Frozin, who, in the introduction to his translation of a Jesuit work on the Marian cult in 1704, pleaded with his Czech countrymen not to lose heart. He pointed out that the Czechs (especially the prolific peasantry) far outnumbered the Germans in Bohemia and that the Czechs should also take comfort from their membership in the great Slavonic family. Evidence that the Czech national idea did not disappear in the towns even during the strong wave of germanisation in the 18th century is the book ZemP dobrd, to jest zemk &ska’ (1754) by Vaclav Vitek of Jaromgi. In simple, meaty Czech, the Czech burgher staunchly defends his countrymen against the insults and charges leveled at them by foreigners and insists that his nation is as good as any other.

The strongest and most unequivocal expressions of Czech national consciousness came from members of the Czech clergy. We have already mentioned some of these as ‘urban patriots’. Others, mostly members of regular orders and also of urban origin, who spent their lives in monasteries, schools and on missions in faraway places, are also worth mentioning. Above all, we must not neglect the leading order of the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits.4 Relations between the Jesuits and the Czech nation were not exclusively negative-they had their brighter aspects as well. Bohuslav Balbin, the Czech Jesuit traditionally exhibited for his deep Czech sympathies, had his forerunners. Even before White

Mountain, Czech needs and interests were not alien to the Jesuits. For example, in 1583, the order’s visiting inspector directed the rector and provincial of the Prague College to (1) ensure that, whenever possible, in the lower grades of the gymnasium only teachers who were ‘Bohemi naturales’, for whom Czech was the mother tongue, be appointed; (2) publish Czech religious books; (3) make Czech the operating language; and (4) take severe action against those who did not respect the Czech language or disparaged it. Even if all of these admonitions were not carried out, their very existence and later reconfirmations testify to the Czech sympathies of the Prague Jesuits. The archives of the order contain evidence of nationalistic frictions and complaints, even from the end of the 17th century, that the Prague Jesuits were too patriotic. In 1675, another inspector, MikulaS Avancini, ordained that officials of the order work to eradicate narrow national loyalties among its members, ‘which even the lay public observes and condemns among you, among Czechs as well as Germans’. It seems clear that the Czech nation long managed to hold its own within the order. In return, Czech Jesuits

Czech National Consciousness 939

dedicated themselves to the tasks of the order, not only in Bohemia but also elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and North America. Even among these Czech Jesuit missionaries one gets frequent glimpses of fervent nostalgia and affection for their small, distant homeland. It is evident in the letters and diaries of such men as Simon Boruhradsk?, serving in Mexico and the Philippines, Jindiich Vhclav Richtr and Viclav Eymer, working among the North American Indians, Karel Piikryl in India, and Karel Slav&k in China.

It may be argued that these examples of Czech Jesuit nationalism are isolated and unrepresentative of the times and of the leading figures of the order. That stems from the nature of the issue and the state of available source material, which is far from copious. Far clearer and more detailed evidence of national feeling is available, however, in the literary works of important Jesuits and other church dignitaries. Such are the Svatovriclavska’ bible, prepared on the model of the Kralice bible of the Bohemian Brethren by the Jesuits Jan Barner and Jiii Konstanc, and Konstanc’s own Lima linguae Bohemicae (Whetstone ofthe Czech Language), a work praised by Josef Dobrovsky himself. The twelve-volume work by Balbin’s friend, Jifi Kruger (1606-1671), the Sacri pulveres indyti regni Bohemiae, is a rather uncritical compendium of all sorts of Bohemian historical, natural, and cultural mementos and curiosities. But Kruger wrote it because ‘contemporary foreign historians slight everything that distinguished the Czechs in Europe, to the advantage of their own nations’. And one could cite still other Czechophile writings, such as the Czech grammars prepared by authors such as Jan VBclav Rosa, to illustrate the point. (Rosa equates the Czech language with Latin and Greek.)

The salient representative of the remnants of Czech national feeling in the Baroque era is, by tradition, Bohuslav Balbin (1621-1688). The diligent collector of historical antiquities, visitor of famed churches, chapels, archives, and libraries, and author of numerous works, especially the celebrated Defense of the Czech Language, embodies the despair of the post-White Mountain Czech generation. In his eyes, even more tragic than the lost battle itself were the fear, resignation, and defeatism that permeated the whole Czech nation, and the social regression that was afflicting the lower classes in the towns and countryside. The Defense lashes out at the chief destroyer of the kingdom (usually identified as the highest burgrave of Prague, Bernard Ignac Martinic):

You have toppled the old kingdom without building a new one. Woe unto you!. . . You have crushed the nobles, turned the royal towns into little towns, little towns into villages, villages into mean huts peopled with creatures who are half naked, tattered, starving, and dispossessed of every needful thing! . . . The Viennese court, tempted by the sweetness of Czech money, cries daily with its insatiable gullet: “Bring more! Bring more!”

And it ends with a poignant plea to the patron saint of the Czechs, St VZiclav, to return his people to their former glory. Little wonder that the work could not be published till 1775, long after Balbin’s death.5

Other voices high and low, less eloquent but equally concerned, often those of Balbin’s own friends, spoke in the same vein, men such as the Moravian Tomb PeSina z Cechorodu, canon of the chapter of St Vitus, and Jiii Ignac Pospichal,

940 Joseph Frederick Zacek

grandmaster of the order of the Knights of the Cross. In 1662, Pegina constructed a map of the languages spoken on the domain of LandBperk, which he sent to his archbishop to support his request that the numerous Czech population be granted the right to receive preaching in its own language. Pospfchal, an economist attached to the Bohemian diet, worked zealously to lessen the tax burden and alleviate conditions among the Czech serfs in Bohemia, especially after the great peasant rebellion of 1680. In this he had the support and protection of no less a figure than the archbishop of Prague, Count Jan Bediich z Valdgtejna. Many other sympathetic figures doubtless wait to be discovered in the rich archives of monastic orders, consistories, chapters, and the like.

Throughout this brief essay, I have identified the Czech bourgeoisie and the Czech clergy as the chief carriers of Czech national consciousness in the Baroque era. The more traditional view, firmly held by many, that the Czech lower classes, primarily the rural peasantry, were decisively responsible for the preservation of the Czech nation after White Mountain is, in my opinion, overdrawn. Certainly the peasants remained more ‘ethnically pure’ than the other social classes. They preserved an impoverished, though lusty colloquial version of the Czech language through everyday usage as well as a flourishing popular (largely oral) literature consisting of legends, cults of saints, passion plays, folk songs and poetry (such as the ovMcka’ poesie, shepherd’s poetry and krama’fske’ pisnt, shopkeepers’ songs), and the like, which were often colored with Czech ethnic manifestations. So, too, were their periodic mass pilgrimages and festivals. In this way, they created a vast potential reservoir of strength and support for the national cause. But this strength was not called upon until much later, until it was partially loosed by the reforms of Joseph II and rallied by the ‘Awakeners’ in the early nineteenth century. In the intervening period, the national contribution of the immobile, heavily burdened serfs was surely smaller than that of the town dwellers and the clerical intelligentsia.

Czech baroque nationalism, born of the deep crisis faced by Czech society after the Thirty Years’ War, uncertain and searching, supported by various social strata in different ways, shaped by romantic historical nostalgia as well as practical contemporary problems, is a complex phenomenon. There are other intriguing aspects of it that I have barely mentioned and that are worth researching. It might be fruitful to probe further the subtle relationship between Czech national consciousness and the Counter-Reformation of the 17th century, for example. All of the nationally-minded Czech clergy known to us were sincere and active adherents of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Yet among many of them one finds various degrees of doubt and even disagreement with the spiritual practices of the movement, particularly the persecution and liquidation of non- Catholics. All of them uniformly denounced Hussitism as an act of national division and ruin, but most of them treated Hus himself honorably, and some even admired him as well as the great Hussite general, Jan ZiZka. Likewise, the national consciousness of the Czech religious and political exiles scattered about Europe (of ‘the Czech Protestant Baroque’, of whom Jan Amos Komenskjr is, of course, the acknowledged leader) and its connection with the muted voices back home, bears serious investigation. There is enough work remaining to fill many lifetimes.

SUNY at AIbany Joseph Frederick Zacek

Czech National Consciousness 941

NOTES

1. This essay is greatly indebted to my reading of unpublished manuscripts on Czech Baroque nationalism and patriotism written by two Czechoslovak colleagues, Josef Hanzal and the late FrantiSek Kutnar. From the large published bibliography, see especially the Sbornz7c Buroko (Brno, 1934); Zdenek Kalista, &sk& Buroko (Prague, 1941); Milan Kopecky (ed.), 0 burokni k&&e: Sbornik stati (Brno, 1968); and Antonin Kratochvil, Oh&i baroku (Munich, 1984).

2. See especially, J. Muk, PO stop&h ndrodniho vgdomi ?esk& SIechty pobelohorske (Prague, 1931).

3. Two vols (Prague, 1932). 4. See Emanuel Kubicek, ‘Narodni vcdomi Eeskych jezuitu ai po dobu Balbinovu’, in

Jezuitf a ndrodni kultura (Hradec Krllovt, 1936); and Zdenek Kalista, Cesty ve znumeni k%e: Dopisy a zprdvy cesky’ch misiona’ti v 17, u 18. vCku (Prague, 1941).

5. The Defense was originally written about 1670 as De regni Bohemiue feIici quondam, nunc culamitoso stutu and first published in 1775 as Dissertutio upologeticu pro lingua Sluvonicu, pruecipue Bohemicu. Czechoslovak scholarly interest in the controversal Balbin has revived in recent years, culminating in a major interdisciplinary conference on the man and his cultural milieux held in Prague in November, 1988. See also the much-discussed study by Jan P. Kucera and Jiii Rak, Bohusluv Bulbin u jeho mist0 v EeskP kulture’ (Prague, 1983).