PALACKÝ AND CZECH CULTURE
The collection of Palacký’s esthetic studies of the 1820’s became an important segment of the history of Czech scholarship and culture. This research aimed toward the formation of an independent Czech esthetics based on European philosophical and esthetic literature. Palacký understood esthetics in a broad philosophical context. Employing a psychological approach, he attempted to define beauty and to discover the laws governing the perception of the external world by the human mind. In his formulation of the rules of esthetics, Palacký stressed the active role of the perceiving subject. Palacký’s philosophical system of esthetics is composed of three basic elements: truth, benevolence, and beauty. Palacky named their synthesis božnost. He characterized this concept in his own words as the “resemblance to God or the participation of the divine nature and the reflection of God in the human being.”5 The search for truth, beauty, and benevolence is the main purpose of human existence. Palacký clearly applies idealistic philosphy to esthetics. However, he does not conceive the chosen ideas as absolute and static but attempts to portray them as dynamic and evolutionary. The older literature sees the system of Palacký as being mechanically based on the concepts of Bacon, Herder, and Kant. In fact, Palacký did not mechanically accept their theses. Studying various ideas and principles, Palacký attempted to apply them in his own system, for his own purposes, in his own creative and characteristic way.
Always pursuing the interests and the benefits of the nation and the national culture, Palacký never regarded his scholarly work as purely L’art pour l’art. He shows this even in his short articles and reports, e.g., in his review of Palkovič’s Dictionary and Sychra’s Czech Phraseology, making an effort to analyze the history of the Czech national idea with regard to the history of the Czech language, literature, and people. One cannot be surprised that for a long time Palacký was dissatisfied with the level of Czech literature, since he did not find it to have the characteristic features of a definite national culture.
After his arrival in Prague in 1823, Palacký, pondering the purposes of national culture and attempting to define his own cultural program, had to adopt a standpoint toward J. Dobrovský and J. Jungmann.6 It is impossible to emphasize sufficiently that the ideas of both Dobrovský and Jungmann, the founders of the Czech National Revival, constitute a significant part of Palacký’s program. Jungmann’s influence was decisive. Palacký recognized that Jungmann had expressed the needs and aspirations of the nation more accurately than Dobrovský.
However, Palacký’s cultural program could not be merely a synthesis of existing notions. It had to be deeper and possess a more far-reaching
