Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/382

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JUNGMANN
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the Bohemian newspapers and reviews, which gradually sprung up in spite of the constant opposition of the Austrian Government. These articles contributed greatly to the success of the Bohemian movement. As I have noted elsewhere, that movement was, at its beginning, necessarily a purely literary one. No political paper that was not directly or indirectly under the control of the Government, then entirely German in its views, was allowed to exist.

The second great work of Jungmann that ranks with his history of Bohemian literature is his vast dictionary of the Bohemian and German languages, published in five large volumes between 1835 and 1839. Jungmann's preparatory studies, both for this work and for the History, however, began as early as the year 1800. The work is a monument of indomitable energy and application. A work such as that of Jungmann would, if undertaken by a whole academy, have been most meritorious; but Jungmann worked almost alone, aided only in the merely mechanical part of his task by a few students of the University of Prague. His difficulties cannot be compared with those which the compiler of a dictionary of a more developed language encounters. A large part of ancient Bohemian literature, that within the last fifty years has been carefully edited and published, could then only be found in MSS. that were often difficult of access. Jungmann's work contains words that he only found once or twice in his sources; it was his desire to include all, for he laboured not only for the then scanty readers who wished to study the works of ancient Bohemian literature, but also for the modern Bohemian writers, whose vocabulary he endeavoured to enlarge.