Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/8

6 position of my country. As no less a man than Göthe wrote: Bohemia is a continent within the European continent. If the word may be used geographically, Bohemia has an inviduality of its own. I have written much on the history and literature of my country and wish here to limit myself to a few brief remarks.

Bohemia is not only geographically but historically also a country, that cannot be considered as a dependency of any other, and we must be grateful to the skill and energy of Dr. L. Jeřábek, to whom it is due, that at least a considerable part of our exhibits appear in a special, Bohemian section.

Of the earlier times of Bohemia’s history the bestknown part is the period of the Hussite wars. This is the period of Bohemia’s greatness and it is also the period, when the links between Bohemia and England are frequent and strong. Wycliffe’s importance was indeed greater in Bohemia than even in his own country.

Though Bohemia was for two centuries a mainly Hussite—I had almost written protestant—country, only one of its sovereigns was of the predominant religion of the land over which he ruled. This was the great George of Poděbrad, one of Bohemia’s greatest kings and one, whose memory is still cherished by the Bohemian people. The earlier part of his reign was the more prosperous one. Towards the end of his life and after king George had been excommunicated by pope Paul II, the Romanist Bohemian nobles, some of whom had already risen in arms against him, proclamed Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, as king of Bohemia. Warfare between the rival sovereigns continued up to the death of King George in 1471. The successors of king George were the Polish prince Wladislaus and then his son Louis. After the death of the latter at the battle of Moháč in Hungary in 1526, the Bohemian