Page:Czechoslovak stories.pdf/19

 It was then through belles-lettres that the training for freedom had to come. And the writers of the nation were ready for they had been prepared for the task by the spiritual inheritance from their inspired predecessors. And so it came about that in their effort to express the soul of the nation they told in every form of literature of the struggles to maintain lofty aspirations and spiritual ideals.

The literature of the Czechs and Slovaks groups itself naturally into three main periods—just as does the history of their land.

1. The Early period beginning with the inception of writing in the Czech language to the time of John Huss (1415) with its climax in the fourteenth century.

2. The Middle period reaching its height in the sixteenth century and closing with the downfall of the nation after the Battle of White Mountain, in the middle of the seventeenth century. (Only a few desultory efforts mark the early part of the eighteenth century.)

3. The Modern period opening with the renaissance of the Czech literary language at the end of the eighteenth century and including the marvelous development of the present century.

Only a few names of each period can be included in this brief survey.

The oldest writings in the old Slavonic which was brought to Bohemia by the missionaries, Cyril and