From ethnic group toward the modern
nation: the Czech case
MIROSLAV HROCH
Department of History, Faculty of Humanity Studies, Charles University,
Praha 5, 156 000, Czech Republic
ABSTRACT. Historians usually try to understand and interpret the reasons for the
successful result of national movements. Less attractive seems to be the question, why
the early `nationalists' took the decision to persuade the members of their ethnie to
accept a new national identity, i.e., why did Phase B start? The author of this article
formulated many years ago the hypothesis that this decision had to do with the identity
crisis caused by great reforms and changes which put in question the old system of
values and legitimacy, and eroded old pre-modern ties in patriarchal or late `feudal'
societies. The article tries to check this hypothesis analyzing the turn towards Phase B in
the case of Czech intellectuals (in Bohemia) at the end of the eighteenth and first decade
of the nineteenth centuries, in the time of radical enlightened reforms and of the wars
against the French Revolution. Loosening their old ties and traditional values, these
intellectuals tried to find a new identity with their nation-to-be. The author argues that
this decision was not a voluntarist mood or `nationalist' plague but that it had serious
social motivation. The same can be said about the turn of the incipient Czech national
movement towards language and literature.
The Czech national movement is generally regarded as a `success story'. The
ethnically defined Czech national identity received, during several decades of
national agitation, general acceptance from the masses of the Czech-speaking
population. This happened under the conditions of the oppressive Metternich
regime and against German cultural and social superiority. In my earlier
comparative research, it was demonstrated that this success can be explained
neither by the Herderian influence (as the traditionalist, above all German,
historians supposed), nor by the force of the idea of `nationalism' as a free-
floating actor. At least, the oft-quoted author of the concept of nation as the
product of nationalism, Ernest Gellner, proved that successful `nationalism'
had its deep historical roots in the social and cultural process labelled by him
erroneously `industrialization'. According to my earlier research, the transition
from the Phase B of national agitation to the Phase C of mass movement was
possible only under several conditions, which were independent of the wishes
of its actors, the `nationalists': firstly, strengthening social communication and
mobility; secondly, a coincidence of national demands and social (political,
cultural) interests, i.e. under conditions of a nationally relevant conflict of
Nations and Nationalism 10 (1/2), 2004, 95­107. r ASEN 2004
interests; thirdly, the pre-existing linguistic and cultural community, some-
times accompanied by a memory of old `national' statehood.
This contribution does not intend to repeat earlier published results and recall
generally known data on the transition of the national movement from Phase B
to Phase C, i.e. to the mass movement. It aims to go one step back and try to
interpret the transition from the learned Phase A dominated by nationally
`neutral' scholars to the nationally engaged, agitating Phase B. This article offers
an attempt to explain motives: why some intellectuals decided to construct a new
national identity and to propagate it among the members of their ethnic group.
Expressed in the terms used by Anthony Smith, we try to explain the decision to
transform the ethnic community into a modern nation. For good or ill, the
actors of this procedure understood themselves as protagonists and `awakeners'
of the real existing nation and they regarded the non-existence of statehood in
most cases (except the Balkans) as unimportant or as not decisive.
This turn to national agitation occurred in the Czech case (and above all in
Bohemia) in the period between 1790 and 1815, contemporaneous with similar
developments in Hungary, Norway and Greece, and much earlier than most
other European national movements.
Our analysis chooses as its point of departure a hypothesis proceeding from
social psychology that the need for a new identity has to be understood as a
result of the crisis or loss of old identities, as an answer to the dissolution of old
values and social ties, under conditions of uncertainty caused by social and
political changes and transformations. This hypothesis will be verified through
the analysis of empirical data from Czech history.
Our procedure follows three steps, answering three questions:
1. `the constants': what were the basic factors of stability under the conditions
of the old regime?
2. What changes and reforms destabilized or eroded old factors of stability?
3. `the answers': How did members of the Czech ethnic community react to
these changes?
During the second half of the eighteenth century, the way of life of the
inhabitants, their beliefs, habits and identities were formed and maintained by
several constant relations and institutions. These invariables or `constants' had
survived without significant change since the seventeenth century, in some
cases even since the Middle Ages.
The medieval Kingdom of Bohemia gradually lost its independence under
the rule of the Habsburgs, but it did not disappear: its name, its borders, its
capital Prague survived, and also some institutions, like the Landtag, Court of
Justice and even the constitution from 1627. Most aristocratic families were not
Czech by origin (they usurped the confiscated lands of Protestants, who were
expelled after their defeat in 1620), but their later members accepted an identity
with the `Lands of the Crown of Bohemia'. A new feeling of identity emerged
among many members of the nobility in opposition to the centralist policy of
Vienna and they tried to retain old privileges: the `Landespatriotismus'. As a
96 Miroslav Hroch
part of this process, the memory of old statehood of the Crown was retained.
Nevertheless, for the most part, the majority of this nobility regarded the
Austrian dynastic identity as the dominant one and many aristocrats
supported Habsburg centralism.
Since Protestantism in Bohemia had been defeated, the Catholic Church
had controlled all the religious, spiritual and cultural life in the country. Its
organization corresponded to the old political structure: Bohemia remained an
autonomous ecclesiastical unit with the archbishop in Prague as its head.
Similarly, Moravia was an archbishopric with its capital in Olomouc. The
Catholic hierarchy kept elements of the `land'-identity and some among its
members (and above all among the lower clergy) developed a Bohemian
baroque patriotism, as a positive attitude to the land, and even regarded the
Czech language as a symbol of Bohemian or Moravian individuality. The cult
of St.Vaclav (Wenzel) I as `Protector' of the Crown of Bohemia and of other
`national' saints represented an important element of this patriotism.
Naturally, the Church asserted until the middle of the eighteenth century,
beside its monopolistic control of education and all spiritual life, a privileged
position in the economy and politics.
The most expressive social constant was signified by the rigid system of
serfdom in the countryside and guilds in towns. Aristocratic domains, still
strongly influenced by their feudal origins, created the basic unit of
administration, taxation, and jurisdiction. All individuals were firmly included
into the more or less effective system of Church and state administration. This
meant that inhabitants of non-noble origin were subordinated to the state, to
the Church and to their lordships. They had no right to self-administration and
at the same time, they were the only tax-payers. Nevertheless, the inequality of
human beings, predestined by birth, was still generally accepted by all strata of
the non-privileged population as a self-evident feature of their life.
What about the ethnic constants? Since the Middle Ages, both Bohemia and
Moravia were inhabited by a majority Czech-speaking and a minority
German-speaking population. The written Czech language developed during
the fourteenth century and remained, until the seventeenth century, the official
language of administration. The new constitution of 1627 gave the German
language an equal position with Czech, but in reality German became the
dominant language in administration, the economy and cultural life. The
Czech-speaking population was aware of its language, at least, since it
remained the language of the Church. We have proof for some degree of ethnic
identity, which ­ with very few exceptions ­ did not include xenophobia or
spontaneous patriotic enthusiasm. The social structure, the `Stand', was still
decisive. An example of this was the fact that the Czech- and German-speaking
peasants participated side by side in the great peasant war in northeast
Bohemia and there is no evidence of any relevant conflict between insurgents
from these two ethnies.
In general, one could gain the impression that this society was stabilized and
based on currently accepted inequality, religious legitimacy and everyday
Toward the modern nation 97
oppression. Nevertheless, this was only on the surface. Within society,
immanent tensions and signs of crisis increased. To prevent conflicts, to
ameliorate the situation and to avoid a crisis, the enlightened absolutist rulers
initiated efforts to modernize society through reforms. These famous reforms,
introduced by the late Maria Theresa and above all by Joseph II, brought
significant changes which brought old constants into question.
Their impact can be summarized in five points:
1. The hitherto monopolistic and uncontrolled power of the Catholic Church
was limited not only by the introduction of religious tolerance and by
diminishing its intellectual control, but also by the reduction of Church
property by the state.
2. The state decreased the power of landlords, above all through the abolition
of serfdom and through increasing state control in local and state
administration.
3. The progress of jurisprudence and the reform of legislation, based on
principles of equal value of all citizens, was the first step to abolish ­ at least
in the theory ­ the inequality of classes.
4. The new concept of education and the school system tried to spread
elementary education to all and to open higher schools to all inhabitants.
5. The state administration increasingly supported the spread of enlightened
principles and scientific research, diminished the rights of censorship and
contributed to the creation of a new secular public.
All these reforms, even though not generally welcomed, influenced sooner or
later everyday experience, but their immediate importance was larger: they
demonstrated not only to the educated classes, but also to the people that the
conditions and circumstances of their life were not unchangeable and that they
could be ameliorated.
Naturally, an opposition emerged against these reforms, led above all
by a part of the nobility and by the Church hierarchy. This opposition ­
irrespective of its reactionary character ­ included a mobilizing impact: it
demonstrated a phenomenon which seemed until this time unthinkable, i.e.
public opposition against the will and the orders of the ruler and of the state
authority. The image of the inviolability of the ruler's will was impaired. All
this played a role as a factor which started to disturb old constants and old
identities.
Beside this general impact, each of the five groups of reforms included
changes which influenced ­ usually without having intended to ­ the preconditions
for the strengthening of a new national identity.
The religious tolerance brought an end to more than one hundred years of
persecution and ostracism of the Reformation tradition in Czech cultural life:
non-Catholic books written in Czech and published before the triumph of the
Counter-reformation had until this time been forbidden and destroyed and
their authors had to be forgotten as `heretics'. Only now was it possible to offer
a full picture of the history of Czech-written literature since the fifteenth
98 Miroslav Hroch
century. The religious tolerance allowed now even reprints of some important
works written by Czech non-Catholics. In this context, some new historical
sources could be published and this contributed to a better knowledge of the
country's past, understood sometimes as `national history'.
The abolition of serfdom was regarded by traditional historiography as the
starting point of the migration from the Czech-speaking countryside to the
German towns. Recent research has revised, this opinion in two respects:
firstly, the immigration from the countryside had already started before the
abolition of serfdom; secondly, the towns in the core territory of Bohemia were
ethnically not as strongly Germanized as in Moravia. Nevertheless, more
important from the point of view of identity crisis was the difference in the
experience of personal freedom between the Czech-speaking and the German-
speaking peasant. The German peasant entered a society whose official
language was similar to his local dialect. The Czech peasant entered a society
whose official language he was unable to understand. The difference in
possibility of social advancement ­ and also in the search for a new identity ­
became apparent.
The reform of jurisdiction was discussed but not finished until after 1800.
For this reason, it had a limited impact on the masses of people. Nevertheless,
the educated public, partially Czech by origin, was well informed and accepted
the principle of equality of human beings. The abolition of serfdom itself was
regarded as a great demonstration of the principles of equality, which opened
the possibility of new social relations (and identities).
The new school system was also an expression of this trend towards
equality. From the point of view of the change of identities, its impact was
ambivalent. In theory, all higher schools and the university in Prague were
open to everyone regardless of social origin. On the other hand, the replace-
ment of Latin by German as the language of instruction created a new
inequality. German native speakers and also sons from bilingually educated
families were in a more advantageous position in comparison with those who
were born in Czech-speaking families.
The elementary schools received ­ unlike all higher schools ­ the `local
language' as the language of instruction. This was an important point of
departure not only for the improvement of alphabetization, but also for
the awareness of ethnic identity. Somehow, it could also be regarded as an
important sign for the prestige of the Czech language.
While the elementary schools remained under ecclesiastical control, the
majority of higher schools became secularized: the proportion of secularized
themes increased and new scientific knowledge was allowed to enter education.
Themes from history and geography achieved an unintended importance for
the awareness of the specificity of one's own region, country, and nation.
The secularization of education together with the liberalization of
intellectual and scientific life influenced the profile of the new emerging social
strata ­ the secular `intellectuals' (or better `intelligentsia') who lived off con-
tracted work or through free professions and who became partly independent
Toward the modern nation 99
of the state and religious control, even though the degree of independence of
various professions differed from a totally loyal clerk in state service to a
relatively independent attorney or surgeon. Naturally, this new category of
educated people, without the disadvantage inherited in their birth, sometimes
had difficulties in the search for a position which would correspond to their
qualifications. It is not surprising that some of them defined a new under-
standing of social and material interests and were strongly interested in the
search for identity.
That is to say, most of these new intellectuals did not belong to any
established estate or self-conscious traditional professional group. Even those
who were originally educated as priests or friars did not regard their affiliation
to the Church as a decisive identity. Some of them identified with their
aristocratic sponsors (and with the Bohemian nobility), with a limited chance
to be accepted as members of this noble class. Some of them identified with the
modernizing centralist state, in so far as they found jobs in state services. It was
difficult for them to accept other traditional identities and so the search for a
new identity seemed `inevitable' for them.
The internal and institutional reforms of social and cultural life were only one
part of the changes that shook the traditional social relations and identities of
the old regime in the Habsburg monarchy. The other category of shocks were
external in origin, did not depend on the state policy, and came from outside.
The most famous and influential among them originated from the French
Revolution and were strengthened by the interventionist wars against it. In
these wars, the Habsburg armies played the central role and could not be
omitted in the system of communication in their Empire. Given the conditions
of Central Europe, it was impossible to introduce a total blockade of
information on the French Revolution, as was realized, with some success, in
Russia and in Spain.
Since revolutionary terms like `liberty' and `equality' could not be ignored
because they were an integral part of daily news, the governmental ideologists
tried to adopt them and use them as positive values ­ naturally, not to
announce the fall of the old regime, but on the contrary, as natural features of
this regime. `True' liberty and equality is realized not in the `falsified' sense in
France, but in the Habsburg lands. Later, the revolutionary term, `la patrie',
was adopted as `Vaterland'. On the other hand, the term `la nation' did not
become an object of dynastic revaluation ­ maybe because it was not regarded
as a danger to the stability of the old regime.
Even though the wars against revolutionary France affected the lands of the
Crown of Bohemia only marginally, the German and Czech reading public was
regularly informed about the battles and military campaigns and the `French
danger' was present, at least indirectly. The psychological and educational
impact of these reports was immense: never before had the population received
such detailed information about the war. Reports presented the war not only as
the ruler's war, but also as `our war', a war against a common enemy and this
enemy was often defined ethnically: `the French'. War reports were in some
100 Miroslav Hroch
sense an instrument of identification, but they also offered a schooling in
imagination: you never knew the consequences of military operations, of battles
won or lost ­ the only thing you could do, was to imagine the different alternatives.
Beside this, the reading public ­ and indirectly also the people ­ received
through war reports an immense amount of geographical information about
foreign countries, peoples, towns, rivers etc. Some of these names the Czech
and the German reading public had never heard of and, above all, this was a
practical training in imagination: imagining the existence of `the other', people
could imagine their own group, their own country.
Later on, especially during the Napoleonic wars, another factor of
identification was offered by military billeting and transits. For the first time,
Czech peasants and urban inhabitants met others who spoke a language
different from the usual Czech or German: French, and also the Slavic
languages, like Russian. We know from contemporary comments that the
Czech people oscillated between sympathy with soldiers who spoke a similar
language, and aversion against the parasitic demands of foreign (and not only
foreign) armies.
It is significant that all other innovations happening in the neighbour-
hood were overshadowed by the Revolution and wars. The process of
dissolution of the Old Empire received only a marginal place in newspapers
and contemporary comments. We can interpret this marginalization of the
Reich as a partial success of the efforts of the Viennese government to strengthen
the Austrian identity of both Czech and German speakers in contrast to the
identity based on the Old Empire. The events in the `Reich' were interpreted as
events which happened abroad, in foreign countries.
In the end, we have to mention some events which did not change the life and
institutions in the Empire, but mobilized the attention of the broad masses
insofar as they also influenced the search for identities. Three great political
festivities at the beginning of the 1790s played this role. Chronologically the
first was the public transfer of the Bohemian Crown Jewels to Prague from
Vienna, where they had been kept since the time of Maria Theresa. The
transportation of the Crown Jewels of the Kingdom of Bohemia was
accompanied by festive processions and meetings, where the feeling of
Landespatriotismus were demonstrated, sometimes explicitly as a reaction to
Viennese centralism.
The reason for transportation was the second festivity: the coronation of
Leopold II as king of Bohemia in 1791 and one year later ­ after his unexpected
death ­ another coronation, that of his son Franz. Both coronations were
opportunities for great ceremony not only for the nobility but also for the
people. Thousands of peasants and artisans were invited to come from the
provinces to Prague for this occasion.
While these three festivities corresponded to the traditional patterns of the
old regime, the attempt to awaken Bohemian patriotism in 1808 intended to
mobilize all strata of society, aiming to strengthen the people's will to resist an
eventual French invasion of Bohemia. As part of these patriotic activities, the
Toward the modern nation 101
old medieval Kingdom was celebrated and even the Czech Hussites were
presented as an example of bravery and of the love for fatherland. After the
defeat in 1809 patriotic agitation was stopped. Nevertheless, this short period
offered to the small group of Czech patriots an opportunity to strengthen the
arguments for, and to improve instruments and forms of, national agitation.
At least one negative experience with governmental `innovations' has to be
mentioned: the catastrophic failure and bankruptcy of state finances in 1811,
which struck almost all inhabitants of the Monarchy. The loss of savings
through the decision of the state did not provoke any larger social unrest, but it
affected the search for identities, because it urgently reminded all state subjects
that they lived in the same country and shared the same fate.
In the last part of this contribution, we ask, how did people respond to the
challenge of all these historical events? How did all these changes and
innovations influence the identity crisis and the search for new identities?
We have to resist a simplifying temptation to draw a teleological line from the
identity crisis provoked by enlightened reforms to the creation of the modern
Czech national identity. During the critical period, we distinguish several
activities based on different and mutually overlapping identities. The aristocratic
Landespatriotismus survived as an activating medium of scientific research on
history of the kingdom, its old literature and the Czech language itself.
Analogically, baroque patriotism, with strong religious affiliations, also survived
the period of enlightened absolutism, stressing the traditions of the autonomous
kingdom. Although both variants of old patriotism were based on anti-
modernist feelings, they were partially compatible with the new identity which
emerged with enlightened regional patriotism. This enlightened patriotism
regarded the patriotic individual (usually an intellectual) as responsible for the
wealth and prosperity of the region and its population: he had to improve the
situation through school education, scientific research, and cultural activities.
During the last decade of the eighteenth century, this regional patriotism,
originally intellectual, exclusive and in most cases German-writing, diverged
into several streams. One of them kept the concept of a purely economic
improvement of the country, disregarding linguistic aspects. Another
integrated into the learned activities of Landespatriotismus. The third regarded
its main responsibility as improving the cultural standard and education of
the most neglected part of the population ­ the Czech-speaking part. This
patriotism started to support Czech publishing not only on economic matters
but also on the past of Bohemia, on its heroes, on the present situation and also
descriptions of foreign countries as `other'. A specific component of these edu-
cational efforts offered to the Czech public were translations (and increasingly
also original works) of fiction, mostly `popular' reading and in some places
(above all in Prague) Czech-speaking theatre, with both translated pieces, and
pieces from the history of Bohemia. This was the environment in which some
intellectuals wrote enthusiastic `defences' of the Czech language.
The enlightened patriotic activities were in most cases written in German, as
it was the usual language of communication in the Habsburg monarchy at the
102 Miroslav Hroch
end of the eighteenth century. The minority of Czech-writing enlightened
patriots demonstrated that they accepted ­ beside a regional and professional
identity ­ some kind of ethnic identity. Nevertheless, the use of Czech language
was also compatible with baroque patriotism and eventually also with
aristocratic Landespatriotismus. In spite of this overlapping of identities, they
evidently differed in their social background. The Czech-writing patriotism of
that time could hardly count on material or moral support from the ruling
elites. The Czech-writing engagement could, in other words, bring no profits to
the patriots. Some degree of selfless enthusiasm was a necessary precondition
of this branch of patriotism and the activists could at best earn their reward in
the immaterial field of prestige.
However, this patriotic attitude expressed the heritage of the basic moral
principles of enlightened patriotism: self-denying and active love for the
fatherland without regard to any material profit. Prestige was then regarded as
some kind of moral, spiritual substitute for profit. Symptomatically
formulated on the threshold of the nineteenth century by Bernard Bolzano,
Professor in Moral Philosophy at the University in Prague, was a concept of
regional patriotism, where the enlightenment and religious traditions were
combined: patriotism was an expression of Christian charity imposed upon the
people by God. In his understanding, all kinds of patriotic activities were fully
in accord with religious moral principles.
Beside this combination of the enlightened and baroque patriotic traditions,
another combination emerged at the very same time, Austrian state-patriotism,
proposed in the above mentioned crisis year of 1808. The love for the
fatherland was presented as an integral part of the love for the Emperor, who
was presented as `father' of his subjects. The official propaganda offered a
twofold identity: the broader one with the Emperor and his Empire, the
narrower one with the concrete historical Land. The new identity, offered by
official Austrian state-patriotism, was accepted as a central one by a very small
stratum of the state bureaucracy in Bohemia and partly among aristocrats.
Nevertheless it was immanently or explicitly accepted also by the broader
masses of population but not as their central identity.
For those patriotic intellectuals who tried to define their `national' or
regional identity in a new way, one central question had to be answered: how to
define and describe the fatherland, `patria', as an object of care and love?
Where is the homeland of one's fellow-countrymen? Three answers can be
distinguished at the threshold of the nineteenth century, corresponding to
different types of old patriotism and to their modified versions.
The surviving concept of regional patriotism was related to a region, defined
by political (or historical) borders, without regard to its internal structure and
also without regard to the ethnic borders. Ethnic identities of the inhabitants
were respected as a specific feature of the region. This old concept implied some
overlapping with Landespatriotismus and with baroque patriotism and its
linguistic or ethnic `neutrality' meant that German was its basic language of
communication and that its impact was limited and acceptable above all for
Toward the modern nation 103
German-speaking enlightened elites, while the Czech-speaking population
remained almost untouched.
Those intellectuals, ethnic Czechs by origin, who felt responsible to their
ethnic countrymen, defined the `patria' in a different way. The most important
among them, Josef Jungmann, defined the fatherland (for the first time in 1806)
as a territory, where people speak the same language, `my' language. In this
context, they used as synonym of fatherland the term `narod' ­ nation. This
term was not a neologism invented by them, but an old term used in the Czech
language since the sixteenth century and understood at least since the
seventeenth century as a community characterized by common history, living
place and also by common language.
The third concept of fatherland was formulated at the same time by
Professor Bolzano as a vision of one nation comprising all the inhabitants of
Bohemia, who would be able to use or understand both Czech and German, i.e.
a bilingual society. This vision seems to be very up-to-date, even fashionable
today; nevertheless, the future proved, very soon, that it was only a utopian
vision. Even if Bolzano was in his time more popular (above all among students)
and influential than Jungmann, it was not his, but Jungmann's vision, which
was accepted by young educated men in their search for a new group identity.
If we ask why this linguistic concept of national identity became the most
attractive one, we have to take into account that these newly educated
intellectuals and students proceeded from the lower middle classes; they were
sons of artisans, small shopkeepers and peasants. Most of them kept in contact
with their families and the localities where they were born, and were well aware
about their way of life and about the impact of enlightened reforms.
The Czech-speaking artisan or peasant was, thanks to these reforms,
personally free and regarded as an equal human being, he was often wealthy
enough to acquire some degree of self-consciousness and for this reason he
realized a humiliating fact, which was not relevant for his parents or grand
parents: that he was excluded from the new emerging society of `equals'
because the language he spoke was rejected by this society as inferior. As long
as the horizon of Czech-speakers was limited by the feudal estate, this inferior
status of his language played no important role: the only linguistic difference he
experienced as `naturally' inferior to him was that in relation to the German-
speaking landlord and his servants. As soon as he or his son overstepped the
bounds of the local estate, he experienced his Czech ethnicity as a handicap or
even as a source of humiliation. `We are foreigners in our own land',
commented one educated peasant as early as the 1780s.
It is evident that among those who experienced this inequality were
young sons who started on the difficult process of achieving higher education.
Even though they were personally able to learn German sooner or later, the
only language of education, they were not able to achieve better social
positions and jobs. This feeling of injustice provoked in some of them a need
for total assimilation, but another reaction became increasingly frequent: the
decision to struggle for linguistic equality in Bohemia, i.e., to accept and
104 Miroslav Hroch
support the ethnic concept of national identity and of the nation, proposed by
Jungmann.
The traditional historians regard this programme as Herderian and
`romanticist' ­ and for the same reason, some social scientists denounce it.
Naturally, Herder played an important role as inspiration and as a source of
arguments and similarly, German Romanticism was welcomed by Jungmann
as validation of his concept, which was, however, formulated and written
earlier than the famous `Reden' of Fichte and the pamphlets of Ludwig Jahn.
There is no doubt that there were also emotional motifs behind the decision
to accept an ethnic national identity. The `irrational' love for language was
derived from the more understandable love for his countrymen, for those
inhabitants of the country he felt identity with. In this respect, Jungmann's
proposals represents rather the heritage of enlightened patriotism than the
influence of `romanticism'.
Very soon, this ethno-national identity started to diverge into a moderate
and a consistent stream. The moderate patriots regarded the Czech language as
a loved symbol of community, they enjoyed using and developing it, but they
regarded the demands for its equality with German as utopian and even as
unnecessary. To adore the Czech language and to be proud of Czech national
history did not negate their pessimisim concerning the chance of the Czech
language becoming a modern written language. For this reason, German had
to maintain its domination in Bohemia.
The consistent stream aimed to achieve a real and not just formal equality
between both languages. Sooner or later, the Czech language had to be able to
express all modern feelings and thoughts and to describe complicated
connections. For this reason, it had to be accepted as a language of instruction
in schools and as a language of communication in public life. Even if this vision
seemed to be a utopian one in the eyes of contemporaries, these claims cannot
be interpreted as a mere project of romanticism. Neither can they be explained
as a tool in the struggle for political power, as was the case a century later.
The interpretation has to take into account that the enlightened concept of
equal human beings was later accompanied by the proto-liberal concept of
equal opportunities for every man. These principles, however, could not be
fulfilled ­ at least according to the opinion of these patriots ­ under conditions
of differential prestige and unequal possibilities of different languages. So far,
the decision to embrace the linguistic national identity had not been very far
from the emerging ideas of civil society and equality of its members.
Additionally, the struggle for equality of languages (and their speakers) has
something to do with the need for prestige and acknowledgement felt by the
Czech-speaking intellectuals.
For a better understanding of this attitude, let us exemplify it by comparing
the arguments used in favor of the Czech language by enlightened patriots in
their `Defences' from the 1780s and 1790s, with the arguments used by Jungmann
in favour of the Czech language in 1806. In the eighteenth century Defences the
Czech language was celebrated above all for its beauty, rich vocabulary and its
Toward the modern nation 105
age (as a language spoken by medieval Czech kings, etc.). Its practical use was
recommended to the elites of that time: the landlord needs it for better
understanding of his (Czech) servants or serfs, the officer can better understand
his soldiers, the surgeon his patients. The general position of these Defences was a
call addressed from below to the higher classes of Bohemian society.
Jungmann also praised historical and aesthetic values of the Czech language,
but his most important argument was that it was above all the Czech people who
needed the improvement of their language. It was not important to him which
language was used by the nobility; what was important was that the Czech
speaker, if he did not know German, had no chance for any social advancement.
The search for new identities proceeded in Bohemia at the time around 1800
in different ways and offered different identities. Naturally, it was always a
matter of individual decision, which alternative was preferred, or how the
hierarchy of old and new identities was constructed. To avoid the criticism of
being under the influence of the concepts of `teleolology' and `ethnicism', let us
put the concluding question, concerning the chances of different alternatives to
be realized as the generally accepted modern national identity.
The non-ethnic regional patriotism kept its position as an identity accepted
by German-speaking and bilingual intellectuals for several decades. Never-
theless, since it did not aim at any mass-mobilization, it was unable to compete
with other identities, but could survive as a marginal identity in connection with
another one. The same could be said about regional identity as a component of
a national one, even though the regionalists tried to mobilize the population.
So, for example, the Moravian regionalists opposed, until the second half of the
nineteenth century, full integration into the Czech nation with the result that
the national identity of the Moravian population existed alongside the regional
identity not as an alternative but as an additional identity.
The alternative of the `Bohemian' bilingual nation had a real chance
of success only if accepted not only by Czech but also German speakers.
Czechs, so far as they achieved higher education, fulfilled the claim for
bilinguality, but only a few Germans by origin did the same by learning the
Czech language so as to become consciously bilingual `Bohemians'. Never-
theless, with the emerging national movement in German states, an increasing
number of German intellectuals in Bohemia decided to accept the linguistic
concept of German identity and regarded themselves as members of the
German nation. This decision was for the first time demonstrated in 1848 in
the dispute about participation in elections for the parliament in Frankfurt.
Once this decision was taken, a bilingual nation in Bohemia ceased to be an
alternative.
The old surviving Landespatriotismus also rejected Frankfurt and German
identity, but it was socially exclusive and its aristocratic representatives only in
very few exceptional cases supported the efforts to improve the Czech language
as an integral part of their identity with the land. The decisive part of the
nobility did not renege on their German language ­ not as a symbol of their
national identity but as a symbol of their social superiority.
106 Miroslav Hroch
Consequently, the linguistic definition of a new national identity in Bohemia
was the victorious alternative, because it was the only real way, which could
integrate an intellectual patriotism with the Czech- (but also with the German-)
speaking population. This does not mean that this population inevitably
followed the `national' call. Only if several conditions were fulfilled, could the
real possibility of Phase B turn to the reality of Phase C. This is, nevertheless,
already another problem.
Bibliographical note
English historians writing on the Czech national movement were mostly interested in the period of
political conflicts, but there are very few contributions to its initial phase. The best analysis is that of
Hugh LeCaine Agnew, Origins of the Czech National Renascence, University of Pittsburg Press
(1993) (with a rich bibliography). Among earlier authors, relevant is Robert Joseph Kerner,
Bohemia in the Eighteenth Century. A Study in Political, Economic, and Social History with Special
Reference to the Reign of Leopold II., 1790­1792, New York: Macmillan, 1932. More specialized is
Janet Wolf Berls, The elementary school reforms of Maria Theresia and Joseph II in Bohemia, PhD.
diss. Columbia University (1975); Paul P. Bernard, Jesuits and Jacobins: Enlightement and
enlightened despotism in Austria, Urbana, Chicago 2nd London, University of Illinois Press, 1971;
Joseph F. Zacek, `The French revolution, Napoleon and the Czechs' in Proceedings of the
Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750­1850, Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University
Press, 1980, pp. 254­63. The same author gave a general view of this period in `Nationalism in
Czechoslovakia', in Peter F. Sugar and Ivo John Lederer, Nationalism in Eastern Europe, 3rd ed.
(1994), pp. 166ff. For the linguistic aspect, see George Thomas, Linguistic Purism, London: New
York (1991).
Toward the modern nation 107