In 1744 Frederick the Great entered Bohemia, and stormed Prague on September 12, after a terrible bombardment, during which 150 houses in the new town and a large part of the city walls were destroyed. Frederick did not remain long at Prague; the arrival of a large Austrian army under Charles of Lorraine obliged him to retire into Silesia.
Prague was not destined long to enjoy the blessings of peace. In 1757, the second year of the Seven Years’ War, Frederick the Great arrived before Prague with a large army on May 2 and encamped on the White Mountain. He crossed the Vltava on the 5th to unite his army with the Prussian forces on the right bank of the river, and on the following day a great battle took place between the Prussians and Austrians between the village of Sterbohol, four and a half miles from Prague, and the city itself. Carlyle has given us a very spirited, though somewhat inaccurate, description of this great battle, which he calls ‘the famed Battle of Prag; which sounded through all the world—and used to deafen us in drawing-rooms within man’s memory.’ The battle ended with a complete defeat of the Imperialists, and the Austrian army had—as Carlyle words it—‘to roll pell-mell into Prague and hastily close the door behind it.’ The town was again so fiercely bombarded that whole streets were in ruins, and St. Vitus’s Cathedral and other historical buildings greatly suffered. The Austrian victory at Kolin obliged the Prussians to raise the siege of Prague.
The battle of 1757 is the last warlike event with which Prague is connected, if we except the civil tumult in 1848. The town played no part in the later events of the Seven Years’ War, nor in the long struggle between Austria and France that, with short intervals, lasted from 1792 to 1815.
In the peaceful years that followed the Congress of Vienna (1815) the Bohemian nation strove—as far as the jealousy of a strictly absolutist Government permitted—to recover some of its ancient rights and privileges, and particularly to revive the national language. Prague was the centre of this movement, particularly after the foundation of the Bohemian Museum.
A visitor to Prague who enters at all into communications with the inhabitants will hear so much of this movement that I do not think I should here pass it over altogether in silence. The Bohemian language that, during the period of independence, had gradually taken the place of Latin as the recognised language of the state, declined after the battle of the White Mountain. During the reign of Maria Theresa, and to a far greater extent during that of the Emperor Joseph II., the Austrian authorities used even more energy in their endeavours to substitute German in Bohemia for the native language than had been done immediately after the great defeat. Among other measures tending to this purpose, it was decreed that German should exclusively be used in the Bohemian schools. The stern determination—enemies, no doubt, would call it obstinacy—of the Bohemian nation defeated these attempts, though the native language was for a time almost relegated to the villages and outlying districts of Bohemia. The renascence of the national language in Bohemia, in the early years of the nineteenth century, is almost unique. It was, however, based on a great historic past, and thus differs greatly from the recent attempts to revive the Irish and Welsh languages, though the comparison has often been made. It is not my purpose to analyse here the tangled and involved causes which resulted in the great fact that a buried nationality burst its grave-clothes and reappeared radiant in the world. It may, however, be briefly noted that the Bohemian national movement was undoubtedly an offspring of the Romantic movement, the influence of which was felt all over Europe at the beginning of the last century. The revival of the Bohemian language is due to a small group of learned men, of whom Jungmann, Kolar, Safarik and Palacky were the most prominent. These men, few in number, showed that enthusiasm touching, though it may appear absurd to some, which champions of apparently hopeless causes often display. Many anecdotes to this purpose are still circulated in Prague. Thus it was said that a few of the ‘patriots,’ as the adherents of the national cause were called, feasted almost to excess as a token of joy when they noticed on the Graben ‘two well-dressed men who were talking Bohemian.’ On the other hand, they were deeply depressed when two young girls of the citizen class, who had been talking Bohemian, suddenly dropped into German on their approach, saying, ‘Take care they hear us talking Bohemian; they will take us for peasants.’
As was natural in the case of so musical a nation as Bohemia, the patriotic movement found expression in music also. Early in the nineteenth century ‘Slavic balls’ were instituted at Prague. At these balls the hall was entirely decorated in the Bohemian national colours (red and white), and conversation in Bohemian was alone allowed. It was the intention of the originators of these gatherings to send out the invitations in the Bohemian language, but the Austrian police officials, with the inquisitiveness characteristic of the Metternich period soon became acquainted with this intention, and raised objections. It was finally decided that the invitations should be both in German and in Bohemian. The old national songs were again sung as far as the police authorities permitted. New songs, celebrating the glory of Bohemia, also were composed. Such were the one beginning with the words ‘Já jsem Cech a kdo je vic?’ i.e., ‘I am a Bohemian, and who is more?’ that was composed by Rubes. Yet better known is the famed ‘Kde je domov muy?’ (Where is my country?) which the traveller will constantly hear at Prague, as the present Government, wiser than its predecessor, raises no objection to its being sung. The song has indeed become the national air of Bohemia. It was composed by Joseph Tyl (1808-1856), one of the best modern Bohemian dramatists, and by him introduced into one of his plays. When Mr. Kohl visited Prague in 1841 the song, which he curiously enough believed to be of ancient origin, was already sung everywhere in the city. He translated some lines of the song, and though his translation by no means does justice to the beauty of the original, I will transcribe it here, as giving the traveller some idea of the contents of a song to which he will hear constant allusions—
‘Where is my house? where is my home?
Streams among the meadows creeping,
Brooks from rock to rock are leaping,
Everywhere bloom spring and flowers
Within this paradise of ours;
There, ’tis there, the beauteous land!
Bohemia, my fatherland!
Where is my house? where is my home?
Knowst thou the country loved of God,
Where noble souls in well-shaped forms reside,
Where the free glance crushes the foeman’s pride?
There wilt thou find of Cechs, the honoured race,
Among the Cechs be aye my dwelling-place.’
The patriots themselves do not at first appear to have felt certain of the victory of the cause. Thus we are told that when Jungmann received the visit of two other patriots in his modest lodgings in the street which now bears his name, he said, in a fit of depression, ‘It needs only that the ceiling of this room should fall in, and there would be an end of Bohemian literature.’ He was, of course, alluding to the small number of the ‘patriots.’