Page:Bohemia under Hapsburg misrule (1915).pdf/25

 same way that it swept away the Slavic tribes that lived north of them in Lusatia and of whose existence nothing now remains but the Slavic names of rivers and cities. The struggle for supremacy in Bohemia may be said to have begun the year the fabled leader Čech, in the gray dawn of history (about 450 ), migrated to the country, having dispossessed the non-Slavic tribes of Boii, from whom Bohemia acquired her name. The Hussite wars in the fifteenth century are popularly believed to have been waged to free men’s intellects from the spiritual trammels of Rome; yet in the last analysis it will be found that the Hussites, in making war on the invaders who poured into the country from Germany, rejoiced in vanquishing alike the foes of their race and the oppressors of their conscience. Such, at least, is the conviction that one acquires in perusing those chapters of the history of the country that treat of the Hussite wars.

Jointly with Moravia, Bohemia formed the nucleus of the Bohemian State; this state had never ceased to be Bohemian-Slavic in character, though at times ruled by alien kings. The whole of Silesia and both Lusatias (Upper and Lower) also constituted part and parcel of this state, yet the latter were never so closely affiliated with Bohemia as Moravia had been, because the in-