[CHAPTER VII]
BOHEMIAN, MORAVIAN AND SLOVAKIAN
The Bohemians, who with the Moravians form the vanguard of the Slavs in Europe, occupy the mountain-girt plateau of Bohemia in the very heart of the continent. Here, a steady easterly spread of Teutons has prevented expansion of these Slavs along the eastern valleys which provide them with communication with the rest of the continent. Bohemians and Moravians thus found themselves shut within the mountainous rim of their land by the Germans of Silesia and Austria proper.
The German ring surrounding Bohemia is composed of groups belonging to various types of the Teutonic family. A southwestern element consists of descendants of Bavarian settlers. Farmers and woodsmen were introduced into the Böhmerwald, as an inevitable phase of the exploitation of the mountainous area, by religious communities of the thirteenth century. The end of the Thirty Years’ War was marked by a new influx of Germans needed to repopulate the sorely devastated Bohemian districts. The Bavarians, however, never reached the foot of the eastern slopes. Modern Bohemian resistance to their spread toward the plain persists unflinchingly. Northward, the Erzgebirge uplift is also a German ethnographic conquest. For centuries its mineral wealth has attracted artisans from Franconia, Thuringia and Saxony. The mountain slopes re-echo today to the sound of the dialects of these ancient countries. The Saxon element prevails particularly among the inhabitants of the Elbe valley.
Farther east, descendants of Lusatian and Silesian peasants still use the vernacular of their ancestors in the upland formed by the Iser Gebirge and the Riesen Gebirge. In modern times the valleys of these mountains yield a steady stream of German-speaking inhabitants to the industrial towns of the southern plain. The German workingman’s competition with his Bohemian fellow laborer is keen in this district, but it has not been marked by a notable advance of the Teutonic idiom.
Linguistically the Bohemians and Moravians form a unit hemmed in by Germans on all sides except the east, where they abut against their Slovak kinsmen. Community of national aspirations, under the leadership of the Bohemian element, is generally ascribed to these three Slavic groups. The union has been fostered by the lack of a literary language among Moravians, who have adopted the Bohemian alphabet and style. With the Slovaks[144] inferiority of numbers helped the spread of the Bohemian language and literature.
The Czech linguistic area presents homogeneity of composition which is seldom encountered in other parts of Austria-Hungary. Intermingling of Slavic and Teutonic elements has been slight in this advanced strip of Slavdom. Overlapping of German is met in belts generally parallel to the political divide. It is particularly noticeable in the angle formed by the junction of the Böhmerwald and Erzgebirge near the western linguistic divide, where it almost attains the town of Pilsen.[145] Beyond, in a northerly direction, the volcanic area characterized by thermal springs lies within the German line. Reichenberg, a strenuous center of Teutonism, maintains easterly and westerly prongs of German in the Iser-Riesen uplifts and the Elbe valley, respectively. The German of Silesia spreads into Moravia along the Zwittau-Olmütz-Neu Titschen line.
A short stretch of the linguistic boundary coincides with the political frontier in the neighborhood of Taus, but the rest of the southern Böhmerwald overlooking Bohemian levels is German in speech from the crests to the zone in which widening of the valleys becomes established. The disappearance of this mountainous chain, in southern Moravia, coincides with a southerly extension of Czech in the valley of the March. Contact with Slovak dialects begins in the Beskid area.
Celts, Teutons and Slavs have occupied the Bohemian lozenge in turn. The appellation Czechs first appears in the sixth century. National consolidation began with the country’s conversion to Christianity, three hundred years later, and was maintained with varying fortunes until 1620. Bohemian political freedom was annihilated in that year on the battlefield of the White Mountain. After this defeat the land and its inhabitants lapsed into a state of lethargy. The high cultural attainment of a few modern Bohemians was sufficient to rouse the country to a sense of national feeling.[146] Fortunately native poets, historians and scientists were successful in infusing their patriotic ideals in the minds of their countrymen. In particular, the fire of Bohemian patriotism has been kept alive by literary activity.
Successful attempts on the part of Hungarians to assimilate the Slovaks has caused these mountaineers to turn to their Bohemian kinsmen for assistance in the preservation of race and tradition. Merging of national aspirations in this case, was facilitated by close linguistic affinity. A Czecho-Slovak body consisting of 8,410,998 individuals[147] thus came into being within the Dual Monarchy in order to maintain resistance against German and Hungarian encroachments.