Bohemia’s contribution to literature
The new departure from the beaten path—which at first naturally had led through tendentially patriotic poetry—was made by Hynek Mácha, who led directly into romanticism, a movement which at this period was not much appreciated. Mácha died young, his literary bequest is small the most important work being Máj, a romantic poem of considerable beauty and interest—but his influence was great.
His direct descendants were Vítězslav Hálek and Jan Neruda whose poetry, though inspired by patriotism occasionally, finds its chief element in the eternal and the universal. Hálek’s most popular work, The Evening Songs, is a gem of erotic poetry and its charm seems to be enhanced by time. Neruda particularly would be a pride of any literature His deep insight, his originality of expression, his virile emotion, are the chief characteristics of both his prose and poetry. Cosmic Songs, Friday Songs, Churchyard Flowers, are among his best collection of poems. He wrote many interesting prose studies in gênre and feuilltons, of which Trhani (The Rabble) would hardly find its equal in the literature of the world. The list of Hálek’s and Neruda’s epigons is long and varied, and includes the names of some illustrious women of which Karolina Světlá is the greatest. Jacub Arbes, Gustav Pfleger Moravský and Adolf Heyduk belong to the foremost men of this school.
There are, however, two names that deserve a special mention at this time, one of a man, and one of a woman. The man was the foremost journalist, statesman, and satirist, Karel Havlíček Borovský, a genius, a hero, a martyr for freedom. If the eternal craving for political freedom that is found in the heart of every Czech (Bohemian) is traceable to any one man; if the ideals of noble citizenship, self sacrifice, rugged honesty in public life were awakened by any one person, that person is Karel Havlíček Borovský. In England he would have been a Gladstone; in America a Lincoln—in the unfortunate tyrannized Bohemia, he remained a struggling journalist but yet so powerful, so indomitable, so inflexible, that the Austrian Government trembled before him in spite of its gendarmes and its regiments of soldiery. That government
