Page:Historical paintings of the Slavic nations by Alfons Mucha (1921).pdf/23



From the red platform, a raised circular place from which important events were announced to the people and also where persons of note had been executed, one beholds the departure, in long processions, of the officials and the priests with their ikons. The common people remain—they debate-deliberate—thank God-give praise, but do not yet quite comprehend the meaning of their new liberty.

ILIČ OF KROMĚŘÍŽ was the predecessor of Jan Hus. He was a man inspired by religious fervour and was the first who by spoken word dared to oppose the vices of his time in the voluptuous middle ages. By his flaming eloquence, he held the people of all strata of society, and aroused a current of religious enthusiasm which grew and developed after fifty years into the powerful Hussite movement.