The struggle between Teuton and Slav in Bohemia goes back to the obscure period of the country’s early history. As late as the middle of the ninth century Bohemia was mainly a pagan state. German missionaries at that time were endeavoring to convert the natives to Christianity. But the mere nationality of the apostles of the new faith prevented them from gaining adherents. From the heart of Europe the Bohemians looked eastward to the Christians of the Slavic race for religious salvation. We read of envoys being sent to the court of the Byzantine emperor to beseech this ruler to send Christian teachers of the Slavic faith to Bohemia, as the German missionaries could not make themselves intelligible to the natives. These steps were viewed with considerable apprehension by German bishops, especially after the success which attended the proselytizing efforts of Methodus and his colleagues. The Byzantine priests had brought with them a translation of the Bible in the Slavic language of Macedonia. The replacement of Bohemian by German was thus effectively prevented. Bohemia and Moravia definitely became bilingual countries in the thirteenth century as a result of the inflow of German colonists who responded to urgent appeals for settlers made by Bohemian rulers in that period. The belt of German towns which completely encircles Bohemia is a consequence of this policy. The deforested zones of the west and northwest received the largest number of settlers.
In western and northern Bohemia a struggle for supremacy between German and Czech has been carried on for years with unabated vehemence. The scene of contest between the two peoples is often laid in individual communes. Clerical, industrial and educational influences are constantly at work for the extension of the linguistic area with which they side. On the whole the Bohemians, being in command of superior pecuniary resources, appear to be gaining ground, although from special causes the German element shows an advance in certain districts. In those parts where mixture has taken place no definite boundary between pure German and Bohemian (i.e., in over 90 per cent of the respective peoples) can be drawn. As a rule, it is the Bohemians who have of late advanced their outposts into the German sphere, the Germanization of which dates back some two hundred years. Although they have fallen back somewhat in the tongue of land which projected into German ground, north of Mies, they have gained much ground in Pilsen and in the industrial region around Nürschan, west of that town. Fifty years ago only some three or four thousand out of a total population of fourteen thousand in Pilsen were Bohemians, but the influx of population which has since taken place has been almost entirely Bohemian. In 1890 the proportion of Germans in the city only amounted to 16.2 per cent. Nürschan, the chief center of the coal-fields of western Bohemia, boasts a Bohemian majority and if the process now going on is continued the Bohemian population will probably in time join hands with that in Mies.[148]
Further to the northeast similar conditions prevail, though the linguistic frontier is in parts more sharply defined. In the coal-fields of Brüx and Dux the Bohemian element has largely increased on the German side of the normal frontier owing to the influx of Czech miners. In Trebnitz again the Czech language has gained a firm footing, although the town at the end of the nineteenth century was entirely German. In the neighboring town of Lobositz, however, which occupies an important position at the junction of six lines of railway, the prospects from the German point of view are brighter. The accession of Charles IV to the throne of Bohemia in 1346 was an event of the utmost importance in the linguistic history of the country.[149] This sovereign, the successor of German princes who had never allowed Bohemia fair play, showed marked affection for the land he was called upon to rule and set himself to master its language thoroughly. For two hundred years prior to his reign, Bohemian stood in danger of being replaced by German. Other Slav dialects were fast disappearing before the vigorous advance of Teutonic speech. Through its literature alone the Bohemian language was preserved. This literary development was an advantage which was not possessed by the Slav languages, which gave way before German.
As a result of Charles’s benevolent policy Bohemian became the language of the court. Furthermore it was used exclusively in many courts of law, which were re-established through the same influence. It was even decreed that speakers at the assemblies of town magistrates should use the language of their choice and that no one speaking only German could be appointed a judge. In this way equality for the Bohemian language was obtained in the districts in which Germans had settled.[150]
The creation of the Archbishopric of Prague and the foundation of the “new town” of Prague dated also from the reign of King Charles. Bohemian clergymen were encouraged to preach in the vernacular. Their sermons reached the people and stirred them to thought. The national movement against the Roman Church was thus facilitated. But another cause favored the spread of Protestantism in Bohemia. Antagonism to Catholicism was merely a special form of Bohemian objection to German influence in the land. The Hussite movement is therefore an episode in the prolonged struggle between Teuton and Slav.
The enlargement of Prague infused vitality into the Bohemian language. The new town was Bohemian in speech as well as in sentiment. Slavic prevailed exclusively in municipal offices and tribunals. Venceslas, who followed Charles, faithfully maintained his predecessor’s attitude towards Bohemian. A notable advance in favor of the language of the land was made in his reign by a decision according to which all decrees of the court and the government, which hitherto had been rendered in either German or Latin, were to be henceforth published in Bohemian.
The University of Prague, which has always been a center of Bohemian intellectual life, was also affected by these changes. In the middle of the fifteenth century the German element in Bohemia had complete control of the affairs of this institution. Its chairs were filled by Teutons and its dignities awarded to their kinsmen. In 1385, swayed by national aspirations and relying on the predilection shown them in high quarters, Bohemians began to protest against the presence of foreigners in their national seat of learning. Their appeal found a response with the Archbishop of Prague, who ruled that Bohemians were entitled to priority in appointments to university offices, and that only in case of their unfitness was a German to be selected. Complaint of this decision was made by the Germans to the Pope and a compromise reached in virtue of which predominance of Bohemian rights was obtained. The appearance of John Huss on the scene of this struggle was the next step in the task of completely emancipating Bohemia from German rule.
The national movement fostered in this manner was to end disastrously at the battle of the White Mountain in 1620. The treaty of Westphalia removed all probability of the establishment of an autonomous Bohemian nation. But Bohemian patriots have a saying that “as long as the language lives the nation is not dead,” and through all the dark days of the country’s history, in the very heart of continental Europe, cut off from the surrounding lands by a wall of forested slopes, the Bohemian language has held its own, not merely as a vernacular but as a literary language worthy of the nation’s pride.
A period of marked decline intervened, however, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The crushing blow inflicted on Bohemian nationalism in 1620 was speedily followed by a rigid German oversight of the country. Seven years later, Ferdinand inaugurated a series of measures aimed at destroying the cause for which Bohemians had sacrificed their lives. The German language began to supplant the Bohemian. The “renewed ordinance of the land,” issued in 1627, contained provisions for the recognition of German in tribunals and government offices on the same terms as Bohemian. The appointment of Germans to important offices was a policy which marked this period. Its effects became perceptible in the growing use of the conquerors’ language. The seventeenth century is marked by a rapid growth of the Teutonic belt encircling Bohemia. Luditz and Saaz were lost to the Bohemian language in that period. So were the districts of Rokytince and Vichlaby[151] in the eastern section of the country. But since the beginning of the eighteenth century little change has taken place in the German-Bohemian linguistic boundary.
Among the causes which contributed to the decline of the Bohemian language about this time were the land confiscations which were carried out on an extensive scale by the Imperialists.[152] Most of the noblemen of Bohemia were deprived of their estates. As a result about half the landed property of the country was taken away from its Slav owners. This spoliation was carried on by the Catholics, the despoiled and exiled Hussites being replaced by Germans, Spaniards, Walloons and even Irish. This foreign element naturally adopted the German language and Bohemian was abandoned to serfs and peasants.