Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1648–1867)
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States of the Holy Roman Empire (until 1806),Latin | |||||||||
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History of the Czech lands |
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Czech Republic portal |
The
The Dark Age (1648–1740)
After the
Ottoman Turks and Tatars invaded Moravia in 1663,[1] taking 12,000 slaves.[2] In 1664 Habsburg armies under command of Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches attacked the Ottomans, conquered Nitra and Levice and freed some of the captive Moravians. When general Montecuccoli's army won the Battle of Saint Gotthard, the Turks signed Peace of Vasvár, which would last 20 years.[3]
In 1683, Leopold I (1656–1705) defeated the Turks and paved the way for the restoration of the Kingdom of Hungary to its previous territorial dimensions. The brief reign of Joseph I (1705–1711) was followed by that of Charles VI (1711–1740). Between 1720 and 1725, Charles concluded a series of treaties by which the various estates of the Habsburg lands recognized the unity of the territory under Habsburg rule and accepted hereditary Habsburg succession, including the female line.
Enlightened absolutism (1740–1815)
The reigns of
Maria-Theresa's accession to the Habsburg lands was challenged by the territorial aspirations of the increasingly powerful
.In attempting to make administration more rational, Maria-Theresa embarked on a policy of centralization and bureaucratization. What remained of the Bohemian Kingdom was now merged into the Austrian provinces of the Habsburg realm. The two separate chancelleries were abolished and replaced by a joint Austro-Bohemian chancellery. The Czech estates were stripped of the last remnants of their political power, and their functions were assumed by imperial civil servants appointed by the queen. The provinces of the Czech and Austrian territories were subdivided into administrative districts. German became the official language.
Further reforms introduced by Maria-Theresa and Joseph II reflected such Enlightenment principles as the dissolution of feudal social structures and the curtailment of power of the Catholic Church. Maria-Theresa nationalized and
The enlightened rule of Maria-Theresa and Joseph II played a leading role in the development of a modern Czech nation, but one that was full of contradictions. On the one hand, the policy of centralization whittled down further any vestiges of a separate
But in response to pressures from the nobility, Joseph's successor,
Enlightened rule destroyed the few remaining vestiges of the Bohemian Kingdom. The dismantling of Bohemian institutions and the dominance of the German language seemed to threaten the very existence of the Czech nation. Yet, enlightened rule also provided new educational and economic opportunities for the Czech people. Inadvertently, the enlightened monarchs helped set the stage for a Czech national revival.
Czech National Revival
The first half of the nineteenth century was a period of nationalistic awakening in Central Europe. German nationalism — sparked by confrontation with the armies of the French revolutionaries — and Napoleonic expansionism inspired corresponding efforts toward national revival among the subject Slavic peoples. The concept of the "nation," defined as a people united by linguistic and cultural affinities, produced an intellectual revival that laid the foundation for a subsequent struggle for political autonomy.
In Bohemia, where the nobility was largely German or Germanized, the leaders of the Czech revival were members of the new intelligentsia, which had its origin in peasant stock. Only a small part of the nobility lent the revival support.
The earliest phase of the national movement was philological. Scholars attempted to record and codify native languages. A chair for Czech language and literature was established at
The Czech revival acquired an institutional foundation with the establishment of the Museum of the Bohemian Kingdom (1818) as a center for Czech scholarship. In 1827 the museum began publication of a journal that became the first continuous voice of Czech nationalism. In 1830 the museum absorbed the Matice česká, a society of Czech intellectuals devoted to the publication of scholarly and popular books. The museum membership, composed of patriotic scholars and nobles, worked to establish contacts with other Slavic peoples and to make Prague the intellectual and scholarly capital of the Slavs.
The major figure of the Czech revival was
The 1848 Revolution
The French Revolution of 1848 precipitated a succession of liberal and national revolts against autocratic governments. Revolutionary disturbances pervaded the territories of the Austrian Empire, and Emperor Ferdinand I (1835–1848) promised to reorganize the empire on a constitutional, parliamentary basis.
In the Bohemian Kingdom, a national committee was formed that included Germans and Czechs. But Bohemian Germans favored creating a
National revival for the Czechs had been begun by small groups of intellectuals. At first, the national movements were confined to discussion of language, literature, and culture. But during the revolutions of 1848, the Czechs made bold political demands. The revolutions of 1848 also revealed that the German liberals, who were opposed to Habsburg absolutism, were equally hostile to Czech national aspirations. It had become clear that the Czech national movements had to contend not only with Habsburg absolutism but also with increasingly virulent German nationalism.
In the end, the 1848 Revolution was crushed by the Austrian imperial forces, aided by a Russian military intervention to restore the Habsburg monarchy on the Danube. The Empire had turned into a military dictatorship in order to preserve itself, and prevent any parts of it from seceding.
Austrian military dictatorship (1848–1867)
After the revolutions of 1848,
Next, the Habsburgs suffered a series of military defeats. In 1859, they were driven out of
See also
- Kingdom of Bohemia
- Habsburg Bohemia
- History of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1526-1648)
- History of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1867–1918)
- Czech lands under Habsburg rule
- German Confederation
- Ausgleich
- Austrian Empire
References
- ISBN 978-1-4021-7772-9.
- ^ Lánové rejstříky (1656–1711) Archived 2012-03-12 at the Wayback Machine (in Czech)
- ^ F. Čapka, Dějiny zemí Koruny české v datech (in Czech)
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Country Studies. Federal Research Division.