VI
THE BOHEMIANS AND THE SLAVIC REGENERATION
By Leo Wiener, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University[1]
BOHEMIA is the westernmost Slavic country and its fortunate geographical position between the West and the East of Europe and half-way between the Slavs of the Balkans and those of the North has in past ages determined its cultural mission, which has been that of mediating between the Latin civilization and the Poles on the one hand and the Byzantine culture and the Russians on the other. Bohemia is the keystone in the Slavic arch. Without it the proto-history of the Eastern nations in Europe has no meaning and no coherency. Unfortunately even the most profound scholars have as yet overlooked the important role which Bohemia has played in forwarding that Carolingian civilization which the
- ↑ Professor Wiener is a distinguished Slavic scholar whose latest work, “An Interpretation of the Russian People,” has just been published.
160
