By Will S. Monroe, Professor State Normal School, Montclair, N. J., Author of “Bohemia 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 connection 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 Not only was there a complete arrest in the remarkable literary movement that intervened between the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, but most of the literary treasures of the previous centuries were destroyed by the royal edicts of the reactionary Hapsburg The modern Bohemian literary movement dates back only one hundred years. Joseph DobrovskÝ (1753-1829), the patriarch of Slavic philology, initiated the literary movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The few other Bohemian scholars of the day—Jungmann, PalackÝ, KollÁr, ŠafarÍk, and the incomparable publicist Charles HavlÍcek—lent their services to the rehabilitation of a national language that was long supposed to be dead. The letters of Jungmann During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Austrian Government had penalized the publication 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 facilitated 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 JirÁsek, the rich lyrical poetry of Jaroslav VrchlickÝ (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 PalackÝ, and the political and sociological writings of Thomas G. Masaryk have made notable contributions to the literary history of modern Bohemia. When one recalls the dearth of literature from Teutonic writers in Austria during the same period, the contrast is marked indeed. 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 attempted Teutonization of the country by the Hapsburg rulers after the fatal BÍlÁ Hora. The political and literary activity in Bohemia during the opening years of the last century reacted favorably on the art life of the nation. A society of the fine arts, that was distinctly Bohemian 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 astonishingly large number of painters who took high rank in their art, artists of the rare talent of Hellich, Manes, CermÁk, Schwaiger, AleŠ, BroÍk, Mucha, Úprka. In sculpture, too, modern Bohemia has 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 DvorÁk. Not that the history of music in the country begins with these two modern 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 mediÆval historians of the rÔle played by music in the life of the Bohemian people; and we know that during the Hussite period the Bohemian hymnology attained 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 elementary and secondary character was general in Bohemia 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 KomenskÝ (known in America and England by the Latinized form of his 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 contemporary of Hus, she produced another spiritual leader of great power. |