Page:Bohemia under Hapsburg misrule (1915).pdf/64

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BOHEMIANS AND SLOVAKS

The famous physician, Hamerník, a pupil of the noted Škoda and Rokytanský, was removed from the university because the government suspected his political and religious views.

The publication of every Bohemian newspaper in the land was suspended, except for two or three scientific and literary magazines, and the police would have liked to destroy even those, if decent pretext could have been found for their doing so.

At one time the authorities were planning to dissolve the society of the Bohemian Museum and the Royal Society of Sciences. The discussions of these learned bodies did not seem patriotic enough from the Austrian point of view. The Matice Česká—a society for the publication of standard literature—was threatened in its existence, and only the influence of some of its prominent members saved it from the fury of the almighty police.

Pogodin, the Russian scholar, had recommended the Matice to publish the works of Hus. “God prevent,” answered Šafařík to Pogodin’s letter (1857). “Who would think of publishing books on Hus in Austria?—yes, if they were against Hus that would be simple.”

Before Krejčí’s work on geology could be published, every page, nay every line, was carefully scanned, and when that was done the manuscript