The Bohemian Sokols
but there still existed a violent break between the present and the more glorious days of old Bohemia. It was necessary that the people of Bohemia should realize their heritage, should know again the great deeds of their ancestors, should join the nineteenth century with the fifteenth and sixteenth across two centuries of unconsciousness. František Palacký re-discovered Bohemian history and through his truly monumental work made the people proud of being members of the Czech race. The bright past gave the people confidence that the future also must be full of promise. Palacký’s history, besides recalling the days of Bohemian independence, introduced also into our “awakening” the political idea, so that the forties of the ninteenth century saw the birth of a new political life, identified most closely with the name of Karel Havlíček, the martyr dear to every Czech heart.
At the close of this period of regeneration the founder of Sokols, Miroslav Tyrš, commenced his labors on behalf of his people. And while Palacký proudly said to Vienna politicians who were transforming Austria into the Dual Monarchy: “We were before Austria and we will survive it,” Tyrš, the sober philosopher, examined the substance of national organism, discussed its right to live and determined its purpose.
“All history and all nature is an eternal struggle in which everything succumbs that does not establish its right to live.” From this starting point Tyrš takes up the solution of the problem of his nation. All that lives is subject to this inexorable law of nature: Either increase and flourish, or dissappear and make room for other forms of life. This hard law makes itself felt in the history of humanity and mercilessly destroys individuals and nations, whenever they fall from their high standards and cannot keep step with others in the world arena. Tyrš remembered Rome, once the mistress of many nations, later an easy prey in its decadence for the Teuton barbarians, the physical giants of the north. Why did Rome fall from its high estate? Because the rapid growth of wealth and its concentration in the hands of a few brought about luxury, immorality, corruption and stagnation, which in their turn undermined the foundation of
