Germanization and the University of Prague

Abstract

RUTHLESS as have been the measures of repression directed by the Germans against Czech students and intellectuals for their part in the demonstrations on Independence Day, October 28, and the following days in the city of Prague, yet none will give rise to deeper resentment, nor have more far-reaching effect than the closing of the University and the teclinical schools. Not only do the Czech people feel a special pride in the University of Prague as the oldest University in Eastern Central Europe, but also the University has always been a central rallying point in the development of Czech national life and national culture. So long age as the thirteenth century, Prague was a gathering place for students, and when in the middle of the fourteenth century it was recognized under a Bull of Pope Clement VI, Charles IV, Emperor and King of Bohemia, its founder, while organizing it on the model of Paris, of which he had been a student, in four “nations”, intended that primarily it should serve the needs of students from Styria. Nevertheless, it drew its students from all parts of Europe, and in repute equalled the greatest of the medieval imiversities. It was, however, after the Napoleonic wars and in the earlier half of the nineteenth century that the University attained its greatest measure of influence in the development of a Czech national culture and consciousness. Not only was the study of the national language and antiquities taken up with ardour, but also industrial development was fostered in the movement which led to the foundation of the teclinical schools. In the course of events which followed on the War of 1914–18 the University has been no less active in promoting in the people a consciousness of their historical and intellectual heritage Its suppression will have repercussions of which a better knowledge of their own history might have conveyed a warning to the Nazi leaders.