Every cent of this money has been donated by the Bohemian people in order to give their children an education in the mother tongue.
THE ORIGIN OF AUSTRIA
Austria as a great power,” said Rieger,[1] in a speech delivered in parliament in 1861, “dates back only to the days when the Bohemian Crown and the Hungarian Crown united with Austria. We Bohemians raised it to the dignity of a state of the first magnitude when, by a free election, our diet summoned, on October 23, 1526,[2] Ferdinand I, to the sovereign throne of our kingdom. Our action was followed on November 26th of that year by the Hungarians, who placed the crown of their country on the head of this Hapsburg. From that time on Austria, composed of three states in one, started on its career of a world power. The three units were the basis, the origin, the rise of the Austrian Empire. All else is really the result of accident. Eastern Galicia has
- ↑ Francis L. Rieger (1818–1903), a lawyer, writer, economist, and stalesman, was, despite his German name, an uncompromising patriot who had spent his whole life in the service of his nation. Modern Bohemia without Rieger is unthinkable. His name is written large on every page of his country’s history. As a leader of the Old Bohemian party he naturally played a prominent role in the fight for the historical rehabilitation of the Bohemian Kingdom. Having married the daughter of Francis Palacky, the “Father of the Nation,” he was nicknamed by his political adversaries, “Son-in-law of the Nation.”
- ↑ Ferdinand, however, took his oath of office January 30, 1527.
