PALACKÝ AND CZECH POLITICS AFTER 1876
(lidové) currents in Czech politics as free intellectual inquiry, universal suffrage, extended civil rights, and social reform.20
Given Masaryk’s close identification with Palacký, the founders and leaders of the first Czechoslovak Republic generally emphasized the extent to which Palacký had resurrected a glorious past for the Czechs that, in turn, inspired confidence and offered guidance and consolation. Though Palacký advocated neither democracy in politics nor Czechoslovak independence, he could in word and deed be regarded as a progenitor of the First Republic. By emphasizing that history is primarily that of peoples and not of dynasties or states, he had begun the moral and intellectual emancipation of the Czechs from Habsburg domination. By working to establish and strengthen institutions of self-government in communes, districts, and provinces, he had helped initiate the gradual political liberation of his people from alien aristocratic and dynastic rule. By identifying the “contact and conflict” (stykání a tykání) between Czechs and Germans as the overriding theme of Czech history, he encouraged the Czechs to rid themselves of German cultural and political domination without abandoning those benefits that association with Germans might provide. By stressing the advantages of political and religious tolerance, he urged the Czechs to restrain national chauvinism and intolerance that could only be counterproductive. By insisting that historical scholarship be honest and based on fact, he had indirectly helped stimulate critical evaluation of politics and society. Finally, his advocacy of free, universal, and secular education and of every citizen’s responsibility for advancing individual and national welfare had helped promote informed and responsible citizenship.21
Czechoslovak Marxist scholars have also recognized much in Palacký that is timeless or even positive in the Marxist sense of the word, especially his profound understanding of history and the continuity between past and present. Like earlier generations of politicians and scholars, most admire Palacký’s perserverance, hard work, and dedication to certain ideals, however mistaken some may appear in retrospect. But few contemporary Czechoslovak Marxist scholars can without reservation regard Palacký as a “progressive” historical figure. Deservedly criticized is his having become willy-nilly if not deliberately a spokesman for the interests of an upper middle class elite or having at times confused such interests with those of the nation as a whole. Equally, if not more problematic for Czechoslovak Marxist scholars is the paramount place of religious ideals or morality in Palacký’s political outlook and sense of Czech historical development. Masaryk’s politics and interpretation of Palacký remain
