Vojta Beneš

“ While in the upper strata of the Germanized Society the sense for the old Bohemian Culture was being lost, the Bohemian and Slovak people lived in their reminiscences, dressed in characteristic national dress, decorated their homes with exquisite embroidery, surrounded themselves with furniture of the original, national style, painted Easter Eggs, made original toys for their children, doves, dolls and roosters, steeped their whole lives in poesy, which had its source in their pure souls. ”

“ Take away the Czechoslovak lands from the Dual Monarchy, and how much will be left? What help could such crippled Austria give to Germany in any future attack on the liberties of the world? Creation of a Bohemian republic will be the greatest blow struck at German plans of conquest. ”

“ At this time, after the first artistic attempts of Jaroslav Čermák and some other painters of Bohemian blood, who began to feel for the real, throbbing Bohemian Art, a man appeared in Bohemia, whose name meant a total revolution in Bohemian Art. This man was Josef Manes, a great student of life and an artist of wonderful qualifications. Like the majority of great men, he, too, was misunderstood in his time, when he preached, with his brush, a return to the people, to life, to nature, and to the human heart. ”

“ And yet there lay in the soul of the Bohemian people immense treasures of the national artistic spirit—treasures of folk art. When in the era of religious expansion of Bohemian Brethren, these modest but rare creators of better Christian life were preserving for the future days their songs and hymnals, they decorated them with drawings, paintings, miniatures and illuminations so perfect in their delicacy, so thoroughly artistic, that to-day we turn back to them with great respect and admiration. ”

“ Tears ran from our eyes and through them we, the onlookers, smiled at each other, as if to say that our nation after all has in it eternal life and energy. It can bear and survive whatever heavy burden the fate may deal out. ”

“ At that the Bohemians pay far more than their share of Austrian taxes. In 1914 the Bohemian lands paid in direct state taxes 44 mill. crowns, while all the rest of Austria paid only 26 mill. That is to say, a Bohemian pays 4.34 per head in direct taxes, while the average for the rest of Austria is 1.75. The main bulk of the state income is derived from indirect taxes, but here the injustice of the burden laid on Bohemia is just as glaring. Take the food tax. In 1911 it amounted for all Austria with 28,560,000 people to 445 mill. ”

“ In the art of the common people, in the folk song, and in cherished tradition lived the national spirit gagged and bound, waiting for the moment when the savior would free it from the mediaeval dungeon in which it was chained so cruelly and long. ”

“ But one of the greatest of the Bohemian artists, who found his inspiration in the soul of his people, is the Moravian Slovak, Jóža Úprka. Disgust with the artificiality of city life brought him back to the good Slovak peasantry. In a quiet retreat in southern Moravia, he lived simply with his beloved country-folk, depicting their soul and their daily life. His paintings are passionate songs of color, light, youth and strength and joy of life; they are passionate paeans of the hot southern Moravian sun and the healthy vigorous people of that wonderful land. His typical peasant figures ”

“ There are no rich men among the Bohemian people in America who could afford to give large amounts; besides more than money was needed. It was necessary that the fight for the Czech nation should have the moral support of all the emigrants from Bohemia, of all whose mouths were not shut by superior force. The fight for independence had to be backed by Bohemians in every Allied and neutral country. ”

“ In their campaign for independence the Czechs have not put as much stres on the financial exploitation of their people by their German rulers, as they were fully entitled to. They merely demanded freedom, the right to shape their own destinies, to develop their own racial individuality, But it cannot be denied that on material grounds alone, especially the unjust burden of taxation, Bohemia can make out a very strong claim for liberation from the Austrian yoke. ”

“ There is not a child in the land of the Bohemians and the Slovaks that does not know Aleš. His sketches of children, soldiers, horses and cows, and the joys and other phases of child-life are the Bohemian child’s constant companions. No one in the whole world but Aleš could draw for the Bohemian child horses and soldiers and the joy of life and youth. ”

“ Our people were thunderstruck by the imperial order commanding the enlistment of men up to the age of 51. Bohemians looked upon it as a deliberate attempt of the Vienna and Berlin rulers to slaughter the Austrian Slavs. As it was impossible to protest in parliament, which had not been called together during the war, Bohemian deputies attempted to protest in print against the drafting of elderly men, but declarations signed by the Bohemian Club and by the Socialist Club, comprising together all the Czech deputies, were confiscated and never saw the light of day. ”

“ A unique place among Bohemian artists is held by František Kupka and Emil Holárek. Their life, like all of their art, is consecrated to the struggle for truth and democracy. Kupka’s brush flays European art of the present day while Holárek’s work assails the lust for gold, brutal militarism and mercenary ecclesiasticism. Today two unconquerable social forces, capital and the state and its church under military organization are waging a great struggle against the people who physically, mentally and materially bear the world on their shoulders. ”

“ When I left the old country, one of the leaders of Bohemia impressed upon me this message: “Tell our friends beyond the sea that we ask them to finance our action. Here we are allowed to give millions for the orphans, but not one cent for our nation’s liberation. ”

“ Our nation began to live spiritually. Then was the Bohemian Art born. Its beginning was necessarily simple, nor was there anything characteristically Bohemian in it. The Arts Academy of Prague was directed by the Germans in a soulless formalism, without devotion, without enthusiasm. It was more a trade than an art they taught. Religious painting was ossified in commercial religious pictures; landscapes which came from the brushes of painters of those days were not the fruit of the study of nature, but of lifeless phantasy and mechanical theory of combination of colors ”

“ The Bohemian National Alliance will have a great influence upon our people in America. As soon as our great task will be over upon the conclusion of a just peace, this great organization will serve as the cultural center of Bohemians in the United States. Our first care will be the schools for the teaching of Bohemian, and we shall endeavor to have the study of Bohemian introduced into the curriculum of high schools and universities. Care of the immigrant, during his first difficult days in the new country will be our special task. ”

“ When after the fall of the Bohemian Kingdom during the XVII Century the Bohemian intellectuals scattered into all corners of the earth it was the good fortune for the people to live in the heart of the Bohemian Lands as if forgotten and unheeded as to their culture. ”

“ While the incorporation of the Czechoslovak conscripts did not increase the effectiveness of the Austrian armies, the crops of Bohemia fed the armies of both Austria and Germany, the mines of Bohemia gave forth most of the Austrian iron ore, Bohemian steel mills produced the all-important steel, Bohemian gun factories furnished the famous Austrian howitzers, cattle of Bohemia and Moravia was the principal source of meat for the army, and the textiles of Bohemia kept the Austro-Hungarian soldiers warm. ”

“ Rudolf Bém, the delicate Victor Stretti, the poet of the sea Beneš Knüpfer; the genius in decorative art, who awakened the sincere interest of France and the United States, Alfons Mucha, and a whole list of other young artists, whose lines are being thinned by death on the battlefields where Austria is driving them with other great men of the Bohemian nation all these constituted the hopeful army, which promised its nation a brilliant future in art. ”

“ In 1869 54% of the population made their living in agriculture and only 31% in industry. But industry has been taking ever greater place in Bohemia, and the latest figures show that 42% of the people were employed in industry, 10.5% in commerce, and only 35.5% in agriculture. One of the conditions favoring industrial development is the fact that the Bohemian lands on account of the wealth and economic advancement of the people make an important home market for the industries which are not therefore mainly dependent upon the unstable export business. ”

“ They were men advanced in age, forty years and over, emaciated, feeble, with a dumb expression in their faces—and I do not say that by way of ridicule. Like loaded camels they carried their heavy war equipment, dragged their feet in a tired way, and their appearance made us feel as if all humanity had been beaten out of them. ”

“ The inspiration of Úprka is the strength and energy in the life of his Slovaks, with their beautiful, unpolluted lives, their healthful and joyous souls, with which they really created their great master, whose art but recently dazzled all Europe. ”

“ Since that time the young artist devoted himself to the study of his people. He proceeded to Moravia, where the Slav characteristics of the Czech people were less obscured by foreign influences; he learned to draw the cheerful and colorful costume of the peasant, mirroring his simple soul. ”

“ His portraits mirror the soul and character of the great men they represent; they mirror their endeavor and work which made them great. His masterly portrait of our great composer Bedřich Smetana, his portraits of Rieger, Masaryk, Aleš, Manes, Neruda, and a great line of others are the most perfect of all that have ever been produced by the brush of Bohemian portrait painters. ”

“ What a tremendous financial relief would be experienced by the Bohemian provinces, if they were freed from supporting the Austrian empire with its gay capital. Free Bohemia would rival Belgium or Holland in economic power. ”

“ This beautiful and in fact brilliant Bohemian Art succumbed to counter-reformation, as indeed did all the Bohemian Culture. Luckily, however, the counter-reformation could not completely destroy the character of the national spirit. In the simple peasant folk there was kept alive the national song with which grew up the national art of the people. ”

“ Without the agricultural riches of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia the Austrian monarchy would cease to be a Great Power, and without the food raised in Bohemia and confiscated by Austrian authorities Germany would have been compelled by hunger long ago to capitulate. ”

“ The more noted of the young Bohemian artists are Jan Preisler whose paintings portray various moods of Nature and are characterized by rich colors and a certain dreamy, mysterious, indescribable charm. With him ranks Hugo Boetinger, a refined portrait painter, František Šimon, a creator of wonderful etchings, nurtured in Paris and known also in American art circles, Jakub Obrovský, a Moravian artist of deep penetration. ”

“ His lyric art loved the study of the peasants’ life, their customs and songs. He painted the strong, handsome type of the peasant in his work, in his joys and his sorrows; his art sang, rejoiced and wept. His frequent children’s types are an expression of care free childhood in its sunny joyousness. ”

“ F. X. Harlas, the Bohemian art critic, correctly says of him: “A beautiful human body means to him what it meant to Manes: the glory of the human race.”
Mikuláš Aleš, the most characteristically Bohemian and most beloved of the Bohemian artists, was born in 1852, in the poor Southeastern part of Bohemia. Although Manes’ art, in spite of its Bohemianism and Slavism, might be classed as international, Aleš’ art itself can only be classed as typically Bohemian. He simply cannot be understood by the foreign world ”

“ Whereas the total of cattle for all Austria was 9,160,009 head the Czech lands had 3,188,291 head of the finest breeds, almost a million over the number which they should have in proportion to their area. In Denmark, the model cattle-raising country, there are 46 head of cattle to a square kilometer; Austria without the Bohemian lands has 27, and the Bohemian lands have 41.7, a remarkably good showing, when it is remembered that Denmark raises little grain, while Bohemia is both a grain growing and cattle raising country. ”

“ Often the householder in a Bohemian city has to pay 300% of the direct state tax for the support of his municipality, 75% for the support of the provincial government and 60% for county purposes. The financial system that has prevailed in Austria before the war was aimed at lightening the burdens of the Germans at the expense of the Slavs. ”

“ He was a pupil of the Parisian school, where he learned to paint from nature itself. Up to that time Bohemia had been the home of landscape and romanticism, where the artists had painted and drawn landscape according to their wild fancy, without regard to truth. ”

“ It is not true that our life in Szegedin is hell, that typhus and cholera rage here. It is not true to say that when a Czech soldier goes by the people here raise their hands to imitate the sign of surrender and that we are insulted. ”