BOHEMIAN (ČECH)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
* * * * *
_Edited by Thomas Čapek_
BOHEMIA
under Hapsburg Misrule
_A Study of the Ideals and Aspirations of the
Bohemian and Slovak Peoples as Related
to and Affected by the European War_
12mo, Cloth, net $1.00.
“The story is both argument and appeal. As argument, it reveals that
Bohemian character, citing the place of Bohemia in the art of citizenship,
in the power of self-control, in its national ideals, in its policies of
accommodation to the plans of neighboring states, in its contribution to
the world of creative arts, and in its personal views of national duty and
responsibility. As appeal it enumerates, point by point, the injustice of
many years of Hapsburg rule, and sets out in clear light the many reasons
why the Bohemians deserve freedom.”
--_Washington Star._
* * * * *
[Illustration:
THE
historie
of
BOHEMIA.
_THE FIRST PARTE._
describing
THE COVNTRYE SCITVATION,
climate, commodities,
_the name and nature of the people_
AND COMPENDIOVSLY CONTINVĪG
_the Historie from the from the begining of_
the Nation to their first
Christian Prince about
_the yeare of_
Christ
990
The History of Bohemia
Harleian MS., British Museum. The earliest story of the nation in English,
written by an unknown author, presumably in the first quarter of the
seventeenth century]
BOHEMIAN (ČECH)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
_A finding list of writings in English relating to
Bohemia and the Čechs_
BY
THOMAS ČAPEK
AND
ANNA VOSTROVSKÝ ČAPEK
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
New York Chicago
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1918, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 11
II. ART 58
III. BIBLIOGRAPHY 64
IV. BIOGRAPHY AND PORTRAITS 66
V. BOHEMIAN GLASS 71
VI. DICTIONARIES. GRAMMARS. INTERPRETERS 72
VII. DRAMA 76
VIII. FICTION 78
IX. FOLK AND FAIRY TALES. MYTHOLOGY. LEGENDS 83
X. GUIDES 85
XI. HISTORY 87
XII. JOHN HUS. JEROME OF PRAGUE. UNITED BRETHREN. MORAVIANS 108
XIII. JOHN AMOS KOMENSKÝ 128
XIV. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 140
XV. MISCELLANY 147
XVI. MUSIC 151
XVII. PERIODICALS 158
XVIII. PLANS. MAPS. VIEWS. JOURNALS 159
XIX. POLITICS 162
X. PRAGUE 176
XXI. SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS 179
XXII. THE SOKOLS 185
XXIII. TRAVEL. DESCRIPTION. GEOGRAPHY 187
XXIV. BOHEMIA IN BRITISH STATE PAPERS AND MANUSCRIPTS 194
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
The History of Bohemia in MS _Title_
Anne of Bohemia 20
John Hus 30
Protest against the burning of John Hus 40
The Kralice Bible 50
News from Bohemia 60
Why the Bohemian Estates rejected Ferdinand 70
Why Frederick accepted the Bohemian Crown 80
Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia 90
Unjust Mandates against the Bohemians 100
John Amos Komenský (Comenius) 110
Komenský’s first work translated into English 120
Komenský’s History of Bohemian Persecution 130
Augustine Herrman’s Map 140
Wenceslaus Hollar 150
Wenceslaus Hollar’s Memorial Tablet 160
Sir John Bowring’s Bohemian Anthology 170
Bedřich Smetana 180
Antonín Dvořák 190
Count Francis Lützow 200
Thomas G. Masaryk 210
The Bohemian Voice 220
The Bohemian Review 230
NOTE ON BOHEMIAN PRONUNCIATION
A noted authority has said that “no other modern language can translate
the ancient classics so readily, and yet so completely and forcibly as the
Bohemian.”
The Bohemian is the most developed of the Slavic tongues. Consistently a
phonetic tongue, it is pronounced as it is written.
The vowels are pronounced as in Italian.
Invariably the accent falls on the first syllable, irrespective of the
length of the word.
Before Hus’s time Bohemian orthography resembled somewhat that of the
present day Polish. By introducing the diacritic mark, the reformer did
away with groups of consonants such as cs, cz.
The diacritic mark occurs on the following letters: á, é, č, ď, í, ň, ř,
š, ť, ú, ů, ý, ž. Ď and ó are used least of all. The mark tends alike to
soften and shade the sound of the letter.
á is pronounced long as in darling.
é as a in care.
ě as ye in yellow.
č as ch in cherry.
í and ý as ee in tree.
ň as ñ in cañon.
ř is thought to be unpronounceable by a non-Bohemian.
The Germans taunt the Bohemians with the ř. The rsh in Pershing approaches
the sound though it does not quite express it.
š as sh in shall.
ú and ů long as in rule.
ž as in j in the French word jour.
ch as in the Scottish loch.
INTRODUCTORY
It sounds incredible, yet it is literally true, that every Slavic nation
was, before the war, and probably still is, better known to the English
speaking people than the Bohemians (Čechs). What is the reason? That the
Bohemians, who are the most literate of all the Slavs, have remained
undiscovered may be attributed to three main causes: They are not a free
nation. They are a landlocked nation. They are rated a small nation.
The opportunities which a seacoast offers to a people, to mention the
Dutch, Irish, Belgians, Norwegians, Swedes and Danes, all of whom are
numerically smaller than the Bohemian-Slovaks are inestimable. In the
forum of world’s commerce and politics, the sea is their powerful sponsor.
To a landlocked people this great boon is denied. Inland nations may reach
the outside world through an intermediary only, and if that intermediary
happens to be a powerful and ungenerous state, the policy of which is to
keep its little neighbor in the background, the consequences are obvious.
That there live in Central Europe Teutons and none others but Teutons was
being daily demonstrated to the Americans by a most convincing proof.
Almost every box of merchandise shipped here from that part of the world
bore the tell-tale mark “Made in Germany.” Rarely one saw at the terminals
goods labelled “Made in Austria,” and rarer still, “Made in Bohemia.” And
yet many an article of merchandise thus marked was really made in Bohemia,
for parts of Bohemia teem with all kinds of wonderful industries.
Because of centuries of political and economic subjection, the very
existence of the nation has been lost sight of by the Anglo-Saxons. In
the interval between the catastrophal defeat of the Bohemians in 1620 and
1848, the year of revolutionary changes, nothing has occurred in Bohemia
to attract the attention of the world to the Bohemian nation. The Seven
Years’ War, and later the Napoleonic Wars, were events that concerned not
Bohemia as an independent state, but the whole of the Hapsburg Empire. The
Russians acquired renown in the first quarter of the nineteenth century
by their defeat of Napoleon. Later, during the Crimean War, Russia again
came into prominence in the Anglo-American press. Kosciuszko and Pulaski
were names to be conjured with by the Polish immigrant. The uprisings
in 1830 and in 1863 made sufficiently known to the Americans the ideals
and the miseries of Poland. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and the Berlin
Congress following it made the English reader familiar with the geography
and political ambitions of the Balkan Slavs. The Serbs, the Bulgars,
the Montenegrines were successively introduced to the newspaper man
and through him to the public at large. Alone the Bohemians remained
undiscovered, unknown.
Before the war the average reader did not know where Bohemia was located
with respect to Austria-Hungary. That ethnically, there might be a
difference between a Čech, Hungarian and an Austrian he suspected, yet it
was not wholly clear to him wherein the dissimilarity lay. One could cite
countless instances of astonishing naiveté concerning the history of the
nations which inhabit central and southeastern Europe. Four years ago a
journalist and a writer who served on the western front in the capacity of
a war correspondent made the astounding discovery that “the ancient Czech
(Bohemian) language still continues to be spoken in Prague.” It would no
doubt amuse a Dutchman to read that “Dutch is still spoken in Amsterdam”;
yet transpose Dutch for Bohemian and Prague for Amsterdam and the analogy
is precise. When one remembers with what fine scorn an American looked
down upon that corner of Europe, which in his opinion exhibited altogether
too many superfluous boundary dots, one begins to realize what thankless,
almost futile task it was to talk to him of the trials, ambitions and
triumphs of the Bohemian O’Connells, Emmets, Shelleys, Macauleys and
Hallams. With the rest, the Bohemians had to pay the penalty of being
thought a small nation.
Again there are the Bohemians and bohemians and how to differentiate
between the two is still a puzzle to a considerable portion of the public.
Are all the Bohemians artists, who “secede from conventionality in life
and art”? That even cultured--let us not hope educated--Americans and
Englishmen entertain the weird notion that there exists some distant
relationship between Bohemians, bohemians and gypsies, is, alas, too
true. In the novel _Strathmore_, Louise de la Ramée (Ouida) for instance,
asserts quite seriously that gypsies in Bohemia have Slavonic features,
that their language is a dialect of the Bohemian and that the “lawless,
vagrant, savage race” is a Slavic tribe domiciled in Bohemia.
Not a few are misled by the term Czech, thinking it probably signifies
a people other than the Bohemians. A New York paper, in enumerating the
disaffected races of Austria-Hungary, named the Bohemians _and_ the
Czechs. This is precisely like saying Yankees _and_ Americans or Germans
_and_ Teutons, for, as informed readers are aware Bohemians and the Czechs
are one and the same.[1]
[1] The race name of the Slavic inhabitants of Bohemia in the native
language is _Čech_ (singular), _Čechové_ (plural). The country is called
_Čechy_. _Čech_ is pronounced nearly like Chech (the last ch as in the
Scottish loch). The use of the form Czech should be discouraged, inasmuch
as it wholly fails to bring out the proper sound. The _Cambridge Modern
History_, a distinguished work, adheres consistently to the spelling
Č-e-c-h.
Of the continental nations, Germany excepted, the French were the first
to look inquiringly into the queer Austrian household. No doubt they
were led to study Slavic Austria largely because of their alliance with
Russia and because of their historical friendship for the Poles. Due to
the labor of three pioneers, Saint-René Taillandier (1817-1879), Louis
Leger (1843-) and Ernest Denis (1849-) _La Nation Tchèque_ is no longer
unknown in France. Other and younger Frenchmen,--to name one, André
Chéradame, the author of the widely quoted volume, _The Pangerman Plot
Unmasked_,--continue the apostolary work in France; but Taillandier, Leger
and Denis will always be honored as the pioneers of this propaganda. Of
the trio, Ernest Denis, Professor of the Sorbonne, stands closest to
the Bohemian heart. Denis’ monumental researches, _Huss et la Guerre
des Hussites_, _La Bohême depuis la Montagne Blanche_, and _Fin de
l’indépendance Bohême_, when published, may be said to have caused a
sensation. Unhampered by the censor, Denis was able to bring out facts
of Bohemia’s past which were a revelation to the Bohemians themselves.
The Anglo-Saxon who visited the Hapsburg dominions thirty or forty years
ago was yet unable to see anything but Teuton Austria; that is to say, he
looked at Bohemia and the other Austrian states wholly from the official
viewpoint of Vienna.
As a sample of the notions of Bohemia and the Čechs professed in America
and England a generation ago, suffice it to cite a passage or two from
Bayard Taylor’s _Views A-Foot_, or _Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff_:
“The very name of Bohemia is associated with wild and wonderful legends,
of the rude barbaric ages. The civilized race, the Saxon race, was left
behind; I saw around me the features and heard the language of one of
those rude Slavonian tribes whose original home was on the vast steppes
of Central Asia(!)” Again: “In passing the shrines by the wayside, the
poor degraded peasants always uncovered or crossed themselves, but it
appeared to be rather the effect of habit than any good impulse for the
Bohemians are noted all over Germany for their dishonesty....”
Taylor’s grossly distorted appraisal of Bohemia was not shared by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, as appears from the following lines by the famous
American poet:
“Hold your tongues! both
Swabian and Saxon,
A bold Bohemian cries;
If there’s a heaven upon this earth,
In Bohemia it lies.”
Overnight the Great War has changed many a wrong notion. “Time changes
all, and by time is truth to victory guided; what in their errors the
years planned, in a day is o’erthrown,” prophetically sings John Kollár,
the great Slovak poet. Following the example of the French, several
English and American writers, Henry Wickham Steed, R. W. Seton-Watson and
Will S. Monroe among them, have in recent years paid visits to Bohemia,
and the result is both surprising and gratifying. It is certain that, once
aroused, Anglo-Saxon curiosity will not abate until it has learned all
about Bohemia, even though the knowledge obtained may disagree with the
Alice in Wonderland tales that have been related in Vienna to the old
time British and American travelers.
A new development in the study of Bohemia and her people by foreigners
may be said to date from the time the dual system of government was
introduced (1867). Until then the interest of scholars was confined wholly
to historic and sectarian questions; from that time on, political and
ethnological issues began to engage their serious attention.
The present bibliography lists, besides books and pamphlets, magazine
articles only; it does not pretend to register items appearing in the
weekly, much less in the daily press. To attempt the latter would be
beyond the scope and purpose of the catalogue. Exceptions to the rule have
been made in favor of articles bearing the signature of authors who are
known to be especially qualified to discuss the subjects selected by them.
Scarcely a book has been written on Austria or the Slavs which does not,
directly or indirectly, discuss Bohemia and the Čechs. The catalogue
cannot take cognizance of such publications, although, in this respect
also, the rule has been relaxed and books have been indexed, dealing
broadly with Austria and the Slavs. Colquhoun’s _The Whirlpool of Europe:
Austria-Hungary and the Hapsburgs_, Steed’s _The Hapsburg Monarchy_ and
Seton-Watson’s _German, Slav, and Magyar_ may be cited as typical examples
of these publications.
Quite correctly the spelling of proper names, though obsolescent, has
been left undisturbed. The Bohemians spell Hus, not Huss; Žižka, not
Zisca. Comenius is a Latinized form dating back to an age when it was the
custom to Latinize one’s surname; the real name is Komenský and Bohemian
history knows the educator by this name only.
The authors have availed themselves of the skilled services of Leonard
C. Wharton, who was asked to look into the rare Bohemica preserved in
the British Museum. Mr. Wharton performed this part of the work with
painstaking care.
Many of the seventeenth century items have been extracted from the
_British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books_. _The Catalogue of the
Harleian Manuscripts_ in the British Museum has yielded _The Historie
of Bohemia_, written presumably in the first quarter of the seventeenth
century. Items of minor value were obtained from the _State Papers of John
Thurloe_; the _Harleian Miscellany, or a collection of scarce, curious and
entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts_; Robert Watts’ _Bibliotheca Britannica,
or a General Index to British and Foreign Literature_. For numerous
current items the authors are indebted to _Poole’s Index to Periodical
Literature_ and the _Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature_.
The reader will probably agree with the present authors that but for
Bohemia’s Protestant past, Anglo-American Bohemica would be practically
non-existent. Strip the source book of Hus, of the events which followed
the Reformation and the anti-Reformation, of the United Brethren and
their alleged offspring, the Moravians, of Komenský, and Bohemia would
stand before the Anglo-American world like Cinderella from the fairy
tale--unwritten about, still waiting to be discovered.
The bibliography proper is subdivided into twenty-two parts, a brief
and relevant comment accompanying each part. The respective sub-titles
are: Art, Bibliography, Biography, Bohemian Glass, Dictionaries, Drama,
Fiction, Folk and Fairy Tales, Guides, History, John Hus, John Amos
Komenský, Language and Literature, Miscellany, Music, Periodicals, Plans
and Maps, Politics, Prague, Sociology and Economics, Sokols, Travel
and Description. A separate chapter, entitled Bohemia in the British
State Papers and Manuscripts, contains bibliographical extracts from
the _Calendar of State Papers_, the _Reports of the British Historical
Manuscripts Commission_, the _Reports of the Royal Commission on
Historical Manuscripts_, _Papal Registers_, etc.
The especial acknowledgments of the authors are due to Prof. Will
S. Monroe, author of _Bohemia and the Čechs_, and to Mr. Leonard C.
Wharton of London. Prof. Monroe kindly read and compared with his own,
the bibliography on Komenský. The material which Mr. Wharton has sent
from England emphasizes anew the enthusiastic interest he takes in the
language, history and literature of the Bohemian people.
ART. Reference is made in this biographical manual to the work of three
artists. The first is Václav Holar of Prácheň, or Wenceslaus Hollar, as
his name was spelled in England. A Protestant exile, whom the edicts of
anti-reformation had driven from his home, Hollar drifted to England,
where he gained the reputation as the foremost etcher of his time.
His plates, which number about 2,400 pieces, are highly prized by art
collectors. “He drew plans, prospects and portraits; habits and dresses;
churches, monuments and antiquaries, or etched designs by famous Italian,
German, Dutch and English masters, some done from the collection of King
Charles I. and especially from those belonging to Thomas Earl of Arundel,
who brought Hollar to and supported him in England.” (Vertue). Born in
1607 in Prague, he was buried in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, 28th of
March, 1677. He showed the lasting attachment to his fatherland by signing
many of his works “Wenceslaus Hollar Bohemus.”
[Illustration: Anne of Bohemia (1366-1394)
Daughter of Charles IV., wife of Richard II. of England]
Václav Brožík (1851-1901) was a noted painter of historic subjects. His
greatest picture is “Master John Hus condemned to death by the Council
of Constance,” now the property of the municipality of Prague. American
art lovers will remember Brožík’s “Defenestration, or thrown from the
window at Prague,” exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair. The New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a large canvas by him, “Columbus at the
Court of Ferdinand and Isabella.” The Lenox Library (now the New York
Public Library) has “Rudolph II. in the Laboratory of his Alchymist,” and
“The Grandmother’s Namesday.” “As a historical painter, Brožík equals
the greatest by his breadth of conception, fine composition, strength of
work and dramatic effect.” This is the estimate of the painter by Mr.
Larroument, Secretary of the French _Académie des Beaux Arts_. For his art
galleries in New York and Philadelphia, John Wanamaker purchased several
of the artist’s smaller themes, and from his executors the entire contents
of his Paris studio, studies, sketches, antiques, draperies and hangings.
Alfons M. Mucha, born in 1860 in Moravia, earned his spurs in Paris as
a poster artist. He is not unknown in the United States, having visited
this country on two or three occasions, working here as portraitist,
illustrator and interior decorator. For several years he has been engaged
on a series of allegories intended to portray the historical development
of the Slavs. When finished, the canvases are to be presented to the City
of Prague as the gift of the well-known Slavophile, Charles R. Crane of
Chicago and New York.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. So far as the writers know, no one has before this concerned
himself with a systematic compilation of a bibliography of this kind. The
late Herman Rosenthal, Director of the Slavonic Department of the New York
Public Library, is said to have been at work on a Slavic bibliography;
but his literary executors have not yet published it. Dr. A. Sum, member
of the English Club in Prague, has taken more than a passing interest in
English Bohemica. The late Jeffrey D. Hrbek, an exceptionally gifted young
man (see his biography published posthumously), prepared for the _Osvěta
Americká_ (1908) what was then considered to be a fairly exhaustive
bibliography. The list mentions ninety volumes, many of them containing
but remote and irrelevant allusions to Bohemia. The bibliography appended
to Miss Balch’s _Our Slavic Fellow Citizens_ is quite considerable;
however, this work treats not of Bohemians alone, but of all the Slavs,
and, when the process of elimination is applied, it will be seen that the
purely Bohemian share of reference books is small. Then there is Leonard
C. Wharton’s list, printed in the _Guide to the Kingdom of Bohemia_; this
takes notice of thirty-five items. As regards the Hus and the Moravian
Church literatures, Wm. Gunn Malin’s catalogue is, without doubt, the
richest and the most valuable of all.
BIOGRAPHY. Biographical material in the several encyclopædias is meagre
and perfunctory and what there is of it has been chiefly extracted
from German lexicons. Count Lützow edited items on Bohemia for the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_. J. J. Král has written for _Johnson’s Universal
Cyclopædia_ short biographical sketches of several authors--Jungmann,
Kollár, Němcová, Neruda and the Jirečeks among them. The _Biographical
Dictionary of the Library of the World’s Best Literature_ contains the
lives of some two dozen men of letters. Injudiciously the editor of the
_Biographical Dictionary_ has included among Bohemian (Čech) writers
Charles Sealsfield (pseudonym of Karl Anton Postl, by some written Postel)
and Fritz Mauthner. While it is true that the first named was born in
Moravia and the other in Bohemia, both Sealsfield and Mauthner were, as a
matter of fact, Germans.
P. Selver in his _Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry_ gives, besides
specimens of their verse, an illuminating account of the lives of a number
of poets. The biographies of the literary workers of old Bohemia are
treated adequately in Lützow’s _History of Bohemian Literature_.
No Čech has been more written about than Hus; and, incidentally, none
has shed greater lustre on his native land than he. Every volume dealing
with the causes and effects of the Reformation necessarily considers
Hus’s part therein. Associated with Hus usually appears the name of his
fellow-martyr, Jerome of Prague.
Biographies of Komenský are not wanting, for which thanks are due
principally to educators the world over, who regard Komenský’s writings as
milestones in the progress of education.
Music, speaking as it does a language which is universally understood,
has granted a passport to Anton Dvořák and in a lesser degree to Bedřich
Smetana and Zděnek Fibich.
The interested public will find many portraits and life sketches in
Vicker’s, Gregor’s, Maurice’s and Monroe’s volumes. Some have been
published in _The Bohemian Voice_; however, complete files of this
magazine are now exceedingly rare.
BOHEMIAN GLASS is renowned everywhere for its excellence and beauty.
The industry is an old one and there are some two thousand shops and
factories in the country engaged in the making of it. As an export article
Bohemian glass constitutes a major item.
DICTIONARIES. GRAMMARS. INTERPRETERS. Adolf William Straka, (died in
London in 1872), a political exile, who lived for years in England,
becoming a British subject, was the first to write an _English Bohemian
Grammar_. It was printed in Prague in 1862.
The first English Bohemian dictionary, by Charles Jonáš, was published
in Racine, Wisconsin. Before emigrating to the United States in 1863,
Jonáš spent some time in London. In the English metropolis he associated
with Straka and the inference is that the author of the _English Bohemian
Grammar_ inspired a liking for lexicographical work in his younger
fellow-exile.
Charles Jonáš, the “first Bohemian in America” was born in 1840 and died
abroad in 1896 while serving the United States in the capacity of Consul.
He was buried in Prague, “in the land he loved above all else.” Although
he was not a philologist by training, having studied in a technological
institute, he plunged courageously into lexicography. His introductory
work was the _Bohemian English Interpreter_ (1865), followed by the
_Dictionary of the English and Bohemian Languages_ (1876). Like every
initial effort, the dictionary was deficient in many respects. Each
succeeding edition, however, was improved and amplified, so that now
Jonáš’ dictionaries compare favorably with like German publications.
Other American Bohemians have achieved political distinction in the
United States (Jonáš was successively State Senator, Lieutenant Governor
of Wisconsin and U. S. Consul at Prague), yet Jonáš the journalist, Jonáš
the author, Jonáš the politician had not, in the estimation of pioneer
immigrants, an equal among his American co-nationals.
F. B. Zdrůbek’s _Anglická mluvnice_ (1870) is the earliest publication
of its kind in America. Crude typographically and faulty textually, the
volume is a compliment neither to the printer nor to the author. Jonáš and
Zdrůbek, one will observe, worked along parallel lines. This is explained
by the circumstance that the two men were attached to two rival newspaper
and printing concerns--Jonáš to the weekly _Slavie_ published in Racine,
and Zdrůbek to the daily _Svornost_ of Chicago.
F. B. Zdrůbek, for over thirty years editor of the Chicago _Svornost_,
and one of the leaders of the Bohemian rationalists in the United States,
was born in 1842 and died in Chicago in 1911. He took a course first in a
Catholic, then in a Protestant theological seminary. Convinced that “as
a minister of the gospel he could not make an honorable living unless
he chose to make of his vocation a vulgar traffic and practiced from
the pulpit pious extortion,” as he wrote in his autobiography, he gave
up the ministry and devoted himself to journalism. Most prolific of all
the American Bohemian men of letters, Zdrůbek was in fact not a creative
writer but a translator. As a journalist he was distinctly commonplace.
Jaroslav J. Zmrhal, teacher in a Chicago school, has given the public in
his _Anglicky snadno ve třiceti úlohách_, one of the best hand-books for
the learning of the English language thus far compiled. Zmrhal’s method of
pronunciation is clearly an improvement over all previous books; certainly
it is superior to Zdrůbek’s, who after all, possessed but a book knowledge
of English.
Last, but not least, is a comprehensive _Učebnice_ by F. Francl of New
York. Altogether it may be stated that grammars and interpreters by
American Bohemians who know alike the vocabulary and the spirit of the
English tongue, are more serviceable, if not wholly superior to most of
the “English Easy and Quick” hand-books which have been published in
Prague.
The most versatile linguist in Bohemia was Francis Vymazal (1841-1917),
who compiled a lengthy row of manuals of the “English at a glance” type.
Vymazal’s series includes the study of English, Bulgarian, Russian,
French, Hebrew, Dutch, Latin, Magyar, German, Gypsy, Modern Greek, Polish,
Portuguese, Rumanian, Slovak, Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Old Greek, Spanish,
Turkish and Italian. Owing to his manner of life and dress--he was not
afraid to lead the life of a lowly proletarian--the people of Brno, in
which city he lived and died, nicknamed him “Bohemian Diogenes.”
DRAMA. That the Poles and the Bohemians, two submerged nations, have each
given to the American stage a tragic actress--the Poles Helena Modjeska,
the Bohemians Frances Janauschek--may and may not be accidental. Many
people have supposed Janauschek to be a German tragedienne, because in the
early years of her career, before she mastered the English language, she
played in German, on the German stage. But she was of pure Bohemian stock,
born in Prague in 1830. By virtue of her long residence in America and her
devotion to and life-long association with the American stage, she was
really an American actress.
FICTION. Translations from fiction are disappointingly few. Of course,
this is no evidence that Bohemia has no fiction writers; the truth is that
she has not found Isabella Hapgoods and Jeremiah Curtins to translate
what she has. With one notable exception, Božena Němcová’s _Babička_,
nothing worth note has been rendered into English from the prose. The
story _Maria Felicia_ by Karolina Světlá, which an American Bohemian
woman has translated into English, is no more typical of Bohemia than it
is of Finland, Spain or any other country. One should not only know how
to translate, but, what is just as essential, what to translate. A. V.
Šmilovský, whose story, _Nebesa_, the Moureks translated, is a meritorious
writer, but by no means of the high type of Alois Jirásek or Julius Zeyer.
Several foreign writers of fiction have made use of a Bohemian theme
more or less successfully, the earliest of them being George Sand.
Unfortunately Sand’s Bohemians in _Consuelo_ and in its sequel _The
Countess of Rudolstadt_, are about as real as Robinson Crusoe’s Man
Friday.
FOLK AND FAIRY TALES. Karel Jaromír Erben (1811-1870), whose folk tales
Rev. Wratislaw translated into English, is recognized as an authority on
folk lore. “If Erben had left nothing else but his _Nosegay of National
Folk Tales_, his name would always rank among Bohemian writers of the
first magnitude,” says a critic. Most of the writers of folk tales here
listed have borrowed from Erben.
THE GUIDE TO THE KINGDOM OF BOHEMIA, published in Prague in 1906, is
primarily intended to attract travelers to the ancient capital of the
country; however, the information it contains is of interest alike to
travelers and to non-travelers.
HISTORY. Probably the first instance in which the English and the
Bohemians came into contact with each other, although as foes on the
field of battle, occurred in 1346 at the battle of Crécy. Here fell,
fighting on the side of the French, against the English, John of Luxemburg,
the blind King of Bohemia. King John’s crest was three ostrich feathers
and his motto “I serve”; which the Prince of Wales and his successors
adopted in memorial of this great victory of the English.
A more agreeable event in the relationship of England and Bohemia took
place thirty-six years later (1382), when Richard II. engaged himself to
Anne of Luxemburg, the granddaughter of the very ruler whom the English
had fought at Crécy. The popular though erroneous belief is that through
Queen Anne the writings of Wicliffe were introduced into Bohemia. In her
readable _Lives of the Queens of England_, Agnes Strickland devotes a few
warmly written pages to “Anne of Bohemia, surnamed the Good, first Queen
of Richard II.”
The gallant knight, Sir Simon Burley, the English ambassador, was
charged with bringing Richard’s bride from Prague to London. “England
was to Bohemia a sort of terra incognita; and as a general knowledge of
geography and statistics was certainly not among the list of imperial
accomplishments in the fourteenth century, the empress (Anne’s mother)
despatched duke Primislaus of Saxony on a voyage of discovery, to
ascertain, for the satisfaction of herself and the princess what sort
of country England might be.”[2]
[2] Agnes Strickland: _Lives of the Queens of England_, v. 1, p. 592.
England may have seemed an out of the way land to the Bohemians of old,
yet the English people were by no means unknown to them. The fondness
of the Bohemians for travel in foreign countries was well known.[3]
That entertaining compilation of wonder-stories comprised in _Sir John
Mandeville’s Travels_ was translated at an early date into the national
language. Students from Bohemia were wont to go to the universities at
Oxford and Paris in order to broaden their education. Jerome of Prague is
known to have studied at Oxford. Like others of his countrymen he had been
drawn thither by the fame of Wicliff’s name.
[3] See in History: Wratislaw’s _Adventures_; Šašek’s _Diary of an
Embassy_. The Embassy which Šašek describes was led by Leo z Rožmitálu
(Leo von Rosmital), a highly distinguished personage. The Embassy,
or mission, consisted of forty persons with fifty-two horses and a
Kamer-wagon and set out from Prague November 26, 1465. Šašek (Shassek)
relates how, when the mission reached London (p. 430) “crowds assembled
in the streets to stare at these Bohemian Samsons and Absolons.” In
London they remained for forty days, being feasted by the King and the
nobility. At Dunkirk they (the Bohemians) caught the first view of the
sea--Shakespeare’s description of Bohemia in the _Winter’s Tale_ as
“desert country near the sea” to the contrary notwithstanding.
Most readers will be surprised to learn that a Bohemian had been one
of the torchbearers of Reformation in Scotland. The name of this minor
reformer is Paul of Kravař or Crawar, as Scotch writers spell the name.
According to Burton[4] “Crawar was a German, believed to have come from
Bohemia to propose the doctrines that had been preached by John Hus and
Jerome of Prague. All that we are told of him personally is that he
professed to be a physician, and to be traveling and visiting in the
practice of his calling.” Kravař was burned at St. Andrews, July 23, 1433,
as a heretic Hussite. “The churchman who records his burning,” relates
Burton, “takes occasion to enlarge on the characteristics of Taborites
and other Bohemian heretics.” Lang[5] states that “he was an envoy of the
Hussite ‘miscreants.’ Lawrence of Lindores attacked him, but he found him
well read in scriptures.”
[4] John Hill Burton: _The History of Scotland_, v. 3, p. 114. The lords
of Kravař were an ancient Bohemian family, who took a prominent part in
the affairs of their nation already in the thirteenth century. Certain
branches of the family were strong Hussite partisans.
[5] Andrew Lang: _History of Scotland, from the Roman Occupation_, v. 1,
pp. 310-11.
[Illustration: John Hus
Portrait by Hans Holbein]
At no time before or after have the English taken a more genuine interest
in Bohemia and her affairs than during the events which followed the
outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. Their concern over what was happening
in Bohemia at that time was due, mainly, to two reasons. The first was
that an Englishwoman, a daughter of the reigning family, had been elevated
to the dignity of queen of that country. The second motive was a religious
one. Bohemia lay in the direct zone of the conflict raging between
Catholicism and Protestantism and Protestant England could not but be
gravely concerned over the fate of Protestant Bohemia. Money was collected
and troops were raised to sustain the cause of the Stuart Queen in Prague
and incidentally of Protestantism and it has been said that if James
had given his daughter the support which she and her husband expected
from him, Bohemia’s position might have been wholly different today.
But “King James,” a historian tells us, “never stood greatly affected,
either to this war, or to the cause thereof and thereupon some regiments
of inexperienced volunteers going over, instead of a well composed army,
it was one reason, among many others, that not only Bohemia, but the
Palatinate were also lost....”
Elizabeth graced the Bohemian throne only for a few months between
1619-1620, but she insisted upon bearing the title of Queen of Bohemia
to the end of her days (1596-1662). Likewise her husband, Frederick,
(1596-1632) “was resolved to foregoe not the title of the King of Bohemia
that he hath allreadie gotten.”
All Britain rejoiced when Elizabeth the “Pearl of the Stuarts” was wedded
to Frederick of the Palatinate. John Taylor, the Water-Poet, wrote a
poem about the “beloved Marriage of the two peerelesse Paragons of
Christendome.” Historians have dutifully chronicled the event of “the
most blessed and happie marriage betweene the High and Mightie Prince
Frederick the Fifth, Count Palatine of the Rhein, Duke of Bavier, etc. And
the most Vertvous, Gracious and thrice excellent Princesse, Elizabeth,
Sole Daughter to our dread Soueraigne, James by the grace of God, King of
Great Britaine, France and Ireland, etc., celebrated at White-Hall the
fourteenth of Februarie, 1612.”
In 1619, the Bohemian Protestant Estates deposed their King and offered
the crown to Frederick, in the hope that the “King of England would,
out of his three kingdoms, send such a continued stock of men to the
Palatinate, that the crown of Bohemia should be established on the head
of the Elector Palatinate and that by no course sooner than by virtue
of the English arms.”
We read of the “Departure of the high and mightie Prince Frederick King
Elect of Bohemia: With his royall and vertuous Ladie Elizabeth: And the
thryse hopefull yong Prince Henrie, from Heydelberg towards Prague, to
receive the Crowne of that Kingdome. Whereunto is annexed the Solempnitie
or maner of the Coronation.”
On another page the reader will find a quaint account of the coronation
ceremonies in Prague written by an eyewitness, presumably John Harrison.
On the 8th day of November, 1620, near Prague, on the slopes of the White
Hill (Bílá Hora), was fought a fateful battle between the Imperialists
(Austrians) and the Bohemian Army.
Referring to this catastrophal battle, which cost Bohemia her independence,
Sir Charles Montagu, English Ambassador stationed at Vienna wrote to his
kinsman, Sir Edward Montagu: “To begin with the worst first, there is news
come now of more certain truth than heretofore from Bohemya, which is that
the King’s army hath had a great overthrow, and Prage is lost, but the
King and Queen are at a strong place called Presslaw in Selecya, and the
King of Hungary and he have met and they both intend to raise a far greater
force to set on them (the Imperialists) suddenly; God give them better
success.”
The King of Bohemia, as subsequent events proved, did not meet with better
success. In a day or two after that fatal 8th day of November, when
Bohemia was going to her destruction, he left Prague precipitately with
his queen, never to return to that capital....
Bohemian historians speak in terms of warm praise of Elizabeth, the
“Winter Queen,” but their estimate of Frederick, “First Prince of the
Imperiall bloud, sprung from glorious Charlemaigne,” falls lamentably
short of the measure taken of him by the Bohemian Estates, as reprinted
on another page.
Conceivably for the “Winter Queen’s” enlightenment, John Harrison, who
accompanied the royal pair to Prague in the capacity of court chaplain,
sketched the “Historie of Bohemia, the first parte describing the
Countrye, Scituation, Climate, Commodities, the Name and Nature of the
People and compendiously continuing the Historie from the beginning of
the Nation to the First Christian Prince, about the year of Christ 990.”
Speaking “in the name of all our exiled nation” the Bohemian Church
appealed for help “to the lord protector, his highness council, and the
parliament.”[6]
[6] John Thurloe: _Collection of State Papers_, v. 2, p. 441.
As in the case of the Waldenses, Protector Cromwell ordered a national
subscription; and a handsome amount was collected during the spring of
1658 to relieve the distress of Bohemian Protestants. Komenský and his
fellow exiles were invited to settle in Ireland, the Protector desiring to
strengthen the Protestant element there. The “Act for the Satisfaction of
Adventurers and Soldiers” authorized “all persons of what nation soever
professing the Protestant religion to rent or purchase forfeited lands,”
but the Dutch, German and Bohemian emigrants whom this clause contemplated
never came.[7] Believing in the fulfillment of Drabík’s false prophecy,
that the cause of Protestantism in Bohemia would prevail in the end and
that the exiles would yet return home in triumph, Komenský hesitated to
accept England’s proffer.
[7] Charles Harding Firth: _The Last Years of the Protectorate,
1656-1658_. Also Vaughn: _Protectorate of Cromwell_, v. II, p. 447.
Protestant refugees, who had been driven from home by Ferdinand’s edicts,
wandered to England in pursuit of religious freedom and livelihood.
Simon Partlicius (1593-1639), preacher and author and Samuel Martinius
(1588-1640), writer and mathematician, both enjoyed England’s hospitality
for a time. So did Komenský who came in 1642 to London to visit friends
and to further his literary projects. Wenceslaus Hollar established a
permanent residence in England. Letters are extant written by Komenský’s
son-in-law, Peter Figulus, and dated at Oxford. At least two exiles,
Wenceslaus Libanus and Paul Hartmann, both members of the Brethren’s
Unity, had been ordained as ministers of the Church of England.
That the Irish Franciscans had been invited to Bohemia during the Thirty
Years’ War to assist in the re-Catholisation of the country, is known.
In Hybernská ulice, a famous thoroughfare in Prague, named after them,
the Irish Friars founded a monastery in 1630. Later (1659) they built
there the Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception. Although the
monastery has long passed out of existence and even the church edifice
has been forced to give way to business, the name, Hybernská ulice, still
reminds the tourist of the presence of the Hibernians in Prague. An Irish
name--that of Count Edward Francis Josef Taafe--has figured largely in
Austrian and Bohemian politics of yesterday. The Taafes secured an
incholate in Moravia in the middle of the eighteenth century and have
intermarried with the Šlik, Chotek and Pachta families.
No narrative of the Thirty Years’ War is complete or understandable
unless the student knows what part Bohemia took in the great struggle.
A recognized authority on the subject is Anton Gindely, (1829-1892)
Professor at the Prague University. Gindely’s _Geschichte des
dreissigjährigen Krieges_ has been translated by A. Ten Brook.
A quarter of a century ago one could not find on the shelves of an
American library a comprehensive history of the Bohemian nation written
in English. The task and the distinction of writing such a work fell to
the lot of a Chicago lawyer of Scotch-Irish ancestry, Robert H. Vickers.
Vicker’s _History of Bohemia_ was published in 1894 in Chicago, the
munificence of the Bohemian National Committee making the publication
possible. Stranger to the subtle modern forces of the nation’s life,
unfamiliar with its language, unduly in love with the rust of the past,
Vickers produced a volume suffering obviously from bookiness. The Chicago
Bohemians erected a monument in the National Cemetery to the memory of
their Scotch-Irish friend.
A year later (1895), there appeared another history of the nation: Frances
Gregor’s _Story of Bohemia_.
In translating into idiomatic English the little classic, Němcová’s
_Babička_--the first story book by a Bohemian author to be so
honored--Frances Gregor rendered an actual service to literature. Many
an American Bohemian youth has had his or her first glimpse of the charms
of Bohemian country life from _Babička_, but her _Story of Bohemia_ has
since been supplanted by newer and abler historical studies. Frances
Gregor’s talents lay not in historical research but in light fiction
writing and literary criticism. An incurable malady greatly interfered
with intensive literary labor, making her life all but unendurable. She
died in Colorado in 1901, aged fifty-one years.
Two additional histories were put on the market by publishers in 1896:
_Bohemia: an Historical Sketch_, by Count Lützow; and Charles Edmund
Maurice’s _Bohemia: from the earliest times to the fall of national
independence in 1620_.
It is no secret that English Bohemica cost Count Lützow (born 1849 in
Hamburg, died 1916 in Switzerland) his diplomatic career, making him
_persona non grata_ at the Vienna court. Of the several volumes written
by this high-minded, unselfish nobleman, the most erudite and mature is
_The Hussite Wars_. Lützow is especially esteemed by English-speaking
Bohemians, for they alone are able to appreciate the measure of his labors.
Will S. Monroe’s _Bohemia and the Čechs_ was published in 1910. It
is profusely illustrated and contains an informative review of the
literature, art, politics and the economic and social conditions of the
people. Monroe knows his Bohemia from close personal association and
not from books alone, and his _Bohemia and the Čechs_ has achieved wider
popularity than any of the accounts preceding it.
In the _Cambridge Modern History_ the student will find abundant and
reliable material on Bohemia, from such noted writers as Robert Nisbet
Bain, A. W. Ward, Louis Eisenmann, and others.
JOHN HUS. JEROME OF PRAGUE. UNITY. MORAVIANS. The Hussite Reformation
in the fifteenth century was a movement which concerned not Bohemia
alone, but the entire Christian world. “Thus begun,” remarks Bishop de
Schweinitz, “one of the most remarkable and at the same time terrific
wars the world has seen; for sixteen years Bohemia single handed defied
papal Europe.” Two Englishmen, John Wickliffe and Peter Payne, the first
impersonally, through his writings, the other personally, played not an
inconspicuous rôle in the great religious awakening which followed the
burning of Hus at the stake in 1415.
The Hussite literature, as the reader will perceive, is quite bulky. Of
the non-Bohemian Hus scholars, whose works have been written in English or
translated into that tongue, these deserve to be mentioned: De Bonnechose,
_Les Réformateurs avant la Réforme_, known as _Reformers before the
Reformation_; Johann Loserth’s _Hus und Wiclif_; De Schweinitz’s _History
of the Church known as the Unitas Fratrum, or the Unity of the Brethren_;
Count Lützow’s _The Hussite Wars_; David S. Schaff’s _John Huss; His
Life, Teachings and Death_; W. N. Schwarze’s _John Hus, the Martyr of
Bohemia_. Knowing the Bohemian language and being in a position to make
use of native sources, some of them still unpublished, Count Lützow has
had an undoubted advantage over Hus commentators who were not so fitted.
Rev. E. H. Gillett’s _Life and Times of John Huss_, was, after it had been
published, adversely commented upon, the author being openly charged with
taking bodily sentences, paragraphs and pages from De Bonnechose, without
giving the Frenchman due credit. (See _North American Review_, July,
1865.) Rev. A. H. Wratislaw’s _John Huss, the commencement of resistance
to papal authority_, has for its basis the trustworthy researches of the
historians Palacký and Tomek.
The Moravian Church, claiming direct descent from the Unity of Bohemian
Brethren, has produced noteworthy sectarian literature. In fact, the
Moravians, to mention only one scholar, the late Bishop de Schweinitz,
have done more than any other evangelical church in the way of
interpreting to the English speaking people the most stirring chapters
of Bohemian history.