Bohemian Poems, Ancient and Modern/Introductory Essay
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
NATIONS do not perish, Long as their language lives. Such is the import of the words which I have chosen to be the motto of the present work, nor do I think I could have selected any thing more appropriate to indicate the nature of the reappearance of the Bohemian people among the nations of the world, and the means by which so unexpected, and to many so startling, a phenomenon has been produced. For a long time the possibility of crushing and annihilating the nationality and being of a people has been the current belief of the psychologist, and when he was in want of an example to prove his point, the finger of scorn was always directed towards Bohemia; Bohemia, as such, had utterly perished from the face of the earth, and was now a mere geographical subdivision of Germany or Austria. And yet the few last years have developed in Bohemia an individuality and nationality beyond comparison in history—beyond comparison, because along with, or rather causative of, the political strivings of the people, a literature has also sprung into existence, bearing unmistakeable marks of originality, and bidding fair to assume no inconsiderable position, and to exert no inconsiderable influence in Europe. It seems, in short, that this long sleep of the Bohemian people was ordained by God’s Providence, in order that all Slavonic[1] nations might awake to self-consciousness and arise together, to assume that position in the world, of which their natural capacity and activity is undoubtedly capable, and towards which I believe them to be as undoubtedly hastening[2].
It is a strange thing, that the European nation, which, of all others not in immediate geographical juxta-position, has in former ages had the greatest connection with Bohemia, and exercised the greatest influence upon her, (I allude particularly to the effect produced by the writings of Wicliffe upon the countrymen of Huss[3] should be contented with the superficial knowledge to be gained from German politicians or more lately from Hungarian emissaries, sources equally untrustworthy and unauthentic, witnesses equally interested in concealing, distorting, or perverting the truth. While, however, I shall not shrink from recording my conviction, that the selfish policy of the Germans and Madjars—the former attempting to swallow up a large portion of the Austrian Empire in an imaginary Germany by means of the Frankfort Parliament, the latter endeavouring to raise themselves upon its ruins, and both plotting the subjugation and oppression of their Slavonic neighbours—has prevented and destroyed the fairest prospects ever opened to a great empire consisting of multifarious and in some cases even heterogeneous elements, the fairest prospects of peace and brother-hood, of independent development and mutual assistance;—while I shall not shrink from recording my conviction of this, I shall confine myself to describing the circumstances, the aspirations, and the prospects of the Czechs, the Slavonic race inhabiting Bohemia[4].
‘Scarcely any country upon the surface of the globe has with so small an extent of territory been the scene of such great, memorable, and important transactions, as Bohemia; scarcely any nation, at least in modern history, has with such limited numbers stood forth so gloriously and mightily, as the Bohemian. There were times, when the princes of Bohemia ruled from the Baltic to the Adriatic; times, when all surrounding nations trembled at the sound of the Bohemian arms, and times, when the Bohemian mind was beaming with the brightness of the noonday sun, while all around was enveloped in the gloom of ignorance or inactivity.’
Such was Bohemia before the fatal battle of the White Mountain in 1620, as described by one of her present faithful children[5], and certainly, when we consider the splendid reigns of Přemysl Ottokar II. King of Bohemia, and Charles IV. Emperor of Germany, the learning and courage of Huss and his followers, and the dauntless heroism of the unconquered Ziska, who, though blind, was never defeated, we cannot accuse him of overcolouring his picture, or speaking in terms too glowing of the glories of his country's former history. It may also perhaps be not uninteresting to the student of physical science to remark, that the first Herbarium printed in Europe, was a Bohemian production in the Bohemian language, and in spite of the general destruction of Bohemian literature by the Jesuits, is now in existence in the National Museum at Prague, and is adorned with woodcuts of unusual excellence. I now proceed to contrast with the above, a description of what the country and nation became after a short period of Jesuit tyranny, also from the pen of a Bohemian.
‘Under the reign of Ferdinand II.,’ says Pelzel, a Roman Catholic writer, ‘the whole of the Bohemian nation was entirely changed and recast. It is scarcely possible to find in history another instance of a whole nation so much changed in a space of about fifteen years. In the year 1620 all Bohemia was, with the exception of some nobles and monks, Protestant; at the death of Ferdinand II. in 1637, it was, at least in appearance, entirely Roman Catholic. The merit of this conversion of a whole country in so short a time was claimed by the Jesuits. When they were once boasting of this achievement at Rome in the presence of the Pope, the celebrated Capuchin monk, Valerianus Magnus, who was present on that occasion, and who had also taken a part in the conversion of Bohemia, said:
“Holy Father, give me soldiers as they were given to the Jesuits, and I will convert the whole world.”
‘The states of Bohemia had, till the battle of the White Mountain, almost more power than the parliament of England. They made laws, concluded alliances with their neighbours, imposed taxes, conferred the rank of nobility upon meritorious individuals, kept their own troops, chose their kings, or at least their consent was asked when a father wished to leave the crown to his son, as we have seen under the kings George, Vladislaw, and Ferdinand I. They lost all these privileges in the above mentioned space of time, (i.e. the reign of Ferdinand II.)
‘Up to that time the Bohemians were wont to appear on the field of battle as a separate nation by themselves, and have not unfrequently earned glory. They were now thrust in amongst other nations, and their name no more resounded on the field of battle. Formerly it was said: The Bohemians have marched into the field; the Bohemians have carried the fortifications; the Bohemians have taken the town; the Bohemians have advanced against the enemy; the Bohemians have gained the victory. These glorious expressions were never more uttered by a mouth, or transmitted to posterity by a historian. Up to that time the Bohemians, taken as a nation, were brave, dauntless, passionately fond of glory, enterprising; but now they lost all courage, all national pride, all spirit of enterprise. They fled into forests like sheep before the Swedes, or suffered themselves to be trampled under foot. Their valour was then lying buried on the battle field of the White Mountain. Individual Bohemians still possess courage, martial spirit and a love of glory, but mingled with foreign nations, they resemble the waters of the Moldau, which have mingled with those of the Elbe. These two united rivers bear vessels, overflow their banks, inundate the country, carry away rocks and mountains; yet it is always said, the Elbe did it, and nobody ever thinks about the Moldau.
‘The Bohemian language, which was employed in all public transactions, and of which the nobles were proud, fell into contempt. The upper classes adopted German, and the burghers were obliged to learn it too, because the monks preached in the towns in German. The inhabitants of the cities began to be ashamed of their native tongue, which being retained only by the peasants, was called the peasants’ tongue.
‘High as the Bohemians had risen in literature, science and the arts, under the reigns of Maximilian and Rudolph, they now sank equally low in all these respects. I do not know of a single scholar, who after the expulsion of the Protestants distinguished himself by any learning. The university of Prague was in the hands of the Jesuits, or rather in abeyance, because the Pope had given orders to suspend all proceedings in it, and no person could receive an academical degree. Some patriots, clergymen as well as laymen, openly murmured against such a state of things, but without producing any effect whatever, whilst many others silently deplored the fall of the national literature. The greatest part of the schools of the kingdom were conducted by the Jesuits and other monks, and not much more than bad Latin was taught in them. It cannot be denied that there were amongst the Jesuits many individuals possessed of literary and scientific accomplishments, but their principle being, that the people should not be enlightened, but rather kept in darkness, they imparted to their pupils only the outward shell of knowledge, retaining the kernel for themselves; for their object was to remain in the exclusive possession of learning, and to stand in this respect superior not only to the laity, but even to other monastic communities. In order to keep the people more effectually in a state of ignorance, they went from town to town exacting from the inhabitants under the penalty of everlasting damnation, that they should shew the books in their possession. These books were examined by the Jesuits, who burnt the greater part of them, and since that time a Bohemian work is a rare book amongst us. They also endeavoured by the same means to obliterate throughout all Bohemia every trace of her ancient learning. They therefore related to their pupils, that previously to their arrival in Bohemia ignorance prevailed in the country, and carefully concealed from the people, not only the learned labours of our ancestors, but even their very names. None of what the learned and patriotic Balbin had collected and compiled about the ancient literature of Bohemia, could be published before the abolition of their order, because they took care not to communicate his manuscript to anybody.
‘The Bohemians changed then even their national dress and gradually adopted their present costume. I must also remark that since that time the history of the Bohemians ends, and that of other nations in Bohemia begins[6].’
Yet it was not the will of God to suffer the nation to perish entirely; no sooner was what seemed the deathblow given to the Czeskish language, than a reaction commenced, and the ancestral spirit began to reanimate the long prostrate corpse of the Czeskish nation. No sooner had the Emperor Joseph II.—an Emperor, however, whose memory is still cherished by the people because of the helping hand he lent to relieve them from the feudal privileges of an oppressive and unsympathizing aristocracy, and an equally tyrannizing clergy—by the ordinance of the 30th October, 1785, enjoined, that only such children as had learnt German should be permitted to frequent the Latin schools, and by that of 22nd Aug. 1789, that no children should be apprenticed to any trade, until they had spent two years at a normal school, i. e. one where German was taught,—no sooner had this home-thrust been aimed at the mother tongue of the nation, than the voice of the patriot was raised on behalf of the language of his childhood, and the studies of the philologer were directed to the investigation of the language and literature of his ancestors. As time advanced, it became more and more evident, that the civilization of the country could only be accomplished by means of the native language, partly because of an unconscious instinct in the mind of the people, which led them to distrust and reject whatever was forced upon them in the detested foreign garb, partly owing to a psychological fact, which was formerly recognized by as few, as now venture to dispute it, viz., that the mind of every nation is cast in a mould corresponding to its mother tongue. The defenders of the Bohemian language became more numerous and more earnest, the common people themselves began to waken up and take an interest in the inheritance of their forefathers, which the hand of power was endeavouring to wrest from their possession, and all this in spite of the influence of the aristocracy, in spite of the oppressive tyranny of fashion. And, gradually, members of the noblest families began to sympathize with the tillers of their ground, and to recognise their right, as men, to the education which alone could elevate or civilize them, an education conducted through the medium of their own Slavonic language; nay, some truehearted individuals applied themselves to the cultivation of the language, in which their own first words were lisped, nor have their productions been unworthy of their noble and disinterested enthusiasm[7].
It were uninteresting to the English reader to have a list of writers presented to him, with whose works and the effect of whose writings he is utterly unacquainted; I should expect him to exclaim with Pedrazzi in Tyl’s novel under similar circumstances, ‘Enough, enough of these names!’ and to wish the place supplied by information of a more practical and tangible nature. I shall therefore only just mention the impulse given to the Bohemian poetical literature by the discovery of the most ancient relics of Bohemian poetry known to be in existence, the Rukopis Kralodvorský or Queen’s-Court Manuscript[8], by the celebrated Vaclaw Hanka, at present Librarian of the National Museum at Prague, and pass on to an account of the wants and desires of the Bohemians, and how far they have succeeded in accomplishing and realizing their wishes.
‘We desire,’ said they a few years ago[9], ‘nothing else than what is our holiest possession, our dearest inheritance from our glorious forefathers, a gift—nay, command of heaven itself, and the incontrovertible right of every nation—we desire nothing else than the conservation of our language and its elevation to a position, in which it can exert itself for the earthly happiness of the nation. That is especially schools, particularly schools for that portion of the youth, which, with but little elementary knowledge, must adapt itself, like pliant twigs, to the manifold forms of life, and yet is expected at last to grow into a firm and self-dependent tree. Schools without the national language are utter waste of time, and mere places of torture. In them the child contends with the lifeless form, with the mere husk of all practical utility; the kernel he cannot attain to. Thus he squanders four, five, or even more years, and harasses himself with unfruitful blossoms, which merely straggle around the ears, but never strike root into the heart. In what position would our nation now be standing, had it come from schools, where it was addressed in the language, in which the first images would have remained impressed upon the head and heart, and which resounds around it, when it leaves the school—its mother- tongue? Can then our longing be called other than a righteous one, when we wish to gain for this language, through our love and reverence, a position, where, so to speak, an influence is exerted over the whole condition and well-being of the nation?
‘And that this longing of ours is innate within us, is evident from the fact, that nations and languages are united by the firmest bond,—that it is impossible to conceive a language without a nation, or a nation without a language. The language is the impress of the whole being of a nation; it is the store-house of its experience, the mirror of its knowledge and wisdom; it has grown from its marrow, and been watered with its blood; in it it has deposited its whole history, and its dearest memorials. Does the language begin to be corrupted, the national existence also suffers detriment; each weakening or crippling of the language is a step of the nation towards degeneracy. With each alteration of the language arises also an alteration of the nation; and were a nation to disown and fling aside its language, it must first have lost and transformed all its inborn qualities, it must with the new language have become also a new nation. Is it possible that this can ever be the case with our people?’
Experience, ranging from the year 1620 to the present day, has answered the question in the negative. It is impossible to annihilate the nationality of the Bohemians; it must be recognized and dealt with as an element of the country, and as such must enter largely into the considerations of the statesmen, whom the working of God’s Providence has called to the difficult task of arranging and reconciling the conflicting interests of the many nations of the Austrian Empire. And indeed, since the above-quoted sentiments were enunciated by Tyl in Bohemia, a great and important change has taken place. While the German was wasting his strength and blood upon a phantom, the clear-sighted Slavonian was struggling, for his language, his literature, and his civil rights. Nor is he any longer subject to the former oppression; in the school and in the university he is now at liberty to receive his education and to display his proficiency through the medium of his own native language; his cause can now be pleaded, his rights enforced in the law-courts in his own beloved mother-tongue.
That a road is thus opened for the formation of a considerable literature is evident; the Bohemians are well aware of their opportunity, and are exerting themselves to the uttermost, both in the republication of ancient, and the composition of modern works, especially through the society called the Matice Czeská[10]. What the end of these things will be, what influence will be exercised upon human, and especially upon European, civilization by the Slavonians, is known for certain to God alone; my own belief is, that Bohemia is the point of contact and mingling of the two streams of civilization, which have issued, the one from Rome, the other from Constantinople; that through her and her literature the latter will be affected, modified, strengthened, and improved by the former; that she will be the chief agent in the cultivation and moral elevation of the countless Slavonic multitudes in the east of Europe; and that finally her own glorious history will be merged in the splendours of the grand Slavonic civilization, as the bright morning-star fades away and is lost in the glowing radiance of the risen sun.
- ↑ Or rather Slovanic. The Slavonian does not call himself Slavon but Slovan, from Slovo a word, as opposed to the Niemec or non-speaker, βάρβαρος.
- ↑ To those, who are interested in the subject of general European politics, I cannot too highly recommend a careful perusal of Count Valerian Krasinski’s ‘Panslavism and Germanism.’ Several of his predictions, e.g. those respecting the Hungarian movement, have been most strikingly verified. Had the Madjars listened to his counsel, they would not now be in their present prostrate situation.
- ↑ I do not think that England could at the present time make a more acceptable or useful present to Bohemia, than a reprint of the best of the old Bohemian translations of the Bible with the new orthography. Church reform is one of the universal topics of conversation there, and the old Bohemian brethren are shewing strong symptoms of revival.
- ↑ I must here remark, that among the Bohemians, and probably the other Slavonians, it is not easy to become ‘admissus circum præcordia,’ and that the only road to the Czeskish heart is through the Czeskish language. When therefore I find even an ‘own correspondent’ from Prague in the Times speaking of ‘the Mädchen chattering most incomprehensible Slavonic at the pump,’ I at once see that his information upon certain points is questionable, and cease to notice more than the mere historical facts contained in his letter. I venture also to assert, for the sake of those interested in the study and comparison of languages, as such, that the different Slavonic dialects, as languages—I do not speak of their literature, which is still in course of development—are far more beautiful and philosophical than the German, or other modern languages at present considered necessary to a complete education.
- ↑ J. K. Tyl.
- ↑ Pelzel. Geschichte von Böhmen, p. 188, sqq. Quoted in Panslavism and Germanism, p. 159, sqq. Pelzel’s work was published in the latter part of the last century.It should also be observed, that at this time the greater portion of the old Bohemian aristocracy became extinct, many individuals suffering death upon the scaffold, and many families being driven into exile. Their places were supplied by Germans, Italians, and other foreigners, utterly unacquainted with and void of sympathy for the people, from the sweat of whose brows they drew their revenues.
- ↑ I need here only particularize Count Leo Thun and Baron Villani.
- ↑ This discovery was made 16 September, 1817. The MS. is supposed to date between the years 1290, and 1310. Several poems translated from it will be found below.
- ↑ Tyl, Poslední Czech. Vol. II. p. 29.
- ↑ The ‘Bohemian Mother.’ In this society the English nation is represented by the Bishop of St David’s and myself.