Even before this literary revival had taken place, discoveries had been made which seemed to point to an early culture even amongst the Bohemian peasantry. Bronzes and earthenware ornaments had been dug up, the antiquity of which was proved by the heathen symbols marked upon them; and it was noticed that these devices corresponded to the designs which were produced in later ages by the peasantry in Bohemia and Moravia. This curious fact gave a new impulse to investigation, and numerous specimens of the peasant art were collected. The beauty of colouring and design in this work is the more striking because it was not learnt in any school, but is the fruit of native genius. About the same time a similar interest was roused in the music produced by the peasantry, and the songs and dances of the peasants have been embodied in the operas of S̆metana.
The revolution of 1848 naturally brought to a head the struggle between the Germans and Bohemians: and the demand then made for the further protection of the Bohemian language was strengthened at a later stage by the meeting of the Slavonic Congress, which was to protect the Slavs against the threatened encroachment of the Frankfort Parliament.[7] The unfortunate rising of June, 1848, led to the downfall of the newly-born liberty of Bohemia; but, when German and Magyar revolutions were alike crushed, questions of race-division naturally ceased for a time to be interesting to those who had suffered a common loss of liberty. The idea of a federative union of the Austrian dominions was, however, kept steadily before the public by Palacký; and the old fear of sinking to an equality with other races gradually roused the Germans to renewed action. In 1858 the controversy about the manuscripts of Králové Dvůr and Zelená hora was renewed in all its fierceness; and when, after the Austrian collapse in 1859, the talk about Constitutional government once more began, it was soon found that the new liberties were not to produce equality of race. The wars of 1866 and 1870 gave a new impulse to the German claim for supremacy in Austria; and so the struggle has gone on with varying fortune, but ever circling round the central point of language and literature.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The following account of the legend of Libus̆a is taken partly from the translation of the Libus̆in Saud by Mr. A. H. Wratislaw, partly from the version of the story given by Cosmas. I have not the least desire to enter here into the burning question of the authenticity of the original poem. I have heard every degree and variety of opinion on that subject, even from patriotic Bohemians. But the only two points that concern me here are, first, that Cosmas must have had before him some old legend containing a version of the story, not unlike that edited and translated by Mr. Wratislaw; secondly, that Cosmas accepted this story as embodying his conception of the beginnings of Bohemian history. No one, as far as I know, disputes the genuineness of Cosmas’s history; into the sources of his information it is not necessary to go.
[2] A new word in the Bohemian language fitly marks this period. This word is Kostel, which is obviously formed from the German Castell, and ultimately from Castellum; but which was used to signify church, since the military Christianity introduced by the Franks was marked by the use of castles as churches.
[3] In the English carol the story has evidently been adapted to modern feeling; for the saint’s barefoot walk to the church has been changed into a mission of practical benevolence.
[4] Since writing the above I have found a curious confirmation of my opinion of the danger of this utterance in one of the decrees of Ferdinand II., issued at the time when he was practically destroying the foundation of Charles IV. He appeals to the memory of Charles as a justification of his proceedings, on the ground that he was only restoring that unity of the Catholic religion, of which Charles was so ardent a champion.