The Family of the Prague Patriotic Physician Václav Staněk in the Revolutionary Years 1848 and 1849

Abstract

The article deals with the topic of family in the Czech patriotic milieu of the 19th century on the example of the family of Václav Staněk, a physician and patriot. Václav Staněk was in close contact with Josef Frič and František Ladislav Čelakovský. Before the revolution in 1848, Staněk and his wife Karolina opened a Czech ‘parlour’, one of the first places for women interested in education. The paper focuses on the public activities of the family during the revolution 1848 and presents the work of Václav Staněk at the Imperial Diets in Vienna and Kroměříž. Not only does it pay attention to the political activities of Staněk himself, but it also shows the political opinions of his wife a partly his daughter as well. An important space is dedicated to the everyday life of V. Staněk as a member of the Imperial Diets in Vienna and Kroměříž and to the everyday life of his family in Prague. The main source of information is the rich and unexploited correspondence of the Staněk family, which provides insight into the political and family life at that time.