REFLECTION OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR IN THE FIRST CZECH IMMIGRANT PERIODICALS IN THE USA

Abstract

The topic of the paper is the image of the American Civil War North versus South in the first periodicals published by Czech immigrants in the USA. The paper begins with a brief description of the mass emigration from Bohemia and Moravia to the USA between 1848 and 1914, and outlines the methodology applied in the paper and the corpus of material that formed the basis of the analysis that informed the text. It also provides an overview of the first Czech-language periodicals/newspapers published in the USA in the 1860s. This is followed by excerpts from newspaper texts illustrating the reflection of the North versus South Civil War in the Czech immigrant press. From the documented excerpts, it is clear that Czechs were continually interested in the American Civil War and, having gone through a difficult experience of oppression themselves in their old homeland, rejected slavery. Therefore, after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, they sympathized with the Union. In contrast, they saw Confederate secession as a threat to freedom and democracy, the values they valued most in America.