A History of Bohemian Literature

by hrabe Francis Lützow

It has already been mentioned that Dobrovský had no enthusiasm for the Bohemian language, to the development of which he so largely contributed. His early recollections carried him back to the time when it was little more than an idiom used by the peasantry in the outlying country districts of Bohemia. When, in the present century, the movement in favour of the national language acquired greater strength, Dobrovský never sympathised with it. When the publication of the Časopis Musea Království Českého ("Journal of the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia") in Bohemian, as well as in German, was first discussed, Dobrovský expressed the wish that the new journal should appear in German only. It must, in justice to Dobrovský, be added that in the last years of his life he wrote a few Bohemian essays for the journal. They are, indeed, with a collection of letters, the only writings in the national language which he has left. Dobrovský's critical nature and his thorough philological training induced him to deny from the time of its discovery the genuineness of the "MS. of Grüneberg",[143] an opinion that is now shared by almost all Bohemian scholars. Dobrovský expressed himself strongly on the subject He wrote: "It (i.e. the MS.) is a knavery which they (the "discoverers") committed from hatred of the Germans, and from exaggerated patriotism, for the purpose of deceiving themselves and others."

Dobrovský died in 1829, at a time when the question whether the Bohemian language should live or not was already decided in the affirmative sense. He had during the last years of his life become very unpopular among the Bohemian patriots, but events have proved that his critical faculties sometimes guided him better than enthusiasm did others. As a philologist of the Slav languages Dobrovský was in advance of his time. Etymological monstrosities, such as Kollar sometimes committed in his Staroitalia Slavjanská, would have been impossible to Dobrovský.

Very different from the calm scholarly nature of Dobrovský was the temperament of the four enthusiastic patriots to whom, with, of course, the co-operation of minor writers, the revival of Bohemian literature is due. I refer to Jungmann, Kollar, Safařik, and Palacký.

Joseph Jungmann was born in 1773 at Hudlice, a small village near Beroun in Bohemia. As Hudlice was even then a thoroughly Bohemian village, Jungmann first acquired his native language; but when sent to school at Beroun—where, as indeed everywhere in Bohemia at that time, the teaching was entirely German—he almost forgot Bohemian, and soon found it far easier to express himself in German. When on a visit to his native village an old relation playfully accused him of "stammering" whenever he spoke Bohemian. This remark; as Jungmann has himself told us, made a great impression on the mind of the young student. "From that moment," he afterwards wrote, "I became a true Bohemian, at least to my best knowledge and will." Jungmann's life was by no means eventful, and requires little notice. He, soon after finishing his studies, became professor at the gymnasium of Leitmeritz, from which he was afterwards transferred to Prague. Here he spent the greatest part of his life, and died in 1847, a year before revolutionary events obliged so many Bohemian patriots to emerge from their seclusion and become popular leaders.

I have already alluded to the great activity the Bohemian writers of this period displayed as editors of the works of their ancient literature, as well as translators from the works of more advanced foreign literatures. The two tasks were closely connected, as the writers could only render in Bohemian the classical works of other countries by availing themselves of the rich verbal treasury which is contained in the works of their own ancient authors. Jungmann himself at the beginning of his life became known as a translator, and, in contradiction with his later vocation, oftenest attempted translations of poetical works. It may interest English readers to know that many of Jungmann's translations are from the English. Of all his translations, that of Milton's Paradise Lost, written in five-footed trochees, obtained greatest celebrity. It is really a wonderful achievement, if we consider that it was written in 1811, when the Bohemian language was only just awakening from its winter-sleep of nearly two hundred years. Jungmann also translated Gray's Elegy in a Churchyard, Goethe's Herman und Dorothea, and poems by Schiller and Bürger. From the French Jungmann translated Chateaubriand's Atala. It is stated that Jungmann planned a great original poem in the national language, but if this is true the plan was never carried out. In later years Jungmann devoted whatever leisure his official duties left him to studies of a scientific, and particularly of a philological character.

Great as were his merits as a translator, the last-named works constitute his principal claim to the gratitude of his countrymen. The earlier of the great works of Jungmann is his History of Bohemian Literature. Jungmann did not follow Dobrovský's example, but wrote in Bohemian. The book was first published in 1825, and a second enlarged edition appeared in 1849, after the author's death. The book is scarcely what in the present day would be called the history of a literature; perhaps such a task was impossible at the time Jungmann wrote. Jungmann's history contains an enumeration of all writers, great or small, of whom writings in the Bohemian language have been preserved. Jungmann's intense patriotism induced him to attempt to prove that at almost all periods works on almost all subjects written in Bohemian had existed. Every translator of even the most valueless work, every preacher who had caused even the most worthless Bohemian sermon to be printed, therefore finds a place in this book. Yet this very minuteness and absence of criticism which we find in the book render it very valuable as a collection of materials; and even now, seventy years after its first appearance, it is indispensable to all students of Bohemian literature. The introductions to each of the "odděleni" (divisions) contain a valuable historical and etymological account of the development of the Bohemian language and literature in each of the periods into which Jungmann has divided his history.

Jungmann also wrote numerous literary articles for the Bohemian newspapers and reviews, which gradually sprung up in spite of the constant opposition of the Austrian Government. These articles contributed greatly to the success of the Bohemian movement. As I have noted elsewhere, that movement was, at its beginning, necessarily a purely literary one. No political paper that was not directly or indirectly under the control of the Government, then entirely German in its views, was allowed to exist.

The second great work of Jungmann that ranks with his history of Bohemian literature is his vast dictionary of the Bohemian and German languages, published in five large volumes between 1835 and 1839. Jungmann's preparatory studies, both for this work and for the History, however, began as early as the year 1800. The work is a monument of indomitable energy and application. A work such as that of Jungmann would, if undertaken by a whole academy, have been most meritorious; but Jungmann worked almost alone, aided only in the merely mechanical part of his task by a few students of the University of Prague. His difficulties cannot be compared with those which the compiler of a dictionary of a more developed language encounters. A large part of ancient Bohemian literature, that within the last fifty years has been carefully edited and published, could then only be found in MSS. that were often difficult of access. Jungmann's work contains words that he only found once or twice in his sources; it was his desire to include all, for he laboured not only for the then scanty readers who wished to study the works of ancient Bohemian literature, but also for the modern Bohemian writers, whose vocabulary he endeavoured to enlarge.

Even now, when Bohemian literature has obtained an almost miraculous development, Jungmann's dictionary has not been superseded; and the same, as regards completeness at least, can be said of his History of Bohemian Literature.