nearly 600,000 inhabitants, of whom only about 17,000 are Germans. When, in 1844, Archduke Stephen came to Prague and the citizens arranged a torch procession in his honor, the police were scandalized to hear, mingling with the customary Vivat,” shouts in Bohemian, “Sláva!”
Authors and newspaper writers were objects of unbounded curiosity. Malý, already quoted, relates the following: “Walking in the streets of Prague, I often noticed people pointing at me and saying: ‘Das ist auch einer von den Vlastenzen’ (Here goes another of those patriots), or ‘Das ist ein gewaltiger Czeche’ (There is a thorough Čech for you). During my stay in southern Bohemia in 1838, the innkeeper of a tavern which I frequented evenings had surely no reason to regret my patronage, for people would come primarily to have a peep at me.”
In the biography of Palacký[1] we read an account
- ↑ Francis Palacký (1798–1876), historian, revivalist, and statesman, is, by common consent, regarded as the greatest Bohemian of our time. His monumental work, “History of the Bohemian Nation,” of which he labored some thirty years, will endure as long as the Bohemian language continues to be spoken. There was a time when not only the outside world, but Bohemians themselves, believed that the old-time Bohemians of the stormy days of Hus or those who revoited against Ferdinand II, were a band of heretics and rebels. Such has been the official Austrian version of these events in Bohemia. However, the truth could not be suppressed for all time. Palacký and others were being born, and in time the alluvium of Austrian bigotry and of falsehood was removed from the nation’s past, and to the astonished gaze of Resurrected Bohemia was revealed a glorious history of which descendants could be justly proud. Great men, national heroes, hitherto unknown or misunderstood, emerged from almost every chapter of Palacký’s work.
