June 10, 1998

The Revival was preceded by the important Enlightenment reforms carried out by the Austrian Empress Marie Therese in the second half of the 18th century. She was the first in the long line of the inbred Habsburg dynasty to show unusually progressive thinking. Her reforms, including the institution of compulsory education, were later continued by her son, Emperor Josef II, who issued the Edict of Tolerance, which legalised non-Catholic religions such as Lutheranism, Calvinism and Orthodoxy, and, more importantly, abolished serfdom.

However, the Austrian empire was a multinational state and no matter how enlightened the reforms were, they took little notion of the specifics of individual nationalities living on its territory. In particular the intensive assertion of the German language and the restriction of independence brought about a surge of national consciousness and marked the beginning of the National Revival movement, which lasted till the 1860's.

The first endeavours of the revival movement were focused on promoting Czech language and culture, and only later grew into a full-blown political movement, encompassing all Slavic nations within Europe. Given that from the 17th century, the Czechs were deprived of their political independence, having lost it to the Habsburgs, it's only natural they were hoping for the restoration of their statehood one day. At the end of the eighteen century, all of Europe was undergoing dramatic revolutionary changes and it was especially the ideals of the French Revolution in 1789 which were hugely admired and inspired the Slavic national consciousness.

At the head of the National Revival in Bohemia was a group of linguists, historians and philosophers--in fact, three generations of them--who started an extensive research into Slavic cultures and who pointed out the close links between all Slavic nations: Czechs, Poles, Russians, and nationalities on the Balkan peninsula. Some of those even dreamt of the creation of a great Slavic state. But the National Revival movement wasn't limited only to promoting the Slavic culture. Its representatives followed the latest scientific, educational, philosophical and industrial developments in the rest of Europe and contributed their own work to it.

One of the greatest representatives of the movement, also called the 'father of the nation', was Frantisek Palacky, born 200 years ago. He belonged to the third and last generation of revivalists. His predecessors were learned men such as Josef Dobrovsky, a linguist whose works became known in England at the end of the 18th century, Jan Kollar, a Slovak poet, writer and collector of written folk heritage, and Pavel Josef Safarik, a Czech Slavonic scholar of European significance who spent a lot of his time in Serbia as the headmaster of a grammar school in Novi Sad and whose views--one of the few among the revivalists--questioned the uncritical belief in Russia as the mother of the Slavic nations.

But back to Frantisek Palacky, the founder of modern Czech historiography, scientist, politician and a deputy of the Czech constitutional committee. He was born on June 14, 1798 in Moravia, to the family of a Lutheran preacher who also taught in the local school. From a very young age, Frantisek showed great abilities and an interest in education. He mingled with the older children in his father's classroom and quickly picked up reading, so that by the age of five, he knew the whole bible.

His father was convinced of his son's abilities and wanted to ensure his further education. This required the knowledge of German, so the 9-year-old Frantisek was sent to live with the German-speaking family of his father's friend, where he could also attend the institute at the nearby castle, a privilege otherwise reserved for the sons of the gentry. However, after two years during which Frantisek won the praise of all his teachers at the institute, his Lutheran father decided to withdraw his boy from the--in his opinion--excessively Catholic influence and placed him instead in a three-year Evangelic grammar school in Trencin, Slovakia, drawing on the support of a foundation for students from poor families. After 6 months at the grammar school, the 12-year-old Palacky jumped from the first right to the third grade and soon, the school was unable to offer him more.

In order to earn money, Palacky started working as a teacher in Slovak aristocratic families, which supplied him with further education, social skills and political insight. But the real turning point in his career was his arrival in Prague in 1823, aged 25. There, working as the archivist of the Sternberk family, he threw himself into an intensive study of Czech history. Eight years later, he was appointed the official regional historian and commissioned with writing the history of the Czech nation. Although published between 1836 and 1842, this monumental work, covering Czech history up to the arrival of the Habsburgs in 1526, Palacky worked on till the end of his life. This 3-volume history was also Palacky's defence--based on scientific research--of the existence of the Czech nation and of the political and cultural contribution of the Czech nation to the European continent.

Apart from writing Czech historical chronicles, Palacky participated in many other social and political events of the National Revival, usually as one of the leading figures. In 1831, he co-founded an institution which promoted the publishing of Czech scientific books and books on the arts, was a member of a publishing group which started printing the Czech Museum magazine, which he later also edited, and was also accepted as a member of the Czech Royal Scientific Community and the Vienna Academy of Science. During his extensive research, Palacky studied in 70 archives all over Europe, working with materials in about ten languages.

In 1848, Europe once again exploded in revolutionary uprisings and to Palacky's career as a historian and scientist was added that of the nation's political leader. In April 1848, he was invited to participate at the conference of the German assembly in Frankfurt, which he declined, defending the existence of the multinational Austrian empire as a counterbalance to the power interests of Russia and Germany--interestingly clairvoyant given the historical experience of the 20th century, isn't it? It has to be said that the National Revival movement had no intention of destroying the empire. Even the fiercest Czech patriots acknowledged its importance on the map of Europe. What they wanted was more recognition for the Czech language and culture, and more political independence within the empire.

In June 1848, a revolution erupted in Prague, unwittingly stimulated by the otherwise moderate congress of all the Slavic nations, which took place on the 2nd of June and which Palacky chaired. Barricades rose all over the town, defended mainly by students, and although they didn't lack in enthusiasm, they did in the overall concept of the revolution, so once the artillery had been called in, the rebels had to surrender. A period of so-called neo-absolutism followed, during which Palacky resigned his political activities and remained on the sidelines until the social and political revival in the 1860's.

In the 1870's, Palacky's views grew sceptical; he saw the lack of understanding and recognition on the side of the empire of the needs and desires of its various nationalities, which was only confirmed by the so called Austro-Hungarian settlement in 1867. In this document, Austria made concessions to Hungary and recognised its statehood, while ignoring that of the Czechs, thus destroying the dream of Czech independence within the new Austro-Hungarian empire. This failure marked the character of Czech politics for the following decades.

Having lost his belief in Czech independence within the empire, Palacky slowly retired from the Czech political stage and his role as the revivalists' leader was assumed by F.L. Rieger, Palacky's son-in-law. The years following the signing of the infamous Austro-Hungarian settlement were marked by ever growing pro-Czech feeling and the increasing struggle within the Czech political community. When Palacky died in 1876, forty two years still remained until the then-unimaginable collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and to the even more unbelievable declaration of the independent state of Czechoslovakia. But his work and that of his contemporaries educated the nation and prepared the ground for the events which were to follow.

by Peter Casper