Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (64 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
BOOK: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City
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Within a week, armed citizen battalions and political clubs were forming, and when there was not sufficient initiative from below, the imperial authorities, encouraged by the emperor’s proclamation of March 15, busied themselves organizing the national guards. It was of advantage to the conservatives that the authorities incorporated the traditional town militia into the new guards, trained by retired or, later, active army officers. There were about 3,500 Czech and German men in more or less improvised uniforms, usually married and not particularly fond of being shot at by anybody (in contrast, the Vienna national guard joined the popular uprising there). The students had decided as early as March 15 to establish their own Academic Legion, following the example of their brave Viennese colleagues; at least in the beginning, it was a dashing if mixed corps of approximately 3,000 Czechs and Germans, conservative, liberal, and radical, according to faculty and academic interests. Philosophers wore green caps, students of the polytechnic blue (both with red and white stripes), and lawyers red caps with white stripes—the caps and ribbons did not exactly indicate that the lawyers were mostly German and conservative, the philosophers nationally mixed and tending to radical ideas, the medical students German, and future engineers overwhelmingly Czech and, possibly, the most belligerent of the lot. In other organizations, national interests soon emerged; from the three-hundred strong Czech-German corps Concordia, which was formed to protect
Prague’s historical monuments and ancient art treasures, a Czech unit, the Svornost (Concord), split off as early as March 18 (many of its founders had also signed the proclamation of supranational happiness three days earlier). It was supported by Slavia, a kind of political and literary club, and Slovanská Lípa (Slavic Linden Tree), founded in late April to defend the constitution, the Czech language, and a few Pan-Slavic mythological ideas. At the moment, the Prague revolution (if it could yet be called that) could count on an armed “force” of approximately 7,000 people, but the real question was how many were able and willing to fight.
Prague’s historical monuments and ancient art treasures, a Czech unit, the Svornost (Concord), split off as early as March 18 (many of its founders had also signed the proclamation of supranational happiness three days earlier). It was supported by Slavia, a kind of political and literary club, and Slovanská Lípa (Slavic Linden Tree), founded in late April to defend the constitution, the Czech language, and a few Pan-Slavic mythological ideas. At the moment, the Prague revolution (if it could yet be called that) could count on an armed “force” of approximately 7,000 people, but the real question was how many were able and willing to fight.
On Sunday, March 19, the Prague delegation took the train for Vienna (many students, eager to exercise their new constitutional rights, joined for a free ride), and on Monday they were duly received by the emperor; they submitted their petition to Count Pillersdorf, the new minister of the interior, who had been in office for only about forty-eight hours. It is difficult to say how the members of the delegations spent their days in Vienna: patriotic reports indicated that they discussed questions of mutual interest with representatives of liberal and radical opinions; other reports suggested that considerable drinking and eating were going on while the petition circulated among third-level court counselors, who prepared a rather evasive response signed by the emperor on March 23. The delegation returned, frustrated, to Prague.
Great celebrations had been prepared but they were immediately canceled in anger. People were rightly impatient, an angry protest meeting was held, with a good deal of shouting and screaming, and the St. Wenceslas Committee worked yet again on another version of the petition (no. 4), far less submissive in tone. The delegation’s second departure was delayed because of conflicts within the committee, but when the delegates got to Vienna, the situation had totally changed. Lombardy, Venetia, and Hungary were in open revolt, and Pillersdorf, newly appreciating Prague’s willingness to submit a petition to imperial authorities to seek legal redress, actually suggested submitting it in a way that could form the basis of an imperial response; the emperor signed a compromise text on April 8, and the imperial letter was carried home in triumph.
Some members of the delegation had wanted to return to Prague wearing Bohemian national dress, a painter suggested a few outlandish outfits, but only the innkeeper Faster had the courage to put on one of these ancient theatrical costumes. Vienna’s response pleased the liberals in Prague and, to some degree, the radicals too: a Bohemian diet, not the ancient Estates, was to be elected on a broad basis to deal with all pressing matters, especially that of nations and languages, and the reference to
robota
(the duty to work for the landowner) being abolished by the decree of March 28 was well received. Though the administrative unity of the ancient Bohemian crown lands had not been approved, there were good reasons to celebrate again, and Prague’s first elected mayor took office on April 9, 1848.
robota
(the duty to work for the landowner) being abolished by the decree of March 28 was well received. Though the administrative unity of the ancient Bohemian crown lands had not been approved, there were good reasons to celebrate again, and Prague’s first elected mayor took office on April 9, 1848.
It was important to consolidate constitutional authority in Prague against any attempt by the entrenched bureaucracy to sabotage the new order, and Karel Havlí
ek shrewdly suggested that the St. Wenceslas Committee, to be a truly national committee, should include sixty more noted citizens, Czechs and Germans, to constitute a representative body. Though the original members of the committee had been mostly younger people and artisans of the Repeal Club, later members included merchants, industrialists, booksellers, and—by the elections of April 10, in the last wave, as it were—many well-known Prague citizens, including the enlightened theologian Bernard Bolzano, the editor Franz Klutschak (who had been the first Prague writer to publish a golem story), František Palacký, the counts Buquoy and Deym, and all German and Czech writers who had signed the March 15 declaration of happy and equal nations. For more than two months, the National Committee bravely tried to function as a kind of local and provincial government, but centrifugal energies, and German and Czech nationalism invariably feeding upon each other, increasingly threatened Bohemian solidarity and cohesion. German radicals of the left began to look to revolutionary Germany, romantic Czechs to Pan-Slavic unity, and within a week or so of the foundation of the National Committee, Czechs and Germans had to make difficult and, as it happened, long-range decisions.
ek shrewdly suggested that the St. Wenceslas Committee, to be a truly national committee, should include sixty more noted citizens, Czechs and Germans, to constitute a representative body. Though the original members of the committee had been mostly younger people and artisans of the Repeal Club, later members included merchants, industrialists, booksellers, and—by the elections of April 10, in the last wave, as it were—many well-known Prague citizens, including the enlightened theologian Bernard Bolzano, the editor Franz Klutschak (who had been the first Prague writer to publish a golem story), František Palacký, the counts Buquoy and Deym, and all German and Czech writers who had signed the March 15 declaration of happy and equal nations. For more than two months, the National Committee bravely tried to function as a kind of local and provincial government, but centrifugal energies, and German and Czech nationalism invariably feeding upon each other, increasingly threatened Bohemian solidarity and cohesion. German radicals of the left began to look to revolutionary Germany, romantic Czechs to Pan-Slavic unity, and within a week or so of the foundation of the National Committee, Czechs and Germans had to make difficult and, as it happened, long-range decisions.In restless Germany, a gathering of five hundred notables on March 31, 1848, in Frankfurt, had prepared the grounds for a national parliament, and a subcommittee of fifty discussing election procedures had invited a few Austrians, as well as František Palacký, to join its deliberations. They assumed, rather theoretically, that the Bohemian crown lands, as part of the Hapsburg monarchy, belonged in the German Confederation (Bund) established after the fall of Napoleon and were part of the territories that once were included in the Holy Roman Empire. Articulating the consensus of his Czech compatriots, Palacký politely refused the invitation and, in a famous letter dated April 11, and first read by him personally to the members of the Prague M
št’anská Beseda before it was published in most of the major newspapers, suggested his personal, historical, and political reasons for considering it totally inappropriate to join the Frankfurt discussions. Playing the national card from the top of his deck, he declared
in a now famous phrase, “I am a Czech of Slavic origins” (
jsem
ech rodu slovanského
), and modestly added that he had dedicated himself to serving his nation. The historical questions were more complicated, he said, and though some believed that the Bohemian lands were once bound to the German empire by feudal liens (Czech chroniclers denied this), the feudal relationship had never affected Bohemia’s internal sovereignty and its autonomy of laws (
svézákonnost
). Palacký firmly believed that the aims and the intentions of the Frankfurt Assembly would endanger the independence, preservation, integrity, and consolidation (
upevn
ní
) of the Austrian monarchy and open the door to Russia, which was thirsting to become a universal monarchy ruling over the many nations along the Danube and southeastern Europe. This would be a deplorable “evil and a misfortune,” even if the universal monarchy declared itself Slavic. “If the Austrian state had not already existed for so long, it would have been in the interest of Europe, and of humanity itself, to try to create it as soon as possible—a federal society in which there were neither domineering nor submissive nations.” (Thirty years later the aging Palacký confessed that his hopes for a just and federalized Austria had been a grievous mistake.)
št’anská Beseda before it was published in most of the major newspapers, suggested his personal, historical, and political reasons for considering it totally inappropriate to join the Frankfurt discussions. Playing the national card from the top of his deck, he declaredin a now famous phrase, “I am a Czech of Slavic origins” (
jsem
ech rodu slovanského), and modestly added that he had dedicated himself to serving his nation. The historical questions were more complicated, he said, and though some believed that the Bohemian lands were once bound to the German empire by feudal liens (Czech chroniclers denied this), the feudal relationship had never affected Bohemia’s internal sovereignty and its autonomy of laws (
svézákonnost
). Palacký firmly believed that the aims and the intentions of the Frankfurt Assembly would endanger the independence, preservation, integrity, and consolidation (
upevn
ní) of the Austrian monarchy and open the door to Russia, which was thirsting to become a universal monarchy ruling over the many nations along the Danube and southeastern Europe. This would be a deplorable “evil and a misfortune,” even if the universal monarchy declared itself Slavic. “If the Austrian state had not already existed for so long, it would have been in the interest of Europe, and of humanity itself, to try to create it as soon as possible—a federal society in which there were neither domineering nor submissive nations.” (Thirty years later the aging Palacký confessed that his hopes for a just and federalized Austria had been a grievous mistake.)
Palacký’s letter to Dr. Alexander von Soiron, chair of the committee of the fifty, was far more than a personal communication. Prague’s Czechs and Germans began to divide along national lines again, the Czechs committed to developing their cultural and political life within a revitalized Austria, and many Germans, particularly those living in northern Bohemia, looking to Frankfurt and newly sporting the black, red, and gold colors of revolutionary Germany. Havlí
ek’s suggestion in his newspaper that Czech merchants hang out their shingles in Czech did not do much to strengthen Bohemian solidarity (he quickly corrected himself and recommended that the signs be in both languages), and on April 19 an anti-Czech Prague German Constitutioneller Verein (Constitutional Club) was established; it opposed the Czech majority in the National Committee, from which German members began to withdraw.
ek’s suggestion in his newspaper that Czech merchants hang out their shingles in Czech did not do much to strengthen Bohemian solidarity (he quickly corrected himself and recommended that the signs be in both languages), and on April 19 an anti-Czech Prague German Constitutioneller Verein (Constitutional Club) was established; it opposed the Czech majority in the National Committee, from which German members began to withdraw.It was not easy for the radical writers Alfred Meissner and Moritz Hartmann, who in their German poetry had praised the underprivileged and the Czech Hussite heroes, to leave the National Committee in order to support the Frankfurt Assembly. Hartmann especially, who came from a small Jewish community near Prague, long and honestly debated with himself what the choices were; it was his radical commitment, which had once prompted him to write the Hussite poem “Kelch und Schwert” (“Chalice and Sword”), that made him choose the Frankfurt Assembly,
where he took his seat on the radical left; it may have occurred to him that the national conflicts in Prague were less important than the more essential, far-reaching social actions possible in Frankfurt.
where he took his seat on the radical left; it may have occurred to him that the national conflicts in Prague were less important than the more essential, far-reaching social actions possible in Frankfurt.
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