Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (65 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
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At the beginning of May, a small Frankfurt delegation, including Ignaz Kuranda, a German nationalist from a Prague Jewish family, arrived in Prague to proselytize among the Germans and to work with the Constitutioneller Verein to prepare elections on the local level. On May 3, a joint meeting of the delegation and the Verein was violently broken up by Czech nationalists, and the date may be symbolic as a signal of the end of the short-lived revolutionary solidarity of the two nations, so promisingly demonstrated in early March. It was a perturbing spring; the working people again went on a rampage against bakeries and Jewish shops, attacking their owners. In the elections for the Frankfurt Assembly, first opposed and then tolerated by the government, on May 23 and 24, after all these many discussions only a handful of citizens cast their votes for Frankfurt; in only nineteen districts, of sixty-eight in Bohemia, did people bother to vote. There was much to fear: Vienna was in open revolt against the emperor, who had escaped the wrath of Viennese radicals, all committed to Frankfurt, and gone to Innsbruck, in the Tyrol. Those who abstained from voting may have believed that Bohemia’s problems were at least their own, and the majority of Prague German nonvoters probably did not want any threatening changes anymore.
By that time, preparations to challenge the Frankfurt Assembly by a representative gathering of Slav people were energetically proceeding in Prague. Many Slav students and politicians in Vienna wanted to come, as well as many of their colleagues and friends in Bohemia, Poland, Slovenia, and Croatia. The first newspaper article to suggest a countermeeting to Frankfurt appeared in a Croatian newspaper in Zagreb and was immediately reprinted in Prague. On April 20 a private meeting of Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles in the Prague apartment of the philologist Jan Erazim Vocel, and later that day another meeting at the Prague Czech Citizens’ Club resulted in the appointment of a preparatory committee, including František Palacký, the lawyer F. L. Rieger (later the commanding figure of Czech parliamentary politics in Vienna), three nobles, and a number of writers and librarians; the chairmanship was offered to the Bohemian patriot Count Josef Matthias (Matyáš) Thun, who accepted the honor only to absent himself quickly from the deliberations (he was later investigated by a counterrevolutionary military commission). Invitations were issued in eight languages, including French and German, and an announcement accompanying the invitations spoke of the dangers of an
Anschluss
to
Germany, which would threaten not only the integrity of Austria but also the “cohesion of the Slavic nations.” All were invited to come to “ancient Slavic Czech” Prague to defend their national aspirations; even Slavs from outside the Austrian orbit would be welcomed as honored guests (this was soon a matter of dispute).
Anschluss
to
Germany, which would threaten not only the integrity of Austria but also the “cohesion of the Slavic nations.” All were invited to come to “ancient Slavic Czech” Prague to defend their national aspirations; even Slavs from outside the Austrian orbit would be welcomed as honored guests (this was soon a matter of dispute).
On June 2, the Slav Congress was opened, Palacký chosen to preside, and immediately three working sections were constituted to deal with fundamental questions, a Czech-Slovak group (237 in number), a Polish-Ruthenian one (61 delegates), and one for the South Slavs, including Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Dalmatians (41). Most of the delegates had come via the new railways, and their number fluctuated a little day by day; officially there were at least 340, mostly professors and intellectuals, in analogy to Frankfurt, but also thirty-five nobles, among them a Polish prince, and sixteen clergymen. Delegates of the Russian people were, officially, absent (the roving revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin came on his own), and Montenegrins, Bulgarians, and Lusatians were missing as well. In Germany, Friedrich Engels ridiculed the meeting, and most German newspapers attacked the congress as “Russist”—in spite of the congress’s assurances that it was above all concerned with transforming Austria into a federal state (
spolkový stát
) to give equal opportunity to all its nationalities. Palacký did not have an easy time keeping all the different Slavic ideas and aims, within and without Austria, under the Austro-Slav hat, or responding to those critics who pointed out that many guests, among them Bakunin and a few Poles from Russian territory, had been appointed to official congress functions.
spolkový stát
) to give equal opportunity to all its nationalities. Palacký did not have an easy time keeping all the different Slavic ideas and aims, within and without Austria, under the Austro-Slav hat, or responding to those critics who pointed out that many guests, among them Bakunin and a few Poles from Russian territory, had been appointed to official congress functions.
Palacký’s idea of a Slavic role in a federalized Austria was shared by most of his Czech friends, including Karel Havlí
ek, who wanted the Slavs more equal than others by virtue of their numbers. The Slovak L’udovít Štúr was dissatisfied with Palacký’s professional abstractions and his silence about Slovak vicissitudes under Magyar rule; the Ukrainians were angry with the Poles and vice versa; and the Poles insisted on an independent Poland again and had little patience with any solutions keeping the Austrian monarchy intact. Palacký’s real adversary was the Polish philosopher Karol Libelt (a guest from Pozna
, yet a member of the Polish-Ruthenian section), who had studied Spinoza and Hegel in Berlin, fought in the Polish uprising against Russia in 1830, served time in Prussian prisons, and, more recently, lived in Paris in exile, and possibly knew more about the intellectual situation in Western Europe than Palacký, who was constrained to learn about the outside world in the pages of the
Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.
Libelt was a Catholic philosopher
and a socialist, arguing that the Slav sense of community came from their old communes of sharing, and publicly insisted on the restored integrity of Poland, against Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The Slav meeting wisely declared that countries in which two or three “nations” were living together should not be broken up according to ethnic norms, yet there was not sufficient time to ponder all the suggestions. At last, Palacký was able to read a “Manifesto to the European Nations,” edited from his own texts and from competing versions by Libelt, Bakunin, and others. Rather than reveal disunity among the delegates, he preferred to be, on that occasion, a dubious historian, going back to Herder’s romantic celebration of the peaceful Slavs who “since time immemorial had been on the side of the law and had rejected and held in contempt every domination by mere force.” On June 12, however, all hell broke loose in the Prague streets, the congress was hastily adjourned, and the more radical among its younger members left the conference hall and went straight to the barricades.
ek, who wanted the Slavs more equal than others by virtue of their numbers. The Slovak L’udovít Štúr was dissatisfied with Palacký’s professional abstractions and his silence about Slovak vicissitudes under Magyar rule; the Ukrainians were angry with the Poles and vice versa; and the Poles insisted on an independent Poland again and had little patience with any solutions keeping the Austrian monarchy intact. Palacký’s real adversary was the Polish philosopher Karol Libelt (a guest from Pozna, yet a member of the Polish-Ruthenian section), who had studied Spinoza and Hegel in Berlin, fought in the Polish uprising against Russia in 1830, served time in Prussian prisons, and, more recently, lived in Paris in exile, and possibly knew more about the intellectual situation in Western Europe than Palacký, who was constrained to learn about the outside world in the pages of theAugsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.
Libelt was a Catholic philosopher
and a socialist, arguing that the Slav sense of community came from their old communes of sharing, and publicly insisted on the restored integrity of Poland, against Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The Slav meeting wisely declared that countries in which two or three “nations” were living together should not be broken up according to ethnic norms, yet there was not sufficient time to ponder all the suggestions. At last, Palacký was able to read a “Manifesto to the European Nations,” edited from his own texts and from competing versions by Libelt, Bakunin, and others. Rather than reveal disunity among the delegates, he preferred to be, on that occasion, a dubious historian, going back to Herder’s romantic celebration of the peaceful Slavs who “since time immemorial had been on the side of the law and had rejected and held in contempt every domination by mere force.” On June 12, however, all hell broke loose in the Prague streets, the congress was hastily adjourned, and the more radical among its younger members left the conference hall and went straight to the barricades.
While the philologists and scholars had made preparations for the congress, riots and demonstrations had continued in the streets. On May 1 and 2, the Jewish neighborhoods were once again invaded by mobs on a rampage, but the national guard and army intervened only when the working people attacked the bakeries; demonstrations and strikes of the cotton printers and textile workers promptly followed. Reasonable people were appalled when they heard that Alfred Prince Windischgrätz, odious to so many after having ruthlessly smashed the workers’ demonstrations in 1844, was promoted to commander in chief of Bohemia’s armed forces, and when he arrived in Prague on May 20, he did not hesitate long to show his iron fist. He shifted troops from provincial Bohemian garrisons to Prague, held a grand parade in the suburb of Karlin (to provoke the proletariat), and had his soldiers patrol the streets day and night. The National Committee, by now entirely Czech, asked that Windischgrätz be replaced; public protest meetings were held, increasingly dominated by the radical Repeal Club people again, but Windischgrätz grimly refused to hear their delegates. On Sunday, June 11, a red poster appeared in the Old Town to protest the army presence, and on Whitsun Monday, instead of another public meeting, a festive mass was planned to be celebrated in the Horse Market (later Wenceslas Square) as a gesture of civic solidarity. It was organized by the students; in columns streaming through the center of Prague came young girls in white, matrons in national costumes, writers in dark suits, and people in their Sunday best. A priest of liberal sympathies was the celebrant, and by noon the people quietly marched
down the square to salute Petr Faster at his Golden Goose. Then shouts were heard that people should march en masse to the army high command on Celetná Street.
down the square to salute Petr Faster at his Golden Goose. Then shouts were heard that people should march en masse to the army high command on Celetná Street.
On the squares and streets close to the army headquarters, the situation was tense and confused. Two columns of demonstrators marched to Celetná Street, where a change of guard was just underway; when a company of grenadiers from the nearby barracks arrived, the demonstrators and soldiers moved off in almost an elaborate dance to avoid a showdown. Then, unfortunately, the crowds caught sight of Windischgrätz himself, who was accompanying a delegation of conservative Germans to the portal of the building, the mood turned ugly, and the grenadiers were ordered to load their guns. The first shots were fired near the headquarters, and fighting rapidly spread to the student-occupied Carolinum, to the Old Town Square, and to other places on the way from the center of Prague to the bridges. Barricades went up quickly, and though the army took the Carolinum, floor by floor, armed resistance was strong at the Perštýn and Bethlehem Square, where the people were commanded by the playwright Josef Kajetán Tyl. It was of initial advantage to the students that they arrested Governor Count Thun (recognized, in his elegant coat and shining black hat, as he was climbing over the barricades to reach the town hall), but Windischgrätz never lost the initiative. At 4 p.m. he assembled a few artillery pieces and grenadiers to shoot his way through the most important barricades. By 6 p.m. he had cleared the major route to the river; not to disperse his manpower, he left the barricades in the narrow medieval streets on either side untouched. Both his troops and the insurrectionists, who lacked a clear command structure, spent the night in the streets and at the barricades, bivouac fires burning.
During the forty-eight hours that followed, both the army and the insurgents consolidated their positions and mobilized support from the Bohemian provinces. Army units from the northwest arrived without delay, but the students sent out emissaries to the country with little success: the peasants were indifferent to what was going on in Prague, and the provincial national guard was hesitant. Fighting went on sporadically, and the barricades were strengthened on the Old Town Square and elsewhere; reports said that patriotic schoolgirls provided classroom furniture, thrown out of school windows, and Franciscan friars helped too (though they later disclaimed all Franciscan support of the revolt). In the town hall, negotiations went on continuously; Palacký shrewdly convinced the students to let Count Thun go on the grounds that otherwise power would be totally in the hands of Windischgrätz, prisoners were
exchanged, and a two-man commission was speedily sent from Vienna to prompt rigid Windischgrätz to pass on his command to another general. Windischgrätz had little sympathy for the Vienna constitutional government, and played his own cat-and-mouse game with the Viennese delegates, resigning in one moment and promptly resuming his function, telling the delegates that he did so at the wishes of his officers. In their enthusiasm, the insurgents, who held on to considerable parts of the Old and New Towns, did not grasp in time that Windischgrätz had isolated Prague by encircling it with troops (though the trains were running on time) or that the national guard on the left bank had decided to support the regular army and was occupying Malostranský Square together with the soldiers who dominated Hrad
any Castle and the nearby barracks. On the night of June 14, Windischgrätz continued his operations, and under cover of darkness quietly withdrew all his troops and his artillery from the right to the left bank. When the exhausted insurgents awoke, the soldiers were gone, and Windischgrätz had entrenched all his fieldpieces on the rising hills of the Minor Town.
exchanged, and a two-man commission was speedily sent from Vienna to prompt rigid Windischgrätz to pass on his command to another general. Windischgrätz had little sympathy for the Vienna constitutional government, and played his own cat-and-mouse game with the Viennese delegates, resigning in one moment and promptly resuming his function, telling the delegates that he did so at the wishes of his officers. In their enthusiasm, the insurgents, who held on to considerable parts of the Old and New Towns, did not grasp in time that Windischgrätz had isolated Prague by encircling it with troops (though the trains were running on time) or that the national guard on the left bank had decided to support the regular army and was occupying Malostranský Square together with the soldiers who dominated Hrad
any Castle and the nearby barracks. On the night of June 14, Windischgrätz continued his operations, and under cover of darkness quietly withdrew all his troops and his artillery from the right to the left bank. When the exhausted insurgents awoke, the soldiers were gone, and Windischgrätz had entrenched all his fieldpieces on the rising hills of the Minor Town.Other books
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