HUGH LECAINE AGNEW Demonstrating the Nation: Symbol, Ritual, and Political Protest in Bohemia, 1867-1875 in MATTHIAS REISS (ed.), The Street as Stage: Protest Marches and Public Rallies since the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) pp. 85–103 ISBN: 978 0 19 922678 8 The following PDF is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence. Anyone may freely read, download, distribute, and make the work available to the public in printed or electronic form provided that appropriate credit is given. However, no commercial use is allowed and the work may not be altered or transformed, or serve as the basis for a derivative work. The publication rights for this volume have formally reverted from Oxford University Press to the German Historical Institute London. All reasonable effort has been made to contact any further copyright holders in this volume. Any objections to this material being published online under open access should be addressed to the German Historical Institute London. DOI: 6 Demonstrating the Nation: Symbol, Ritual, and Political Protest in Bohemia, 1867-1875 HUGH LECAINE AGNEW When the Habsburg Emperor Francis Joseph reluctantly returned his realm to constitutional rule following the empire's disastrous war with Italy and France in 1859, a new chapter opened up in the public political life of his peoples. Laws on association and assem- bly made it legal to hold public meetings for political purposes for the first time since the revolutions of 1848-9. They removed some press restrictions and permitted the establishment of a host of new associations and organizations for social, educational, or political purposes. In Bohemia, these developments cleared the way for the transformation of the Czech nationalist movement into a mass- based political phenomenon. The emperor's decision ushered in a lengthy constitutional crisis, as forces favouring centralism and led by German national liberals contested the future shape of the monarchy with federalist forces led by conservative aristocrats and some of the non-German nationalities. Czech national liberal leaders Frantisek Palacky and his son-in-law, Frantisek Ladislav Rieger, forged an alliance with a group of Bohemian aristocrats led by Count Heinrichjaroslav Clam-Martinie on the basis of the state right of the Kingdom of Bohemia. The doctrine of Bohemian state right asserted that the lands of the Crown of St Wenceslas formed a separate, distinct political entity and that any future constitution for the whole empire would have to recognize that status, which would be confirmed by the coronation of Francis Joseph as King of Bohemia. 1 1 See Ernst Birke and Kurt Oberdorffer (eds.), Das biihmische Staatsrecht in den deutsch- tschechischen Auseinandersetzungen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Marburg/Lahn, 1960); and for contemporary treatments Hugo Toman, Das biihmische Staatsrecht und die Entwicklung der iisterreichischen Reichsidee vom]ahre 1527 bis 1848 (Prague, 1872); Alois Rasin Ceské statní právo 86 HUGH LECAINE AGNEW In spite of repeated promises, Francis Joseph was never crowned king, and instead the eventual solution to the constitu- tional crisis-a solution that lasted until the fall of the empire in 1918-was the Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867. The Compromise created the dual Austro-Hungarian Empire, granting Hungary recognition of its separate political status and self-government limited only by Hungarian recognition of the common monarch, army, foreign policy, and joint finances. Instead of giving the Czechs an opportunity to achieve something similar for the Bohemian crownlands, the dualist system left Bohemia, with the other non-Hungarian lands of the empire, in the 'Lands and Kingdoms represented in the Reichsrat', or 'Cisleithania'. 2 The failure of the most serious attempt to negotiate a Czech compro- mise along lines similar to what Hungary received, the Fundamental Articles developed by the ministry of Count Karl Sigmund Hohenwart in 1871, demonstrated that the dualist system itself blocked further constitutional change. Czech reac- tion to the Compromise was strongly negative, and for the remainder of the monarchy's existence, Czech politics in many ways revolved around issues that emerged during the debates from 1860 to the early 187os. 3 The following discussion will explore some of the symbols and rituals used by the Czech nationalist movement in the political demonstrations that accompanied these turbulent years. We will look at four distinct, though related, types of demonstration. One type is the official ceremony, a public event sponsored by the government and not the nationalist movement, but one in which the public's participation may be presented as a nationalist demonstration. Another type is the spontaneous protest demon- stration, when nationalist issues bring crowds onto the street, frequently with violent results. Yet a third type is the nationalist festival, in which the leaders of the movement stage a celebration or commemoration with a nationalist purpose but no focused (Prague, 1892); Karel Kramat, Das biihmische Staatsrecht (Vienna, 1896), and id., Ceskéstátní právo (Prague, 1896). 2 Since the river Leitha formed the boundary between the Kingdom of Hungary and Lower Austria not far from Vienna, the term Cisleithania came into general use for the non-Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy. Transleithania was hardly ever used to refer to Hungary except with a pejorative intention. 3 See Hugh LeCaine Agnew, The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Stanford, Calif., 2004), 128-39. Protest in Bohemia, 1867-75 political demand. Finally, there is the public political demonstra- tion, in which the movement, citing the law on freedom of assem- bly and petition included in the constitutional enactments of December 1867 and May 1868, organizes a public demonstration around a specific political goal. Many of the same symbols and rituals appear in each of these different types of demonstration, providing some of the basic building blocks of nationalist political activity through the nineteenth century and even beyond. A good example of an official ceremony offering possibilities for nationalist demonstration is the return to Prague in August 1867 of the Crown of St Wenceslas and the other Bohemian coronation regalia from Vienna, where they had been taken to protect them from the Prussians the year before. Aware of the significance of the occasion, the government and the authorities in Bohemia were careful to review the ceremonies accompanying the crown's earlier return from Vienna under Leopold II in 1791, with an eye to copying them as far as possible. 4 At the same time, they were acutely conscious of the political symbolism that could be attached to the coronation regalia, and its relevance to Bohemian politics at a time when the Compromise of 1867 had not yet attained its final shape. They attempted to prevent, or at the very least limit, patriotic demonstrations along the route the crown would follow on its way from Vienna to Prague by special express train. The offices of both the Bohemian and the Moravian governors were instructed that all 'welcoming cere- monies at the intermediate stations between Prague and Vienna were to be prevented'.5 A petition by Vienna's Czech associa- tions to send off the deputation accompanying the crown back to Prague from Vienna's Northern Station with 'an old Bohemian church song', was also refused. The Ministry of the Interior instructed the police to prevent 'any political or national demon- stration on this occasion'. 6 The Czech nationalist press, for its part, treated the decision to minimize popular celebrations as an affront. Národní listy (national pages), the leading Czech political newspaper and unofficial organ of the Young Czechs, led its first report with the news that 4 Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv (hereafter AVA), Ministerium des Innern, Prasidiale (hereafter Mdl-Pras), r, carton 2, 1866-9, 3924/r867, 4010/r867, and 4085/1867. 5 AVA, Mdl-Präs, r, carton 2, 1866-9, 4103/r867. 6 Ibid. 4182/r867. 88 HUGH LECAINE AGNEW the government planned to return the crown 'completely in secret, in order to avoid any patriotic demonstration'. 7 This was a theme to which the paper frequently returned, often in sarcastic mood, as when it suggested: The Austrian authorities truly do not know what they are doing. They go so far as to destroy the piety and respect among our people for insignia which are not only an emblem of the historic rights of the Czech crown, but are also simultaneously an emblem of those legiti- mate bonds that tie the nation to the ruling dynasty!-Do our officials perhaps want to incite a republic, that they should thus tum the nation's gaze away from monarchical symbols?8 Through reports such as these, Národní listy effectively encour- aged efforts to mark the crown's passage with some sort of festiv- ity, in spite of the official attitude. In the end, the emperor gave special permission for a modest ceremony to be held at the railway station in Brno/Briinn, Moravia's capital, and many other localities held their own cere- monies without official approval.9 At Brno, when the train arrived in the station, which was decorated with banners in the Moravian land colours, a band struck up the Austrian hymn, the train was garlanded by a group of women dressed in white (in what the official report called 'Slavic' costume), the local Czech choral society sang a composition, and then everyone shouted 'Slava!' (literally, Glory! but equivalent to Hurrah!) for the crown and for the king. When the train pulled out it did so to the tune of the Czech song, 'Kde domov muj?', a popular lyric rapidly becoming recognized as the unofficial Czech national anthem. Bengal fire in red, white, and blue (colours identified as Slavic) illuminated the platform for the proceedings, which took place well after midnight.