Šárka B. Hrbková

“ In the land of the westernmost Slavs—Bohemia—the long suppressed Čechs arose to assert themselves not alone as Čechs—sturdy Slavs and troublesome obstacles in the path of the All-Deutsch policy of their northern neighbors but as men, as citizens of the world demanding their human rights and insisting on the equality of privileges and freedom of thought and expression. ”

“ It would be a misappellation to designate the few efforts during the period of the nation’s lethargy as literature. A nation which, at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War—that long agony which had its inception in Bohemia—lost by exile thirty-six thousand of its most progressive and best educated citizens and its liberty at the same time could hardly be expected to recover at once. ”

“ The quivering throes of the nation during the generations preceding 1830 could hardly be looked upon as anything else but the reflex shudders of a corpse. But the blood, apparently con gealed, began once more to course through the stiff veins when the breath of freedom and democracy at first wafted, then like a mighty gale, fairly rushed through the land in 1848, revivifying, renewing, inspiring everywhere. ”