Bohemian Brethren

“ Šlechta, in a letter referring to the "Bohemian Brethren," informed his correspondent that "an emissary of 'Pikardus' [65] had infected first Zižka's army and then all Bohemia with pestiferous doctrines of sin; thence the 'Bohemian Brethren' proceeded to recognise communion in the two kinds, and to choose as bishops and priests [Pg 188] rude laymen who had no culture, were married, and had children."
The answer of Erasmus is very characteristic ”

“ In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there existed a religious community to the number of, perhaps, two hundred thousand, called the “Bohemian Brethren.” They were scattered throughout Bohemia and certain parts of Poland, and were remarkable for the zeal and general purity of their lives. ”

“ Among the adherents of Rome, who were then few in number in Bohemia, and who were Hajek's principal protectors, were found several of the greatest Bohemian nobles. These Catholic lords were always the most decided enemies of the Bohemian cities, while the Utraquist and Protestant nobles—though their caste pride may have been as great—regarded the townsmen as valuable allies in their struggle against the sovereign, while the democratic character of the community of the "Bohemian brethren" naturally also influenced the nobles who belonged to it. ”

“ The Bohemian Brethren also kept increasing in number, so that at this time the Pope’s legate wrote to Rome as follows: “The Diet discussed how to extirpate Picardism from Bohemia; but the members of this sect have grown so numerous, they are rich, powerful, and devoted to each other, so that, if only they professed a different faith and had different customs, they might be regarded worthy people.”
During the reign of Louis, rich silver-mines were discovered upon the estates of Sir Slick in Loketsky. ”

“ Second, folio-edition printed and published by himself in Prague 1590.
The Unity of the Brethren. THE EVANGELICAL HYMNS the so called Hymnal of Králice.
Edited and printed in Králice (Moravia) 1598. The IX. edition of the Hymnal of the Bohemian Brethren.
Thomas Bavorovský (priest sub utraque) . THE BOHEMIAN POSTILLA:
being Sermons and Lessons of the Pericopes . . . . . . . . faithfully written and preached by T. B.⁠Printed in Olomouc 1557
The Unity of the Brethren. ”

“ In the third yeare of his reigne, 1565. the haters of the truth forged a new processe against the Brethren, abusing the authority of Ioachim de Nova Domo Chancellour of Bohemia; who going to Vienna, wrought so by continuall diligence with Cæsar, that hee should urge Wladislaus to subscribe (though unwillingly) the old Mandate, with a new one against the Piccardines. But the goodnesse of God had a watchfull eye ouer his, and would not permit so good and innocent a Prince to have a hand in bloud, or be burthened with the cries of the oppressed. ”

“ It sometimes happens that, as a gipsy’s child turns out to be a prince’s child, who, perforce, dwells in a palace, so the Bohemian is found in a fine house and high society. Bohemia is a fairyland on this hard earth. ”

“ Bretislav, the wily prelate, had succeeded in winning the favor of the emperor, and so was declared the ruler of Bohemia. Bishop Bretislav, with a large army of German troops, now came to Bohemia to secure the throne, meeting the rightful ruler at Zdik. The Bohemian lords, who shortly before had sworn that they would lay down their lives for their prince, now treacherously forsook him, going over to the side of the usurper, and Premysl was obliged to flee, leaving the ambitious prelate master of the field. Bretislav also conquered Moravia, taking Vladislav, the brother of Premysl, prisoner. ”

“ The only offense of the Bohemian king is that he is Slav, but that, with the jealousy of his power, the democratic institutions, and the wealth of his country, which contains the richest mines of silver in Europe, is sufficient. Great armies, German and Hungarian, are raised against him; finally he is treacherously slain in battle, his kingdom torn apart, and Bohemia is ravished and reduced almost to a "possession" or a fief of the Empire.
Yet the wound is not mortal, the nation is too strong ”

“ He never stops to think that the Bohemians are the men who make our songs, who paint our pictures, chisel marvellous creations out of wood and stone, compose our sweetest poems and write our newspapers. It is a grievous mistake to assume that they are merely a lot of idle, luckless fellows. They are men with brains of good quality, and hearts in the right place. All classes and trades of men have burdened the world with their wants and woes. Not so the Bohemian. ”

“ The merciless ridicule of Paris would have killed them in a week, without support as they were. Defiance of the bourgeois, an absolute essential of the true Bohemian creed, was, therefore, not appropriate to the first cénacle, who lived openly the life of ordinary, decent citizens, while secretly preparing the proclamations, the standards, and the weapons by which the cataclysmic victory of 1830 was to be won. In such a tense moment Bohemia could not be born. Their outlook, in the second place, was too lofty to comprehend the lower planes in which Bohemia made itself conspicuous. ”

“ Intoxicated by their brilliant success, they determined to march home across Bohemia, without even asking permission of the ruler of that country. Very probably, they counted upon the favor of the fourteen lords who had been baptized in Ratisbon, for this was before the baptism of the Bohemian prince. The Bohemians, highly indignant that a hostile army dared cross their territory, hastily collected a large army, fell upon the Germans, and defeated them so that they fled, leaving rich spoils in the hands of the victors. ”

“ The very period at which the danger of Germanization was at its height, at which the national language seemed in the eyes of the Bohemian nationalist to be in no small danger of actual extinction, was a most flourishing epoch in the history of Bohemian literature. ”

“ Men of letters, in whom the national consciousness had not died out, now began to work to awaken the same feelings in others, and in due time the fruits of their labors began to appear. Thus it was that the period of the greatest humiliation of the Bohemian language, proved to be the dawn of a new era, in which the nation may yet regain much of its former liberty and importance. ”

“ His personal share in the war was indeed cut short, partly by ill-health, partly by the necessity of returning to Bohemia, which was disturbed by the insurrection of a new pretender. But his son Frederick and his brother Theobald brought new reinforcements to the camp of Barbarossa; and a large part of all the glory that could be won in such a cause was due to the Bohemian soldiers. ”

“ The fateful period for Bohemia comes in the sixteenth century. The people are weakened by wars, by internal religious strifes. A fearful new danger threatens central Europe—the Turks. In 1526 the Bohemian king, Ludvik, is killed in a battle with the Turks, assisting Hungary; and as there is no male descendant, the elective diet at Prague is influenced to offer the crown of Bohemia, under strict guarantees of all its rights, to the husband of Ludvik's daughter, Ferdinand of Habsburg, archduke of Austria. ”

“ Not only was it the sound-board from which in a lucky moment the struggling whisperer on the left bank might hear his utterances booming forth to a multitude eager for novelty, not only was it an unofficial academy to which every Bohemian might aspire to belong as soon as he had made his mark, but it was also, during the years following 1830, animated by such a spirit of revelry and reckless amusement that the riots of true Bohemia were as pale ghosts before its more notable orgies. ”

“ To make matters worse, Frederick, with great want of tact, gave the chief commands in his army to German Generals, who were viewed with jealousy by the Bohemian nobles, many of whom had gained military distinction in the wars with the Turks. Rapidly events rolled on, Frederick’s prospects gradually darkening until the 8th of November, 1620, when the Bohemian army was defeated on the White Hill within sight of Prague by the Bavarians and Austrians. ”

“ The continual contact with the German nations, during the reigns of both Premysl and Václav, made the Bohemian people acquainted with the intellectual progress of Western Europe; but, at the same time, it was the means of introducing into the country many evil customs hitherto unknown. The higher classes became more and more luxurious in their mode of life, and in the same proportion as the lords waxed fat, the peasants upon their estates waxed lean, until servitude as grievous as slavery gradually became introduced into the country. ”

“ I am also perhaps not wrong in thinking that the origin of the struggles in the Austro-Hungarian empire—almost entirely attributable as it is to racial and linguistic discord—has become better understood in England. As I show in my book, the revival of Bohemian literature was largely responsible for the movement in favour of Bohemian autonomy; and the early leaders of the Bohemian movement in the nineteenth century were mostly literary men. ”

“ The answers in defence are cautious and uncertain, as during the whole war the Catholic party were generally not a match for the Protestants in the serious warfare of the pen. But the speedy flight of the new King of Bohemia suddenly changed the physiognomy of the literary market. The secret writings obtained as booty from the Bohemian party were published by their opponents; and about these bulky quartos there raged for years a battle of petty flying-sheets. Revengeful, and joyfully triumphant, the Imperialists sounded their pæan. ”

“ The German element, controlling industry and vested with authority, has attained a state of relative prosperity. Even its poorest members are not attracted by the prospect of work held out by Bohemia’s growing industry. The less advanced Bohemians, however, not so content with their lot, are attracted by certain kinds of labor which the German element spurns. Having fewer local ties than their Teutonic countrymen, they easily move from place to place. It thus happens that out of the thirty-six German districts of Bohemia, twenty-two are now fully 5 per cent Bohemian. ”

“ The leading men were executed or exiled, the greater part of the soil was confiscated, and the nation that had taken such a noble part in the history of Europe was beggared and decimated until its name almost disappeared from the roll of living nations. The peace of a churchyard prevailed in the Bohemian lands deprived of its leaders, and lying helpless under the most oppressive and reactionary regime of a foreign dynasty. ”

“ In spite of the dislike of the Turk, which was then common to all Christian nations, the Bohemians looked with alarm on any increase in those burdens of taxation which already weighed so heavily upon them; and, as already hinted, they dreaded the rule of a King, who might find it more convenient to reign at Presburg than at Prague. So strong was this feeling, that the [377] Bavarians, who had hoped to win the crown of Bohemia for their Duke, now believed that they could form a Bohemian party, which should commit itself openly to the side of Zapolya. ”

“ It is said that at this time at least seventy thousand Slavs in Austria eligible to military service quit the country.
The Germans have succeeded in making the Bohemian culture almost identical with theirs, and it is difficult to find in the German any traits that can be called specifically Bohemian. Only a long future can tell whether there are actually inherent psychological differences which can account for aggressiveness in the one and passivity in the other. ”

“ Bohemia, in Roqueplan's words, must be continually renewed, for the old Bohemian is nothing but a legitimate object for ardent social reformers. So the Bohemians of 1830, some of whom made their names, while others remained obscure, were all youthful nobodies in the eyes of the world, perching in their attics like a colony of singing birds upon the topmost branches. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The leaders of the people at home, men charged with high treason to Austria, because they are fired with love of their own land, the men who led Bohemian regiments over to the Russians, the heroes who created a Czecho-Slovak army in Russia, the workers who have organized the Bohemain National Alliance of America, are nearly all Sokols.
Will the Bohemian nation perish or will it emerge free from the awful, bloody contest? The Bohemians fight for their freedom and for the liberty of mankind. But they are not strong enough to win the fight alone. ”