Part III : Counter-Reformation and Exodus


The 1621 mass execution
of leaders of Czech Protestant movement on the Old Town Square
marked the victory of counter-reformation, of the Hapsburgs and Jesuits.
Confiscation of land, forced conversion to Catholicism, and expulsion
of Protestant nobles and priests followed.
True to the medieval custom, body parts of the victims were displayed
throughout the city, on Charles bridge, and in the Old Town Square for more than ten years.

The emigration of Protestants was forced by Hapsburg Imperial Decree in 1624, expelling all non-Catholic clergy from Bohemia and Moravia. In 1627 a similar mandate was extended to all nobles. Thousands of aristocrats, as well as many serfs, who legally had no right to go, left the country.

These refugees and religious émigrés carried their ideas with them. Like dandelion seeds in the wind, they traveled to Slovakia, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland. Some later sailed to the New World. Their ideas spread and flourished.

A large group of Moravian Brethren found refuge in Germany, on the estate of Baron Zinzendorf, where they were tolerated by the Lutherans. Over the next hundred years they intermarried with local population and transformed themselves into a missionary church.

Some traveled to Central, South America, Labrador and the North American midwest . Two large groups settled in Nicaragua, some went to Ohio, others founded Bethlehem, Pennsylvania , where the early community houses are still preserved. The bible of Kralice, the first translation of the Bible into Czech (1579-1593), later translated also to German, is to this day on exhibit in the Moravian museum in Bethlehem. Many traditions of the early Protestants, of the Amish, Quakers and Baptists, had common roots which reach back to the Hussite era of Bohemia and Moravia.

Conclusions

For those who remained in the Czech lands, the Hussite era, and Hus himself, became powerful symbols during successive waves of oppression: the Hapsburg reign and the totalitarian regimes of the Nazis and the Communists. Tomas Masaryk , first president of Czechoslovakia, considered "the cause of Hus inseparable from the intellectual development of the Czech people".

During the Czech National renaissanceof the nineteen century, resistance to Hapsburg suppression of the Czech language and culture took heart from memories of the Hussite years.

A larger-than-life memorial to the martyred Hus and his followers stands today in the Prague's Old Town Square. It is inscribed with Hus's words "The Truth Shall Prevail".

One cannot imagine more poignant or more hopeful words to speak to people in the grip of Nazi terror or later communist propaganda.
They speak to us today, too. To understand Hus and the history of that era is to understand an important aspect of the Czech character.

References

  1. Will Durant, The story of Civilization, Vol 6: The reformation (Simon and Schuster, 1957).

  2. Francis Dvornik, The Slavs in European History and civilisation (Ruther University press, 1962)

  3. J.A. Garraty and Peter Gay: Columbia History of the World (Dorset Press, 1981)

  4. Robert A. Kohn, A history of the Hapsburg Empire (1526-1618),(University of California 1974).

  5. Walter Nigg, The Heretics Heresy through the Ages ( Dorset Press 1962).

  6. J. R. Weinlick and A. H. Frank, The Moravian Church Through the Ages, The Moravian Church in America (Betlehem, PA, 1966).

  7. Esmond Wright (ed), History of the World (Bonanza Books 1985).


    Hus MemorialJan Hus monument Click on the image for the full size close-up and credit

    The inscription: " O', lide cesky, Verim ze vlada vecich Tvych, k tobe zas se navrati" which can be translated to English as " Czech people, I believe, that government of your affairs, will return to your hands again"
    was seen by many Czechs as fulfilled only after the Velvet Revolution of 1989.


    Other views

    Naturally, there are other views, reflecting different religious afiliations. Today, the Czech Republic is a secular state, with separation of state and church.

    A recent survey shows following percentages of religious afiliation: 40:40:10:10 for atheist:catholic:protestant:other


    The Hussite era is only one chapter, albeit an important epsisode, in the longer history of the Czech people.

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