ABSTRACT
“Czech history is the ground on which, from time immemorial, the antagonisms of Germanism and Slavism have broken out in their sharpest form and have come to their clearest focus. Czech opposition to the German immigration grew passionately bitter during the fourteenth century. One other powerful factor enters into consideration: language. The early history of the Czech language is one of long-retarded maturity. The victory of the Czechs in the Hussite period was a qualified or even dubious victory in that Bohemia lost, through the exodus of the Germans, much of its most energetic and cultured population. The Czechs had just won a long struggle in the name of nationalism, but in the sixteenth century they showed a disposition to give up their national unity willingly. In the eighteenth century the German language was the language of business and society. Czech had been almost totally driven underground.
