Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/266

Tailor: Hi! hist! hi, neighbor, a word with you!

Carpenter: Go your way, and leave me in peace.

Tailor: Only a word. Is there nothing new?

Carpenter: Nothing except that it is forbidden to speak of anything new.

Tailor: How is that?

Carpenter: Step up to this house. Take care! Straightway upon his arrival the Duke of Alba had an order isued by which two or three who speak together in the street are declared guilty of high treason without a trial.

Tailor: Alas, preserve us!

Carpenter: Under pain of life-long imprisonment it is forbidden to speak of affairs of state.

Tailor: Alas for our liberty!

Carpenter: And under pain of death nobody shall say aught against the actions of the Government.

Tailor: Alas for our lives!

Carpenter: And fathers, mothers, children, relatives, friends and servants are invited with a promise of great things to divulge to a specially established court what goes on within the very household.

Tailor: Let us get home.

Carpenter: And the obedient are promised that they shall suffer no injury either to body, or honor, or possessions.

Tailor: How merciful! Why I supposed—etc. etc. *** According to Goethe’s “Egmont” this was enacted at Brussels in the year 1567, but it was enacted in reality on countless occasions in the lands of the Bohemian crown in the years 1915 to 1916.

To-day we hope that it was the last persecution, just as that in Brussels in the year 1567. Errors in policy are a crime, and every crime brings a fearful revenge in its wake.^[1]

It can safely be asserted that time after time in the course of the last 300 years our nation was afflicted by persecutions as other countries by earthquakes.

A very thorough-going persecution fell to our lot immediately after the battle of the White Mountain; it was a persecution which might be called an imperial one. It was aimed at the rebellious lords, but the Czech nation almost breathed its last as a result of it. And it was the first misfortune,not for us, since nations always outlive their dynasties,—but for those who carried it out. A river of blood began to flow between them and us,—and such blood never dries up.

The persecution which followed it was also interesting, and might be called a religious one. Its victims were books and people whose confession of faith was different from that prescribed by the holy Roman Catholic Church; and this again was a misfortune for the Church.—The Hussite spirit had always smouldered amongst us under the ashes.—The holy Church made efforts to keep it smouldering. The subsequent persecution which might be compared with a continual earthquake, because it lasted long over a hundred years, was a persecution by the lords and was directed against the serfs. It is true that it did not fall upon the nation as a whole, but on the other hand, an enormous number of individuals were its victims.

The persecution by Metternich was one of the mildest. It was directed not only against us Czechs, but against all the nations in Austria, and indeed, against a large part of Europe. It was milder because it allowed people freedom of movement; they were permitted to eat, drink, sleep, keep awake, dance, swim, walk, skate etc. .—but, to make up for this, their spirits were enclosed in a dark room where windows and doors were blocked up so as to prevent light and fresh air from getting in. After the year 1848 began the political persecution which dismissed inconvenient officials and teachers, confiscated books, suppressed newspapers, locked up editors, sent strict governors to Prague, placed Czech people before German judges, and also continued for a respectable number of years, proceeding sometimes more severely, sometimes only leniently, sometimes vanishing for a period after which, having rested, it immediately began afresh. And so we experienced the persecution in the years 1915—1916, which might be designated as a military persecution.

It is certain that the human spirit which contrives to expound accurately all the periods of ancient Roman history, and bears in mind the dynasties of ancient Egypt, will very easily forget the events of those preceding years. It is therefore desirable that we, who had a little to do with it, should speak. We must make known our impressions for the purpose of supplying reliable material for the history of these two years. Yes, provisions must be made for our historians.