The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/John Huss anniversary

JOHN HUS ANNIVERSARY.

 

July 6 means to the Bohemians almost as much as July 4 to the Americans. On that day in the year 1415 John Hus, national hero of Bohemia, was burned at the stake in the City of Constance on the Rhine after he had been condemned as heretic by the Council of Constance. To the world at large Hus is known as a religious reformer, but by Bohemians of every belief he is admired and honored principally as the champion of the Czech people against the onslaughts of German Kultur. Not that Hus was a chauvinist. But when he was accused at the Council among other charges of having instigated the Czechs to hatred against the Germans he answered: “I have affirmed and yet affirm that Bohemians should by right have the chief place in the offices of the Kingdom of Bohemia, even as they that are Frenchborn in the Kingdom of France and the Germans in their own countries, so that Bohemians should rule their people, and Germans rule over Germans.”

After five hundred years that is still the political program of the nation of John Hus. Let Germans rule in Germany, but let Bohemians rule in Bohemia.

In Chicago the memory of John Hus will be honored at a meeting to be held on his anniversary day in the Carter H. Harrison High School. The speaker will be Dr. Harry Pratt Judson, President of the University of Chicago.