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792 largely increased, Parliament having voted some 6,500 million crowns for further construction and improvements. Some 4,700 m. of track are State-owned; the rest are in the hands of private companies, but were gradually to be taken over by the State.

Czechoslovakia has 5,000 post-offices, some 10,000 m. of telegraphs, and close upon 8,000 m. of telephone communication. Aerial posts are established with Paris, Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, in addition to which there exist also cross-country services. The republic possesses seven radio-telegraph stations.

Literature, Art and Music.—The Czechs have possessed a notable literature from the 13th century onwards. It has shared the vicissitudes of the nation itself and like it been in danger of extermination at the hands of fanatic foes. The names of Hus, Chelčický and Comenius (Komenský) are connected with the pre-Renaissance religious periods. The revival of the Czechs after a hundred years of torpor, due to the loss of their independence in 1620 and subsequent oppression at the hands of the Habsburgs and the dominant Germans, gave birth, from 1780 onwards, to a literary activity which still continues to yield rich fruit. From the modest and simple art of the patriotic poets and novelists of the first half of the 19th century, whose work nevertheless was an influential factor in the awakening of a national sentiment among the common people, Czech literature, after a period characterized by the romanticism of Mácha and the critical realism of Havlíček, arrived at a school which, while it took its inspiration from the sources of the national spirit, did not shut itself out from foreign influences. Vrchlický, a master of verse and a perfect cosmopolitan, and Čech, who took the material for his epics from Czech history, are the outstanding names of this epoch. Among their contemporaries were Heyduk and Sládek, two poets both belonging in form and in matter to the national school. Sládek was, with his excellent translations, one of the first to make Czech readers acquainted with the riches of English literature (especially Shakespeare). Eminent among the novelists of this generation were Němcová, a good observer of social conditions who reproduced in her works the charm of Bohemian peasant life; her kinswoman Světlá, Arbes and Zeyer. Neruda, a poet of bitter irony but of profound faith in and affection towards his nation, was also the author of novels, notable for their original realism, and numerous belletristic works of a high order. He marks the period of transition to the younger generation of writers, in the forefront of whom stands the poet and novelist HacharMachar [sic], who revolutionized the conception of Czech patriotism and is famous for his historical glosses. Jirásek, the author of a vast series of novels and short stories, drawing their material from Bohemian history, unites the past with the present generation. By the healthy spirit of patriotism breathed in all his works Jirásek contributed not a little to maintaining among the masses of the people a national consciousness and faith in a better national future. The youngest literary generation in Czechoslovakia was represented in 1921 in particular by three leading poets: Sova, a writer of delicate lyrics; Bezruč, who sings of social and national oppression, and Březina, a profound visionary and pantheistic mystic. Among prose writers the leading contemporary names are Svobodová, Čapek, a robust realist, and Šrámek, who has also met with success as a dramatist. In Slovakia the foremost name is that of the poet Hviezdoslav.

The Czechs were famous as musicians as far back as the 15th century. The history of modern Czech music commences with the creator of Czech opera, Frederick Smetana. The compositions of Dvořák have become classics. Among contemporary composers in 1921 the foremost were Foerster, Novák, Ostrčil, and Suk; and as executants Ševčík, Kubelík and Ondříček.

Eloquent testimony is given by the beautiful churches and palaces of Prague largely Gothic and baroque in style to the architectural genius of the nation. The graceful cathedral of St. Vitus, rising above the castle (Hrad) on the heights of the Hradčany (Prague), is a magnificent specimen of Gothic. The beautiful church of St. Barbara at Kutná Hora, the royal castle of KarlúvKarlův [sic] Týn, the Powder Tower, the church of St. Nicholas, the King Charles bridge at Prague, are among the many objects of universal admiration which are to be found in Bohemia.

Of modern sculptors the works of Myslbek and Sucharda are prominent in the public monuments at Prague. The latter, as well as others of the younger school of Czech sculptors, such as Bílek, Kafka and Mařatka, studied under Rodin at Paris.

Modern painting among the Czechs begins with Josef Mánes (1826–71) and Czermak (1831–78), and Aleš. Brožík is known for his historical canvases, among them "John Hus before the Council of Constance," while others worth mention are the marine painter Knuepfer, the landscape painters Slavíček and Hudeček, and Preisler and Švabinský as painters of portraits and allegorical subjects. Mucha has won a name abroad for decorative work and historical canvases. In Slovakia, Joža Úprka and his school have devoted themselves to interpreting peasant life.

Science and Philosophy.—In the course of the new intellectual life, by which after three hundred years of subjection the Czech nation again entered the ranks of the living peoples of Europe, scientific effort early resumed its due place.

At the very threshold of the Czech renaissance men of science were among the first pioneers of national thought, as for example Dobrovský the philologist, and in the ensuing generation Purkyně

(Purkinje) the physiologist, and Palacký the greatest of Czech historians. Scientific effort received an impetus from the establishment of an independent Czech university at Prague in 1881, and from that time there is hardly a branch of science in which workers of profound and creative talent did not arise (in physics Zenger, in biology Vejdovský), while a whole series of eminent names as well in the technical and mathematical as in the historical and philological (e.g. Zubatý) sciences might be mentioned.

Philosophy was early cultivated in Bohemia. At first the influence of German thought, German enlightenment and idealism was apparent, particularly in Kollár (a Slovak); the influence of Kant was seen in Palacký, that of Hegel and post-Kantian speculation in Aug. Smetana, while the philosophy of Herbart had a deep influence on educationists like Lindner, Durdík and Hostinský. To the more recent tendencies of contemporary philosophical thought the way was opened up by Thomas G. Masaryk, who, as a counterpoise tot German speculation and the intellectualism of Herbart, emphasized the critical study of English philosophy, notably Hume, Spencer and Mill, and the French Comte; at the same time he fully appreciated the value of Kant in epistemology. Masaryk's work, Spirit of Russia, is a close analysis of the Russian philosophy of history, and of the Russian religious, moral and political thought. Enriched by new ethical and religious elements, Czech philosophy manifests itself in Masaryk's works as a new realism or humanism. A whole series of philosophic thinkers Drtina, Foustka, Rádl and Beneš followed in Masaryk's footsteps.

.—W. F. Bailley, The Slavs of the War Zone (1916); E. Beneš, Bohemia's case for independence (1916, with an introduction by H. Wickham-Steed); Détruisez I'Autriche-Hongrie (1916); Besteaux, Bibliographie Tchèque (1920); Alex Brož, The First Year of the Czechoslovak Republic (1920), The Rise of the Czechoslovak Republic (1919); Cisař, Pokorný, Selver, The Czechoslovak Republic (1921); T. Čapek, Bohemia under Habsburg Misrule (1915); The Bohemian BiographyBibliography [sic] (1918); Dědeček, La Tchécoslovaquie et les Tchécoslovaques (1919); Louis Eisenmann, La Tchécoslovaquie, une carte hors texte (1921); Étienne Fournol, De la Succession d'Autriche (1918); Hoetzl and Joachim, The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic (1920); D. Jurkovič, Slowakische Volksarbeiten (1915); T. G. Masaryk, The New Europe (1918), The Problem of Small Nations in the European Crisis (Council for the Study of International Relations 1916); B. MatějkaA. Matějček [sic] and Z. Wirth, L'Art tchèque contemporaine (1920); W. S. Monroe, Bohemia and the Czechs (1910); VI. Nosek, Independent Bohemia (1918); C. Pergler, The Czechoslovak State (1919); C. Rivet, Les Tchécoslovaques (4th ed., 1921); P. Selver, Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry (1912); R. W. Seton-Watson, German Slav and Magyar (1916), The Czechoslovak Republic (1921); E. Stern, La législation ouvrière tchécoslovaque (1921); J. E. S. Vojan, Modern Musical History of Bohemia (1917); Weiss, La République Tchécoslovaque (1919).

CZERNIN, OTTOKAR, (1872–), Austro-Hungarian statesman, a scion of an old Bohemian noble family, was born on Sept. 27 1872. He adopted a diplomatic career, was attached in 1891 to the Paris embassy, promoted to the rank of unpaid attache of embassy, and then, after a lengthy period of leave, sent to The Hague in 1902. In that year, however, he retired and devoted himself to the management of his estates. In 1903 he was elected to the Bohemian Diet as a representative of the landed aristocracy. Here he attached himself to the German party, but demanded that every inhabitant of Bohemia should regard himself as an Austrian first, and only second as a German or a Czech. Connected by his wife, née Kinsky, with the Czech nobility, he tried to pave the way for a working alliance of the great landowners supporting the existing Constitution with the Conservative group in the Bohemian Diet, and in 1905 published a brochure with this object. In 1911 he published a signed essay on the measures to be taken to preserve the union of the empire (Zur Erhaltung der Reichseinheit), which represented the views of the heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, with whom he had become intimate. In Feb. 1912 he became a member of the Austrian Upper House, attaching himself to the Constitutional party. His speeches, in which he advocated a vigorous internal and external policy, made a great sensation. Czernin at that time was regarded as Francis Ferdinand's candidate for the office of Foreign Minister. In Oct. he went as Austro-Hungarian minister to Bucharest. His dispatches published in the "Red Book" show that even at that time he was of opinion that the secret treaty signed by King Charles with the Triple Alliance was nothing but a "scrap of paper," and that in an international war Rumania would only be induced to take part on the side of the Central Powers by far-reaching concessions at the expense of the Habsburg Monarchy. He watched with regret the growth