The Divided Nation

CHAPTER 2 The Divided Nation

František Šmahel

One of the broader questions surrounding the Hussite movement is whether or not the movement was an anomaly of European history, which in ways it appears to be, and why. In his augural lecture after being awarded the bronze medal from the Collège de France, František Šmahel argued that although every comparison within late medieval reform and hereitical movements is relative and problematic, Hussitism can be considered distinctive because of the great dynamism and internal coherence that the Czech nation gave the movement. This, he contented, was in contrast to similar phenomena in neighboring nations. Šmahel’s argument about the distinctive nature of Hussitism was first made and developed in Idea národa v husitských Čechách [The Idea of the Nation in Hussite Bohemia] (České Budějovice: Růže, 1971). In this book Šmahel a) criticized Marxist historiography which, according to him, viewed the national question at best as second-rate and then only within the context of class conflict, and b) took on work of the German medievalist Ferdinand Seibt. In a provocative, compelling book, Hussitica: Zur Struktur einer Revolution (Cologne: Böhlau, 1965), Seibt had criticized the national focus that he believed dominated Czech historiography and public con- sciousness from Palacký through to the communists. Among other issues, Seibt called for a critical understanding of the terms nacio and language and for a broader reading of the social-political program, which he claimed embraced “German Hussites” as well. In this excerpt from chapter five of the revised critical edition of The Idea of the Nation in Hussite Bohemia, published in 2000, Šmahel introduces reflections and manifestions of the Bohemian nation in the wake of the revolution, vis-à-vis the tension between economic needs and beliefs and relations with Bohemia’s neighbors (Germans and Poles). In contrast to Ferdinand Seibt and some Czech scholars (like Robert Kalivoda), Šmahel sees the essential nature of Hussitism in internal develop- ments (i.e. national identity), and suggests a more subtle legacy of the Hussite movement. František Šmahel (1934-) is one of the most well known and acclaimed medivalists in the Czech Republic today. He is a corresponding fellow of the Royal Historical Academy and the British Academy, a member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, a bronze-medaillon holder of the Collège

de France, and a Honorary Foreign Member of the American Historical Association and the Medieval Academy of America. After graduating high school, he worked as a miner before studying at the Philosophical Faculty University in Prague. After receiving his doctorate (1959), he worked at the Historical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (1964– 1974). Forced to leave that position after the Prague Spring for political rea- sons, Šmahel worked as a street-car driver in Prague (1975–1979) and later as director of the Museum of the Hussite Revolutionary Movement in the city of Tábor (1989–1989). Between 1993 and 1998 he served as Chair of the Department of Medieval Czech History of the Charles University. In 1998, he became the founding director of Institute for Medieval Studies and since 2004 serves as its deputy director. In addition to The Idea of the Nation, František Šmahel is author of an extensive list of works that include Husitská revoluce [The Hussite Revolution], 4 vols. (Prague: UK, 1993), which appeared in German translation in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica series (Hannover, Hansche Buchhandlung, 2002); Cesta Karla IV. do Francie 1377–1378 [The Journey of Charles IV to France, 1377–1378] (Prague: Argo 2006); and other books, essays, and articles dealing with the Hussite movement, early humanism, the history of the Charles University, and the Middle Ages in general. For a complete bibliography of his works (1956–1994) see Jaroslav Pánek, Miloslav Polívka, and Noemi Rejchrtová, eds., Husitství-reformace-renesance [Hussitism-Reformation-Renaissance,] vol. 3 (Prague: HÚ, 1994), 1059–1129. For a list of works since 1994 see Eva Doležalová et al., eds., Evropa a Čechy na konci středověku. Sborník příspěvků věnovaných Františku Šmahelovi [Europe and Bohemia at the End of the Middle Ages. Essays dedicated to František Šmahel] (Prague: Centrum medievistick- ých studíi and Filosofia, 2004), 11–33. Place of Original Publication and Permission: “Rozdělený národ” [The Divided Nation,] chapter five of Idea národa v husitských Čechách [The Idea of the Nation in Hussite Bohemia,] Revised critical edition (Prague: Argo, 2000), 188–199, 212–225 (excerpts). This chapter appears by permission of the author.

The Compacts of Basel and of Jihlava were nothing other than a forced recog- nition of the Chalice and everything that involved. Even though the Church had not legalized Utraquism as a confessional offshoot, a dual faith—and the consequent rift in society in the matter of faith—existed de facto in the Bohemian Lands. The dogmatic and doctrinal differences were not especially independent; those however were not the sole inheritance of the wartime