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PETITION TO THE EMPEROR AGAINST THE UNIFICATION OF BOHEMIAAND MORAVIA Title: Adresa císaři proti spojení Čech s Moravou (Petition to the Emperor against the unification of Bohemia and Moravia) Originally published: issued on April 4, 1848 Language: German The text used is from Jindřich Dvořák, Moravské sněmování roku 1848–1849 (Sessions of the Moravian Diet, 1848–49) (Telč: Emil Šolc, 1898), pp. 94–97. Context Moravia has been one of the historical lands of the Bohemian Crown since the eleventh century. Ever since the early Middle Ages, however, when it was raised to a margraviate, it had its own administrative system and Diet. Since the mid-fifteenth century Bohemia and Moravia had been formally united, but administration remained divided and Moravia and Bohemia occasionally each had a different ruler, though most often it was someone from the same ruling dynasty. At the end of the eighteenth century, and again in the period between the two world wars, Moravia was administratively united with the Czechoslovak part of Silesia. Moravia was inhabited by people of Slav and German origins. Germans were settled in the south, in adjacent Silesia to the north, and in the larger towns, whereas Czechs were settled in the central parts and were slightly greater in number. Because of the separate administration , closer ties with Vienna, and the slight economic backwardness of Moravian Czechs, not only in comparison to Germans but also to Czechs in Bohemia, the Czech national movement had a less dynamic development here. As a result, the Landespatriotismus had a stronger impact and above all longer life, not only among the Moravian aristocracy and clergy, but also among the German and Czech bourgeoisie. The first important period with respect to Czech nationalism was the 1830s, when individual ‘awakeners’ started to spread the ideas of Czech cultural nationalism in Moravia. The 256 THE NATIONALIZATION OF SPACE most important of them came from Bohemia (F. C. Kampelík, F. M. Klácel, A. V. Šembera). Their campaign was particularly successful in Moravian educational institutions, the noble academies in Brno (Ger. Brünn) and Olomouc (Ger. Olmütz), and the theological seminary in Brno. In the Brno seminary a circle of patriotic priests gathered, whose spiritus rector was František Sušil (1804–1868). This group took the Cyril and Methodius tradition as the central point of their patriotism (Cyril and Methodius were ninth-century Byzantine missionaries who Christianized the Great Moravian Empire, and were later canonized). What came out of the vaguely formulated program of the Brno seminary circle was a synthesis of Roman Catholicism, Moravian patriotism, Czech national consciousness, and PanSlavism . They did not form a political movement, and their chief impact came from the fact that most of them spread their patriotic ideas among the Czech-speaking people in their parishes. The second phase of the spread of Czech national ideas began in 1848–49. The revolutionary atmosphere brought a new dynamic to national agitation. In the Reichsrat and the Slav Congress in Prague, the Moravian Czech deputies met their colleagues from Bohemia and realized that they had much in common. At the same time, in Moravia, similarly to Bohemia, the relationship of Czechs and Germans became of central importance for the first time, since both sides realized that they had different political visions with respect to the Greater-German movement. This was a significant factor in the subsequent increase of nationalist agitation in both communities. As it turned out at the political level, however, Landespatriotismus in Moravia still outweighed Czech liberal nationalism. In early March 1848, the St. Wenceslas Committee in Prague (which is considered the initial stage of the real political activity of Czech liberalism) sent two petitions to the Emperor. Among a number of democratic requests there was also a demand for the constitutional unification of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. The reaction of the Moravian Czech patriots was on the whole negative. Not only did the politicians from Prague fail to consult with the Moravians regarding the request for unification, but unification was understood as a menace to Moravian independence. Referring to the liberal principle of freedom, the patriotic journal Týdeník (Weekly) rejected the proposed unity of the Bohemian Lands, while stressing the close ties between both lands and, above all, “the Czech and Moravian nation.” The request of the St. Wenceslas Committee soon became a subject of discussion in the Moravian Diet session. The Diet committee, led by Alois Pražák, the future leader...

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