EAST EUROPEN QUARTERLY
detailed chronological progression, did not allow for the discovery of “white spots.” For this reason, the changes are limited to minute corrections of dates or errors present in the references, discovered in the course of further research. Palacký also added material and quotations from new and old Czech documents, material not included in the German text.
In the Czech version of the second part of his History, Palacký found himself in a somewhat different situation. He had finished the German original more than thirty years ago! But even this part is not different basically from its German counterpart. We find more factual additions and restyled passages, as a result of the discovery of new materials during the long time period. The longest of the reworked passages is the sixth chapter of the fourth book of the German edition, dealing with the anarchic period when the Czech lands lacked a king.
The greatest number of corrections affecting the structure of the Czech edition consists of historico-philosophical changes. These are mainly shorter or longer theoretical, historical, or philosophical considerations which Palacký incorporated in various parts of the text. The new additions form displacements in the text, caused by Palacký’s change in interpretation of the historical material, In these added contemplations, Palacký expressed and greatly exapnded his concept of history, his evaluation of individual historical events, and his personal attitude toward individual historical personages. In the German version, these historical and philosophical contemplations are latent, if they are present at all. If present, they are inserted in concise form into the surrounding text.
I believe that the principal reason why Palacký withheld these insertions until the Czech text is not only because of the impossibility of their publication in the pre-March (1848) period (even though this certainly was a very substantial reason) but because of the entire purpose of the Czech version. The latter was meant for a wide stratum of Czech readers. Palacký had no desire to present his History merely as a historical reference book dealing with past events in Czech history, but as a work which would provoke the reader’s own thoughts on the subject and encourage the formation of his own judgments and views. The reader was to be presented with a philosophy “showing him examples of how one should conduct himself in every type of situation, public and private.”
We can clearly see these changes as early as the end of the first section of book one, where Palacký deletes the long original quotation from the geo-historical study by Prof. Franz Max Zeppe, dealing with the geological history of Bohemia, and replaces it with a copious reflection on his basic concepts of Czech history. Here, one finds sentences that became an
