Will Seymour Monroe

“ The book-destroyers that were turned loose in the land burned not only all historical and theological works, but every form of literary composition that might suggest to the Bohemian people their glorious past. ”

“ When one recalls the dearth of literature from Teutonic writers in Austria during the same period, the contrast is marked indeed.
In matters of art also Bohemia was early in the field. The Prague school of painting that came into prominence during the reign of Charles IV. (1316–1378) took favorable rank with similar early art movements in Italy. Painters, sculptors, and architects trained in Bohemia are represented to-day at most of the great cities in Europe where art treasures are preserved. ”

“ The inhabitants of the flourishing cities, that had been strongholds of the national language and literature, were driven into exile and their places were taken by immigrants of non-Bohemian birth. The country people were reduced to a state of serfdom and attached to the soil. ”

“ But these fragments are little more than the planks of a ship that was wrecked on the ocean of national vicissitude.
The modern Bohemian literary movement dates back only one hundred years. Joseph Dobrovský (1753–1829) , the patriarch of Slavic philology, initiated the literary movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The few other Bohemian scholars of the day—Jungmann, Palacký, Kollár, Šafařík, and the incomparable publicist Charles Havlíček—lent their services to the rehabilitation of a national language that was long supposed to be dead. ”