In the present European crisis several nations are hoping for a
betterment of their political fortunes. Among these not the least
hopeful are the Bohemians in the historic Kingdom of Bohemia, now
annexed to the Austrian Empire.
Many who are unfamiliar with the situation will probably ask: Why
should the Bohemians seek independence? Are they not more secure as a
part of a large empire? It is in anticipation of, and in response to
such questions that the following facts are presented.
Bohemia has not received just treatment at the hands of the Austrian
Government. Her national spirit has been offended or ignored, her
people have been oppressed, her schools are not adequately maintained,
and the scant support which they now receive has been wrung from the
government only by tremendous effort, and in times of great political
stress. Even now the people are compelled to maintain schools in
some parts of the kingdom by voluntary contributions. The government
has done nothing for Bohemia either politically, intellectually, or
industrially, excepting under compulsion. Therefore there is no reason
for a grateful desire to perpetuate the present relation. Bohemia has
heretofore been loyal to Austria only because she faced a greater
danger from German absorption.
The grounds on which the Bohemians ask the right to shape their own
destinies as a nation are chiefly the following:
1. The historic right.--The House of Hapsburg was called to the throne
of Bohemia by voluntary election. The first Hapsburg to attempt to rule
Bohemia was Rudolph (1306-1307), who was forced upon the country for
a short time by the German Emperor, and who attempted to secure the
color of a right to rule by marrying the widow of the last Bohemian
King of the Přemysl line. His right to rule was contested, and upon
his death the Bohemians selected several kings from other ruling
houses, and it was not until 1437 that another Hapsburg, Albrecht, was
again voluntarily elected King of Bohemia. But after a brief rule of
two years, during which he violated his oath and his pledges to the
Bohemian people, he was again succeeded by a line of kings elected from
various ruling houses, and the greatest of them, George of Poděbrad,
the Protestant king who ruled from 1458 to 1471, from among their own
nobility.
It was not until 1526 that another Hapsburg, Ferdinand I., was elected
king by the Bohemian Diet, but he soon destroyed the old charter in
accordance with which he was recognized as a king by election, and
usurped the power which the House of Hapsburg continued to exercise for
some time. But in 1619 the Bohemians reasserted their right to elect
their kings and chose Frederick of the Palatinate, thus precipitating
the Thirty Years’ War. But notwithstanding the reverses which the
Bohemians suffered, Ferdinand II. of Hapsburg, who ascended the throne,
was obliged to take oath “to maintain the privileges and liberties
of the kingdom” and to “govern the kingdom according to the laws and
usages of the kings, his predecessors, and especially Charles IV.”
During the long dark night which followed the deep tragedy of the
Thirty Years’ War, the Hapsburgs ruled over Bohemia, but the nation
never conceded them the right to incorporate their country in any
other, and in 1868 formally declared that “the Kingdom of Bohemia is
attached to the empire by a purely personal tie,”--that is, through
the person of the king who was also Emperor of Austria. Francis Josef
himself soon after recognized this right and promised to be crowned
King of Bohemia, but this promise was broken.
For the reasons here given the Bohemians claim that their kingdom is
still a distinct political entity.
2. Their political capacity.--Time and again the Bohemians have
demonstrated their loyalty to high political ideals and their capacity
for self-government. They never recognized the “divine right” of
kings to rule,--unlike their German neighbors, most of whom recognize
the “right” to-day. They elected their own kings, who were bound by
what was practically equivalent to our modern constitution, and they
sometimes chose these kings from their own midst; before the outbreak
of the Thirty Years’ War they were seriously contemplating a form
of government not unlike that of our own country; and to-day they
are hoping for a republic, or at least for a monarchy as liberal and
innocuous as that of England. Indeed, for several centuries their
political ideals have approached nearer to those of England than of any
other of the greater European nations.
3. Their intellectual power.--A nation claiming the right of
self-government is usually expected to show competent intellectual
capacity. This the Bohemians have demonstrated beyond a doubt. When
we consider the great odds against which they contended when they
struggled to re-establish their schools and their intellectual life,
the progress which they have made in the past century is astonishing.
The city of Prague is to-day one of the greatest publishing centres in
Europe. The growth of Bohemian literature in all its branches has been
stupendous, and to-day Bohemia leads the Empire of Austria with the
smallest percentage of illiterates and is one of the leaders of Europe
in this respect!
Nor are these educational and intellectual ideals a gift of the
Germans, as has been asserted in certain prejudiced quarters. Bohemia
had a great university, that of Prague, before a single institution
of the kind had been established within the limits either of the
present German Empire or any other part of the present Empire of
Austria. This has been claimed repeatedly as a German university,
but it was established in 1348 by Charles IV., whose mother was a
Bohemian, and whose sentiments were wholly Bohemian. He was educated
in the University of Paris, and that institution furnished the model
for his new university. Following the Paris plan he gave two votes to
the German nations in the management of the university (a courtesy
which they have never been inclined to imitate), but like all other
institutions of that period the university was Latin, and not in any
sense German. Fifty years later it passed wholly under the control of
the Bohemians and developed into one of the greatest universities of
Europe, sharing this honor with Paris and Oxford, and for more than
two centuries it continued to be one of the world’s great centres
of intellectual activity and inspiration. The Thirty Years’ War
overwhelmed it, and transformed it into a German institution for a long
time, but a third of a century ago it was re-established as a Bohemian
institution, and has now far outstripped its German rival in the same
city which was forced upon the nation in the effort to Germanize it.
It is also a matter of historic interest that as early as 1294 a King
of Bohemia, Václav II., attempted to establish a university at Prague,
but the plan failed because of dissensions between the ecclesiastics
and the nobility.
The Bohemian people have abundant intellectual traditions of their
own, and their devotion to their educational interests has been tested
repeatedly and found not wanting.
4. The moral and ethical right.--Why should any other nation rule
Bohemia? The Bohemian people are intellectual, with high political
ideals and splendid traditions, and they are industrially progressive.
They are competent to direct their own affairs, and it is only the
insolent usurper who can assume to lay claim to the right to rule over
them. Bohemia is a fertile country blessed with boundless riches which
should be employed to sustain a happy, busy, progressive nation, and
not a usurping military power, and that nation has a right to be free!
This briefly is the Bill of Rights of the Bohemian nation. Whatsoever
may be the form of the government which will come to liberated Bohemia,
all lovers of freedom will join in the hope of the realization of the
spirit of the prophecy of Doctor John Jesenský of Jesen, one of the
martyr leaders of the Bohemians who were executed at Prague in 1621,
who proclaimed from the scaffold: “It is vain that Ferdinand gluts his
rage for blood; a king elected by us shall again ascend the throne of
Bohemia!”