PALACKÝ’S HISTORY OF THE CZECH NATION
interfere with the old word tradition, to develop a form which is acceptable to both the scholarly and the common reader.
As a result of this analysis, two questions arise: Where did Palacký attain such a superior knowledge of Czech? What was the base on which the great and still-admired edifice of his language was built?
The foundations of Palacky’s Czech were laid in the Palacký household. Palacký’s father, an Evangelical teacher, presented his five-year-old son with a book—the Bible. In his biography, Palacký reveals that the reading of the Bible always fascinated him, even though in early childhood he was unable to understand its contents and form entirely. But not only the family surroundings and Palacký’s scholarly father gave him the opportunity to discover the basis of the Czech language and its humanistic norms. The adjacent environment had an important influence, too. The Moravian countryside, whose language was the least affected by forced Germanization but whose strong tradition of linguistic creativity, songs, and customs survived, had an extraordinary effect on the gifted child.
Palacký left home to study in Slovakia. During the revivalist period, the tradition of the old Czech language of the unity of Czech Brethren lived on much more intensely in Slovakia than in Bohemia.23 Palacký’s personal contact and cooperation with several language lovers and linguists (Bakoš, Palkovič) led him to the reading of old Czech books. From this extensive reading, Palacký acquired the knowledge of the Czech language before White Mountain. He hungrily attacked the study of foreign languages and esthetic, philosophical, and other linguistic studies. He improved his Czech by translating the works of Roman and German classical authors and by his own literary experiments. After his arrival in Prague, Palacký found a new source for enrichment of his vocabulary and style in his continuous contact with old Czech documents and publications.
These diverse springs fed and unceasingly broadened Palacky’s extensive knowledge of the Czech language and his own style. In the end, they converged to form the splendid mother tongue in which the History is written, and which simultaneously marks not only the culmination but also the end of the evolution of humanistic Czech.24
Palacký’s struggle to achieve an expertise in the Czech language did not originate only in his desire to master the language. He had another purpose. The new ideas about self-determination, which came to Bratislava from German universities, had a visible effect on Palacký, who realized that the period had arrived when merely reading and speaking in Czech would not suffice. Palacký was aware of the need to transform the Czech
