Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/384

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JUNGMANN

367

of the Church of Rome. Kollar had sent some sonnets, that were afterwards printed in his Daughter of Slava, to Jungmann for the purpose of submitting them to the censors. Jungmann writes in answer: "The poems confided to me I should be glad to get published, but the censure suppresses everything. . . . Those beautiful (O most beautiful) parts of your poem which refer to Sldva I cannot even present to the censors without much danger to the good cause " {i.e. the revival of the Bohemian language). "The other part also it will hardly be possible to publish. The other day Ziegler^ complained that the censor had struck out thirty sheets from his writings, even love-songs set to music. We must touch neither Eros nor politics ; such are the orders and commands of the censure." Jungmann's letters to Marek, written in a very familiar manner, also give an interesting insight into the lives and thoughts of the little group of Bohemian literary men ; they show their intense devotion to the national language, their firm belief in the solidarity of the Slavic races, which was intensified by the Russian victories over Napoleon, their heartfelt delight when one of the then almost Germanised Bohemian nobles appeared to be favourable to the national cause, their dissatisfaction with the Government of Vienna, which always regarded To the last-named subject Jungthem with suspicion. mann refers in some of his earliest letters to Marek. Writing on May 29, 1809, he says : "On me truly falls every burden of human life. On one hand the malice of neighbours, magistrates, school directors, vintagers ' A minor Bohemian writer of the period.

Though Ziegler was of theology, love is the subject of some of his songs.

a professor