# East European Quarterly/Volume 15/Number 1/Palacký at the Slav Congress of 1848

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* related authors: František Palacký.
PALACKÝ AT THE SLAV CONGRESS OF 1848
Lawrence D. Orton Oakland University
The Slav Congress which was held in Prague amidst the turnoil of that momentous year 1848 represented the first attempt of the Danubian Slav nations to formulate a joint response to the threat to their national well-being posed by German and Magyar nationalist policies. The congress, poised between stages of national renascence and political maturation, stands as a watershed in the modern history of the Slavs.$^1$
Within a remarkably short time after the fall of the Metternichian pre-March order, two hostile national axes crisscrossed central Europe, one running from Frankfurt in the west through Vienna and Pest, the other from Poznań in the north through Prague and Zagreb. The first joined the liberal and radical advocates of greater German unity and Magyar independence; the second, the Slavs seeking to escape German and Magyar hegemony and distant bureaucratic rule. It was this mounting national enmity that engendered the Slavs’ search for a common forum and program. The idea of convening a congress of Slav spokesmen was advanced in late April, 1848, in several quarters-in a public call by the Croatian liberal, Ivan Kukuljević-Sakcinski; in private correspondence to Prague by the Poznań democrat Jędrzej Moraczewski; and, especially, by the Slovak national leader Ľudovít Štúr, who obtained backing in Prague from the Czech liberals. The various initiatives were linked by a common insistence on the need for the Slavs “to deliberate [forthwith] the means whereby their subjugators in Pest and Frankfurt could most easily, quickly, and surely be confronted.”$^2$ At a meeting of Czech patriots in Prague on April 30, a committee was selected to guide the congress preparations, and a proclamation was approved, inviting all Austrian Slavs “possessing the trust of their peoples . . . to assemble in the venerable Slav and Czech city of Prague on May 31.”$^3$
Although František Palacký did not attend the first meetings of the Preparatory Committee, his presence was pervasive. (It is noteworthy that at its first meeting the committee approved the congress announcement contingent on Palacký’s endorsement.)$^4$ Since April 11, the date of his celebrated reply to Frankfurt, in which he refused to become a member of ​the Council of Fifty, Palacký had been recognized as the most eloquent spokesman for the Austrian Slavs’ determination to resist the inclusion of their homelands in a German national state. Palacký’s letter gave political expression to the concept of Austro-Slavism that had evolved from pre-March cultural Pan-Slavism. In his judgment, only an independent, federally structured, and politically reformed Austrian state could protect the smaller Slav nations-positioned between obscurantist tsardom and an alien German nationalist movement-from absorption by these stronger neighbors. For Austria to merge with Germany was in fact asking Austria to commit suicide and the Slavs to forego their quest for national equality.$^5$
Palacký took little part in the congress preparations, being preoccupied with the affairs of the Bohemian National Committee which, by May, had acquired considerable political influence with Governor Leo Thun. However, at the suggestion of Pavel Josef Šafařík, who was in Vienna sounding out the official reaction to the congress plans, Palacký wrote a statement addressed to the Austro-Germans and the Magyars. The explanation affirmed the Slavs’ loyalty to the Habsburg monarchy, disclaimed any Pan-Slav, separatist, or Russianist intentions, and emphasized the Slavs’ determination to defend their just national and constitutional rights. Although he closely followed Šafařík’s proposals, Palacký concluded his statement with his own candid assessment of the Slavs’ aims:
Thus our national independence and unity can only be served by the continuance of the integrity and sovereignty of the Imperial Austrian state. It is evident that this entire endeavor is of an essentially conservative nature and presents nothing that should disturb in the slightest our just and liberal-minded [freisinnig] non-Slav fellow citizens.$^6$
Palacky’s Erklärung was widely publicized in the non-Slav press.$^7$ But whereas this disclaimer of hostile intentions may have helped to reassure cautious officials in Prague and Vienna, it stimulated suspicions of a Slav conspiracy among Austro-German radical nationalists. Nevertheless, Baron Jan Neuberg, vice chairman of the Preparatory Committee, informed Šafařík that Palacký’s statement “should paralyze any talk of Pan-Slavism.”$^8$
Grossdeutsch hostility to the congress plans centered especially on the person of Palacký. Since writing his letter of April 11, Palacký was identified as the leader of a band of Austro-Slav separatists who were determined to thwart German unity and “Slavicize” the monarchy with Russian ​aid. In addition, German nationalists were outraged when the Austrian Ministerial Council on May 8 offered Palacký the portfolio of education. Palacký refused the appointment, but the news of the offer, which coincided with the announcement of the Slav Congress, bought furious protests in the Viennese press. Minister-President Franz von Pillersdorff was accused of patronizing the congress plans and of flirting with the politically ambitious Slavs.$^9$
Despite the chorus of denunciation of Palacký and the Slavs in Vienna, Frankfurt, and Pest, Palacký himself continued to work behind the scenes in Prague to bridge the widening gap of mistrust between Czechs and Poles, which was becoming a major obstacle to the congress plans. Palacký introduced Prince Leon Sapieha (a Galician magnate and Prince Adam Czartoryski’s brother-in-law) to the Bohemian nobleman, Count J.M. Thun, the titular head of the Preparatory Committee. By his own account, Sapieha left Prague with every intention of returning to attend the congress, as in fact he did. He was convinced that the Czech leaders wanted nothing to do with either Russia or with Russian-inspired Pan-Slavism.$^{10}$
The rules and procedures formulated by the Preparatory Committee divided the congress into three regional/national sections: 1) Czechs and Slovaks; 2) Poles and Ukrainians (later joined by two Russians, no section having been allotted for them); and 3) South Slavs. Each section would constitute itself, choose its own officers, and designate sixteen representatives, who, with the designees from the other sections, would comprise the Plenary Committee. In addition, each section would nominate a candidate for the presidency. Just before the congress opened, the Plenary Committee would elect the president from among the three nominees, the other two becoming vice presidents.$^{11}$ The three candidates were: Prince Jerzy Lubomirski (Polish-Ukrainian section); Stanko Vraz (the Slovene Illyrian member of the South Slav section; it should be noted that Ljudevit Gaj did not attend); and Palacký (Czecho-Slovak section). On June 1 the Plenary Committee met and unanimously elected Palacky to preside over the congress. The only other Slav in Prague who rivaled Palacký in stature and respect as a likely candidate for president was the ethnographer Šafařík. Actually, the presidency was first earmarked for Šafařík, whose “extensive knowledge of all Slavic idioms” uniquely qualified him for the position; but when he declined, Palacký reluctantly (by his own account) accepted the office.$^{12}$ Be this as it may, Šafařík chaired the Czecho-Slovak section, where his contribution to the deliberations was as great as Palacký’s.
​The Slav Congress was officially inaugurated on June 2, the late arrival of some delegates having occasioned the delay. Palacký’s eloquent opening address set the tone for the business ahead. He cited the renewed spirit of liberty, fraternity, and harmony which had drawn the Slavs together, and he charged the delegates to go forward with the task of securing equality and justice for their peoples. Palacky’s remarks were carefully weighed; due gratitude was expressed to the “gracious” Emperor Ferdinand, under whose scepter the Slavs would surely attain a brighter future.$^{13}$ Despite conclusive evidence that only Slav languages were spoken in the congress sessions, several German press reports gleefully maintained that Palacký’s keynote address was in fact delivered in German.$^{14}$
Palacký’s most effective contribution outside the formal meetings was in ironing out disputes and, later, in drafting the “Manifesto to the Nations of Europe.” One example of his mediation concerned the changes in the congress program which were proposed by the chairman of the Polish-Ukrainian section, the Poznań democrat Karol Libelt, at a meeting of the Plenary Committee on June 5. The original agenda, a cumbersome document, was in the form of a series of discussion questions. The delegates felt that this program, since it could not be carried out in the time allotted for the deliberations, would have an undesirable effect on European opinion. Libelt’s new program called for a “Manifesto to the Nations of Europe,” a message to the emperor that would convey the Slav nations’ individual as well as collective demands, and adopting a plan for the future federative union of the Austrian Slavs.$^{15}$ In all likelihood these changes had been worked out previously in private discussions between Libelt and the Czech leaders, especially Palacký and Šafařík.$^{16}$
The “Manifesto to the Nations of Europe” was the only document that the congress had approved before Whitmonday, June 12, when the street fighting in Prague between students and workers and the Austrian military forces prematurely ended the congress deliberations. The Diplomatic Committee, headed by Palacký, held several meetings before agreeing on the text of the manifesto, most likely on June 10. The actual drafting was entrusted to Palacky, who drew on suggestions from Libelt, František Zach, Šafařík, and Mikhail Bakunin.$^{17}$
In Palacký’s final version, the manifesto stated the aims of the Slavs gathered in Prague. Recent revolutionary changes throughout Europe now impelled the Slavs—eighty million strong—to assume their rightful place among the peoples of Europe. The yoke of oppression “raised and defended by brute force in collusion with fraud and malice, is collapsing into dusty ruin under our eyes. A fresh vital spirit spreading over wide expanses ​is creating new worlds: freedom of speech, freedom of action have at last become realities.”$^{18}$ The Slavs, “among whom liberty was ever cherished,” were determined not to embark on the course of oppression which had marred the history of the Latin and Germanic peoples:
[The Slav] demands neither conquest nor dominion, but he asks for liberty for himself and for all others: he demands that liberty shall be unconditionally recognised as the most sacred right that man possessed. Therefore we Slavs reject and hold in abhorrence all dominion based on main force and evasion of the law; we reject all privileges and prerogatives as well as all political differentiation of classes; we demand unconditional equality before the law, an equal measure of rights and duties for all.
The manifesto then raised an even more vital concern: the desire for the free development of Slav nationality: “Not less sacred to us than man in the enjoyment of his natural rights is the nation, with its sum total of spiritual needs and interests. Even if history has attributed a more complex human development to certain nations than to others, it has none the less always been seen that the capacity of those other nations for development is in no way limited.”
The manifesto denounced those nations which, in pursuit of their own aims, infringed on the just rights of other peoples to nationhood:
Thus the German threatens many a Slavonic people with violence if it will not agree to assist in the upbuilding of the political greatness of Germany, and thus the Magyar is not ashamed to arrogate to himself exclusive national rights in Hungary. We Slavs utterly decry all such pretensions, and we reject them the more emphatically the more they are wrongfully disguised in the garb of freedom.$^{19}$
The Slavs did not seek vengeance for these wrongs; they were prepared to “extend a brotherly hand to all neighbouring nations who are prepared to recognise and effectively champion with us the full equality of all nations, irrespective of their political power or size.”
As for Austria’s political future, the Slavs were determined that “the state must be fundamentally reconstructed, if not within new [geographical] boundaries, at least upon new principles.” Foremost among these was the transformation of the imperial state into a “confederation of nations, all enjoying equal rights.”$^{20}$ In this new union the Slavs envisaged “not ​only [their] own salvation, but also liberty, enlightenment and humanity in general.” The Slavs trusted that the European nations would recognize the justice of this new arrangement. But whatever the case, the Slavs were committed to defending their national well-being by all available means. The manifesto refuted the calumnious accusations which the enemies of Slavdom were spreading, especially the “bogey of political Pan-Slavism.”
Turning to specific injustices, the Slavs protested the unjust partition of the Polish state and called on the “governments concerned finally to remedy this old sin.“$^{21}$ The manifesto also demanded that the Hungarian ministry cease persecuting the Slavs and fully assure their just national rights.
In conclusion, the Prague Slavs proposed that “a general European Congress of Nations be summoned for the discussion of all international questions”; prophetically, they urged that this step be taken at once, “Before the reactionary policy of the individual Courts causes the nations, incited by hatred and malice, mutually to destroy one another!”
Among students of the Slav Congress, the manifesto has evoked disparate judgments. Its admirers, exemplified by the Czech historian Josef Macůrek, maintain that the manifesto went well beyond other liberal homilies of the day by its radical egalitarian spirit and supranational appeal, and was “an effective reply to the Germans and Magyars who abused and sneered at the Congress.”$^{22}$ Other writers have been more critical. The Bohemian German historian Anton Springer, who witnessed the events of 1848 in Prague, pointed to the political naivete and the contradictions of the document, such as the discrepancy between the radical urgency of the closing sentence and Palacký’s cautious approach to reform within Austria.$^{23}$ Stanley Z. Pech has contrasted the idealistic depiction of a pacific Slav character, which contributed to the prevailing theme of Slav goodness and German evil that permeated the document, with the failure to weigh the social cause of oppression.$^{24}$ Most recently, the Czech historian Arnošt Klíma has maintained that “in contrast to Palacký’s other writings of 1848, the manifesto was very general, insufficiently concrete,” and for this reason was largely ineffectual, which, Klíma added, likewise reflected the fate of the congress as a whole.$^{25}$
Essentially the manifesto reflected a compromise of the views advanced during the congress. Although specific political proposals were confined to the Austrian Slavs, the manifesto nonetheless expressed concern for the Slavs beyond the Habsburg borders. But any reference to the Russians was deliberately sidestepped to avoid adding fuel to charges that the Slavs were playing into tsarist hands.$^{26}$ Both the romantic theme of a common Slav ​heritage and the primacy of the concept of national sovereignty derived from the pre-March writings of the Slav awakening. In issuing the manifesto, the Slavs sought to clarify their position to an uninformed—if not misinformed—European opinion.
Although Palacký had several alternative drafts at his disposal, the manifesto was stylistically and in subject emphasis his own creation.$^{27}$ Nevertheless, a German commentator for Die Grenzboten could not believe that this “liberal” manifesto was the work of Palacký: “[It] is completely foreign to the spirit of the Czech party. The manifesto aims at the bright plains of humanism, [while] the Czechs’ policy looks back to the past . . . The language of the manifesto preaches peace among nations, but the entire policy of the Czechs . . . has been maliciously to incite the Germans to anger and hatred.”$^{28}$
On many issues Palacký’s views did not differ significantly from those of his collaborators. Libelt’s draft dwelled at length on the uniqueness of the pacific Slav character and the egalitarian basis of the primitive Slav communal life. He likewise projected a messianic role for the Slavs in a rejuvenated Europe. Libelt paid less attention to immediate political issues the dangers stemming from the Germans and Magyars—than appeared in Palacký’s final version. A teacher of philosophy by vocation, Libelt foresaw the triumph of a sort of Christian socialism wherein individual Christian love would guide the relations among nations as well.$^{29}$ As a manifesto, however, Libelt’s draft was ill-conceived, bearing in the opinion of one observer “an uncomfortable resemblance to a political tract.”$^{30}$ Moreover, Libelt’s draft contained none of the specific proposals for social and economic reform which he had outlined in the new agenda of June 5.
Zach’s suggestions covered many points raised by Libelt and anticipated Palacký’s text. The previously politically scattered Slav tribes were rightly following the lead of the Latins and Germans in striving to attain political liberty, national equality, and union. Zach echoed the theme of an inherent egalitarian spirit among the Slavs, but, unlike Libelt, he scrupulously applied his suggestions solely to the affairs of the Austrian Slavs.$^{31}$
Bakunin’s proposal, on the other hand, was a messianic call for Slav unity. “The hour of deliverence has [at long last] sounded for the Slavs.” Past internecine strife, which had caused the Slavs to fall victim to the German yoke, would cease as the Slavs came to share a newly discovered faith in their common destiny. But to guarantee this brighter future, Bakunin stipulated a series of stringent measures to maintain Slav union. The Slav nations would have to submit to a potentially coercive central ​authority much of their individual national sovereignty. Like Libelt, Bakunin did not limit his remarks to the Austrian Slavs, though in the Confession he conceded that the Slavs might have to unite at first without Russia, while awaiting that country’s early liberation from tsarist tyranny. It is not known to what extent, if at all, Palacký seriously consulted Bakunin’s proposal, although Bakunin’s first section markedly resembled passages in Palacký’s final version of the manifesto.$^{32}$
Much of the interest and controversy regarding the Slav Congress stems from its martyrdom to the cause of Slav unity and the disparate judgments that it has received from both contemporaries and later writers. These polemics have focused in no small measure on Palacký and his leadership of the congress. On two occasions Palacký, who generally refused to be drawn into press polemics, was compelled to defend publicly the congress and his role in it against the criticism of the victorious counterrevolutionary forces.
The first instance concerned the charges of Prince Alfred zu Windischgrätz, the Austrian military commander in Prague, that the congress was part of a far-flung Slav conspiracy and had directly contributed to the June uprising. During the uprising, Palacký had tried to mediate between the insurgents and the military; now, in the aftermath, Windischgrätz directed the Prague municipal police to keep a close watch on Palacký’s activities.$^{33}$ Palacký, anxious to join his ailing wife in the country, had left Šafařík, Jordan, V.V. Tomek, and Josef Jireček the care of the congress records—those not seized by the military or taken by delegates in their hasty departure—and the task of issuing an account of the congress. But before he left Prague, Palacký wrote to Governor Thun, defending the congress and denying that it had led to the uprising.$^{34}$ Unfortunately, after the uprising Thun lost much of his influence in Prague and Vienna, and in late July he was replaced as governor. On the other hand, Windischgrätz, whose wife had been killed by a stray bullet on the first day of the uprising, was determined to establish the existence of a conspiracy and to bring the perpetrators to speedy justice. In the main, he centered his investigation on the Czech national party and the congress leadership. His efforts bore little fruit until he discovered among those arrested in the military dragnet an adventurous youth from Slovakia, who, it seemed, could divulge a fascinating tale of conspiracy.
Marcel Turánsky told his interrogators that in 1847, while studying in Prešov, he had become acquainted with several Polish émigrés who took him into their confidence. The Poles were in secret contact with a number of prominent Slavs, including František Palacký. Their common goal was ​the creation of a “great Slavic Empire.” Turansky was sure that in Prague the organization was headed by “a certain Palacký.” He knew of letters Palacký had written to the ringleaders in Prešov, although he had not read them. The plans called for simultaneous revolts in 1850 in several Slav centers, including Prague, but when revolution erupted in Paris in February, 1848, the conspirators decided to advance the timetables.$^{35}$
Windischgrätz’s report on the June events, released on August 2, 1848, when the investigation was turned over to the civilian court authorities, gave full credence to Turánsky’s unsubstantiated testimony. Though the names of the chief conspirators were known to the authorities, Windischgrätz conveniently refrained from citing them, allegedly so as not to prejudice the subsequent investigation.$^{36}$ From Vienna, where he was a deputy to the Imperial Parliament, Palacký, together with Prince Lubomirski, issued a categorical denial of the general’s allegations and challenged him to make public the supposedly incriminating evidence.$^{37}$ In fact, Palacký did not learn that he was cited as a main conspirator by Turansky until the following March, when Austrian Justice Minister Bach, in response to an interpellation by the Czech deputies at Kroměříž for release of the Investigatory Committee’s files, merely read into the record a summary of Turánsky’s testimony.$^{38}$ Bach’s action incensed the Czechs, but their protests were ignored by Vienna when the Reichstag was dissolved on March 6.
The second incident that prompted Palacký to take a public stand on the congress followed the publication by a Czech newspaper in early January, 1849, of Mikhail Bakunin’s inflammatory, anti-Austrian Appeal to the Slavs.$^{39}$ More precisely, it was a semi-official reply in the governmental Prager Zeitung to the publication in Bohemia of the Appeal that forced Palacký to speak out. The anonymous article in the Prager Zeitung was not so much directed against the Appeal itself as against the Czech liberals, apparently for failing to denounce the editors of the Noviny Lípy slovanské who had published the Appeal in Czech: “Will then no Czech raise his voice against such doings? Where are you, educators of the Slavs in Bohemia?” Seizing on Bakunin’s proud identification as a “member of the Slav Congress,” the author challenged by name the Czechs who had guided the congress—Palacký, Neuberg, Dejm, and Havlíček—to explain Bakunin’s version of the congress and his role in it.”$^{40}$ This attempt to compromise the Czech liberals by holding them responsible for their fellow congress member, Bakunin, was reminiscent of the charges leveled at the congress leadership by Windischgrätz in August, 1848.
In a public letter of January 22, 1849, from Kroměříž, Palacký, although refusing to be drawn into a direct polemic with the Prager Zeitung, ​expressed his dismay that this official newspaper would use an unidentified author to stir up old national antagonism. In contrast to Karel Havlíček, who wrote an indignant and emotional reply, Palacký adopted a measured, professorial tone. Bakunin had impressed Palacký at the Slav Congress as a humane and open-minded individual, but after reading the Appeal Palacký could only assume that Bakunin had not been candid or that his views had recently changed. In June, 1848, Bakunin had stood for liberty and human happiness; now he spoke only of revolution. Palacký carefully noted the illogic in Bakunin’s work and his misconception of the Slav Congress, which Palacký insisted contributed significantly to instilling in the Slavs the determination to preserve Austria.$^{41}$
Palacký was faced not only with official criticism but was also the target of recriminations directed against his person by several embittered and disappointed forty-eighters. When in March, 1849, reports reached Bakunin that Russian forces had crossed onto Austrian soil to aid the imperial troops, who were supported by the Austro-Slavs, against the Magyar separatists, Bakunin drafted a second Appeal to the Slavs. This time he urged the Slavs to get rid of their treacherous leaders-the Croatian ban Jelačić, the Serbian primate Rajačić, and Palacký—who have “sold you out to the Austrian dynasty and Nicholas.”$^{42}$
Whereas conservatives like Leo Thun chided Palacký and the Czech national leadership for yielding the congress into the hands of the radical Poles,$^{43}$ the Poles denounced Palacký as a tool of the “Germanized nobility” and an enemy of Poland. For Jedrzej Moraczewski, “there was neither patriotism nor a burning commitment to liberty in Palacký; his habits and way of thinking were more German than Slav.”$^{44}$
In no one was the disappointment with the Slavs’ failure in 1848–49 more tragically reflected than in Ľudovít Štúr, who had labored untiringly in the spring of 1848 to spread the congress idea and promote a closer understanding among the Slavs. The intervening time led Štúr to reexamine his activities in 1848–49 and to renounce the Austro-Slav program which he had earlier supported. In his political testament, the posthumously published Das Slawenthum und die Welt der Zukunft, he accused the Czechs of seeking to establish hegemony over the Austrian Slavs under the apparent leadership of the “knowledgeable and sedate but unimaginative and shortsighted Bohemian historiographer Palacký,” but actually guided by “Bohemian aristocrats, Catholic priests, and their venal servants.” In Štúr’s judgment, the experience of 1848 had shown the utter bankruptcy of the idea of a Slav federation German-ruled Austria. The sole viable course of action for the oppressed West and South Slavs was to entrust themselves to a union with tsarist Russia.$^{45}$
​When the Czecho-Slovaks and South Slavs lent active support to the Habsburgs against radical Vienna and Pest, Marx and Engels, who earlier had applauded the “democratic” Prague uprising, turned their full anger against the “Slavonian dilettanti,” whose “anti-historical movement . . . intended nothing less than to subjugate the civilized West under the barbarian East, the town under the country, trade, manufactures, intelligence under the primitive agriculture of Slavonian serfs.” Their “chief champion, . . . Professor Palacký, [was] himself nothing but a learned German run mad, who even now [could not] speak the Tschechian language correctly and without foreign accent.” Engels accused the Czech and Croatian “Pan-Slavists [of] betraying the revolutionary cause for the shadow of nationality,” which played directly into Russian hands. The Slav Congress, he concluded, “would have proved a decided failure even without the interference of the Austrian military.”$^{46}$
To the end of his life, František Palacký remained convinced that the Slavs’ enemies had provoked the June uprising to disrupt the Slav Congress and compromise the newly formed Bohemian provincial government. In his Political Testament (Politisches Vermächtniss), he wrote: “I know of no event of our times which has had more fateful and damaging consequences for the nation than this Whitsuntide uprising.”$^{47}$
To be sure, the Slav Congress was only a brief episode in Palacký’s long and varied political career. Its importance, nonetheless, was manifold: it was the first test of his political leadership of the Czechs and Austro-Slavs, and it served as a seedbed for the development of his views on the federal restructuring of the Danubian monarchy that he later presented at Kroměřiž. Even after the late 1860’s, when he came to doubt the chances for meaningful national reform in a German-dominated Austria, Palacký continued to prize the Slav Congress as a milestone on the road of the Slavs political maturation.
NOTES
1. On the Slav Congress, see esp. the collection of documents edited by the Czech historian Václav Žáček, Slovanský sjezd v Praze roku 1848: Sbírka dokumentů (Prague, 1958). Among older studies reflecting the national points of view of the major participating Slav nations toward the congress, see: (in Czech) Zdeněk V. Tobolka Slovanský sjezd v Praze roku 1848 (Prague, 1901); (in Serbo-Croatian) Milan Prelog, Slavenska renesansa 1780–1848 (Zagreb, 1924); (in Polish) Władysław T. Wisłocki, Kongres Stowiański w r. 1848 i sprawa polska (Lvov, 1927); (in Ukrainian) Ivan Bryk, “Slavians ’kyi zizd u Prazi 1848 r. i ukrains ’ka sprava,” Zapysky Naukovoho Tovarystva imeny Shevchenka, CXXIX (1920), pp. 141–217.
2. Jan Petr Jordan, Aktenmässiger Bericht über die Verhandlungen des ersten Slavenkongresses in Prag (Prague, 1848), pp. 10–11. The origins and preparations ​for the congress are discussed in Václav Čejchan, “Ke vznifu myšlenky slovanského sjezdu roku 1848,” Slovanský přehled, XX (1928), pp. 401–408; Richard G. Plaschka, “Zur Einberufung des Slawenkongresses 1848,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, CXXV (1966), pp. 196–207; and John Erickson, “The Preparatory Commitee of the Slav Congress, April–May 1848,” in Peter Brock and H. Gordon Skilling, eds., The Czech Renascence of the Nineteenth Century (Toronto, 1970), pp. 176.–201.
3. The official, amended version of Štúr’s announcement was dated May 1, 1848. and published in Národní Nowiny, May 5, 1848, No. 26, p. 103. It was translated into several Slav languages as well as German, and was widely disseminated in the press and as a broadsheet.
4. Minutes in H. Traub, “O přípravách k Slovanskému sjezdu v Praze r. 1848,” Časopis Musea království českého, XCII (1918), p. 249.
5. Palacký’s letter of April 11 was widely publicized in the Czech and German press. It is reprinted in the Czech (Radhost [Prague, 1871–73], III, pp. 10–17) and German (Gedenkblätter [Prague, 1874), pp. 149–155) editions of Palacký’s writings. An English translation is in Slavonic and East European Review, XXVI (April, 1948), pp. 303–308. For a recent assessment of the letter’s importance, see Stanley Z. Pech, The Czech Revolution of 1848 (Chapel Hill, 1969), pp. 80–85. On the evolution of Austro-Slavism, see esp. Václav Žáček, “K dějinám austro-slavismu rakouských Slovanů,” Slovanské historické studie, VII (1968), pp. 129–179.
6. Šafařík’s suggestions were contained in a letter of May 3, 1848, to the Preparatory Committee, in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 65–66. Palacký’s draft in German and the final copy are in the Archív Národního musea (Prague), fond: Materiály Slovanského sjezdu v Praze 1848.
7. The Erklärung was dated May 5, 1848, and first appeared in Constitutionelles Blatt aus Böhmen (Prague), May 6, 1848, No. 31, and thereafter in the Wiener Zeitung, May 9, 1848, No. 129, p. 620, and also in the Czech press.
8. May 6, 1848, in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 70–71. Palacký also wrote to the anxious Šafařík on May 8, reassuring him that his suggestions were receiving careful attention. Ibid., pp. 74–75.
9. See esp. “Panslavismus vor der Thür,” Die Constitution, May 9, 1848, No. 41, pp. 616–617; Wiener Schnellpost, May 13/14 and 20/21, 1848, Nos. 12/13 and 19/20, pp. 45–46, 78–79; and Der Freimüthige, Nos. 35–37, pp. 142–143, 152. See also R. John Rath, “The Viennese Liberals of 1848 and the Nationality Problem,” Journal of Central European Affairs, XV (October, 1955), pp. 227–239.
10. See Antoni Helcel to Palacky, May 13, 1848, in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 114–115; and Leon Sapieha, Wspomnienia z lat od 1803 do 1863 r., ed. B. Pawlowski (Lvov & Warsaw, [1914]), pp. 225–226.
11. The congress rules were drafted by the Lusatian Sorb Jan Petr Jordan, who drew on suggestions by Šafařík. They were published in Národní Nowiny, May 30, 1848, No. 46, pp. 182–183; and as a broad sheet in several languages. They are reprinted in Czech in Zpráwa o sjezdu slowanskem (Prague, 1848), pp. 20–24; and in Polish in Žáček, Slovansky sjezd, pp. 218–220.
12. See Palacký, Politisches Vermächtniss (Prague, 1872), p. 9; and “Paul Joseph Šafařík: Ein biographisches Denkmal,” Österreichische Revue, VIII (1865), p. 45. Allegedly the presidency was also offered, pro forma, to Count J.M. Thun, who had chaired the Preparatory Committee. Thun, purportedly suffering from gout, declined ​in a letter to Palacký to be considered for the presidency. May 26, 1848, in Záček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 86–87.
13. Palacký’s opening address in Národní Nowiny, June 4. 1848, No. 51, p. 201; and Zpráwa o sjezdu slowanském, pp. 32–34.
14. See my “Did the Slavs Speak German at Their First Congress?” Slavic Review, XXXIII (1974), p. 518.
15. Protocol in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 284–289.
16. See Václav Žáček, Čechové a Poláci roku 1848 (Prague, 1947-48), II, pp. 148–151.
17. Jordan, Aktenmässiger Bericht, p. 34; and Libelt to Palacký, June 8, 1848, in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, p. 361n.
18. Citations from English text, trans. William Beardmore, “Manifesto of the First Slavonic Congress to the Nations of Europe,” Slavonic and East European Review, XXVI (April, 1848), pp. 309–313. The manifesto was published as a broadsheet in both Czech and German following the June uprising, and appeared contemporaneously in Polish, Slovene, Serb, as well as in German and Czech newspapers.
19. The manifesto also cited British refusal “to recognise the Irishman as an equal,” though no reference was made to Russia’s treatment of its neighbors.
20. Author’s translation.
21. Of the three partitioning powers, only Prussia was singled out by name.
22. “The Achievements of the Slavonic Congress,” Slavonic and East European Review, XXVI (April, 1948), pp. 330–334.
23. Geschichte Oesterreichs seit dem Wiener Frieden 1809 (Leipzig, 1863–65), II, pp. 336–339.
24. Czech Revolution of 1848, pp. 133–134.
25. Revoluce 1848 v českých zemích (Prague, 1974), p. 49.
26. The German nationalist newspaper, Wiener Schnellpost, June 17, 1848 (No. 47, pp. 189–191), charged that “Russian gold” and “Russian enticers” (Lockpfeifen) were covering Bohemia and the South Slav lands. Similarly, Kossuth’s newspaper, Kossuth Hirlapja (July 14, 1848, No. 12, p. 51), in commenting on the manifesto, asked if the Slavs would ever cease their “incessant flirtation with Muscovite might.” On the Russophobia of the Viennese liberals, see R. John Rath, The Viennese Revolution of 1848 (Austin, 1957), pp. 253–255.
27. See Otakar Odložilík, “The Slavic Congress of 1848,” Polish Review, IV, No. 4 (1959), p. 11.
28. “Prag und der neue Panslavismus II,” 1848, Sem. 1, pt. 2, pp. 438–439.
29. Libelt’s draft in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 361–365.
30. Pech, Czech Revolution of 1848, p. 135.
31. Zach’s draft in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 365–368.
32. On Bakunin’s proposals, see my “Bakunin’s Plan for Slav Federation, 1848,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, VIII (1974), pp. 107–115. It is commonly believed that Bakunin put two separate proposals before the congress: a plan for Slav federation and his recommendations for the European manifesto. Most scholars have assumed that the latter have been lost, a view most recently reiterated by Josef Polišenský, “Bakuninův návrh se dodnes nenašel” (Revoluce a Kontrarevoluce v Rakousku 1848 [Prague, 1975], p. 168). The only recorded mention of Bakunin’s recommendations for the manifesto is found in a letter of June 9, 1848, from Libelt to Palacký that accompanied the former’s own suggestions: “I enclose . . . a similar ​[project] by Bakunin in French” (Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, p. 361n). In all likelihood, Bakunin’s federative scheme and his recommendations for the manifesto are in fact the same document. In his later Confession (1851) to Tsar Nicholas I, Bakunin referred to only one proposal that he presented to the congress. Moreover, when Libelt’s new agenda was unveiled in the Polish-Ukrainian section on June 7, Bakunin emphatically opposed issuing separate manifestos to the European nations and to the Slavs. He recommended issuing “a simple declaration of principles.” Protocol in Wisłocki, Kongres słowianski, p. 116. Bakunin’s proposal was first published in Polish in the Lvov daily Dziennik Narodowy, August 31 and September 5, 1848, Nos. 132, 136, pp. 554–555, 568.
33. See Otakar Odložilík, “Pokus o soudní vyšetřování Fr. Palackého r. 1848,” Národní Osvobození (Prague), May 26, 1926, No. 143.
34. July 3, 1848, in Gedenkblätter, pp. 167–169.
35. Protocol of questioning on July 15, 1848, in Státní ústřední archiv (Prague), fond: Vyšetřovací komise 1848, fasc. 52/2. Portions of Turánsky’s testimony are reprinted in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, pp. 454–459. On the Turánsky affair, see my “The Investigation of the June 1848 Uprising in Prague: The Strange Case of Marcel Turánsky,” East European Quarterly, VIII (1974), pp. 57–69. Palacký later rejected this accusation as pure fabrication (Politisches Vermächtniss, p. 12).
36. Windischgrätz’s report was printed in Prager Zeitung, August 4, 1848, No. 30.
37. Their joint statement of August 10 was published in Wiener Zeitung, August 19, 1848, No. 227, p. 66.
38. Verhandlungen des österreichischen Reichstages nach der stenographischen Aufnahme (Vienna, 1848-49), V, pp. 342–345.
39. Noviny Lípy Slovanské, January 2–5, 2849, Nos. 1–4. See also Josef Kočí, “Česká politika a Bakuninův ‘Hlas k Slovanům,’” Slovanské historické studie, X (1974), pp. 113–140; and my “The Echo of Bakunin’s Appeal to the Slavs (1848),” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, X (1976), pp. 489–501.
40. January 19, 1849, No. 16.
41. “Nothgedrungene Erklärung,” Prager Zeitung, January 26, 1849, No. 22; and in Czech, “Wynucené wyjádření,” Národní Nowiny, January 27, 1849, No. 23, p. 89.
42. Printed in Václav Čejchan, Bakunin v Čechách (Prague, 1928), pp. 193–200. In his Confession, Bakunin later denounced “the pretensions of the Czech politicians,” who at the Slav Congress had sought to rule a Slav-dominated Austria. V. Polonskii, ed., Materialy dlia biografii M. Bakunina (Moscow & Petrograd/Leningrad, 1923–33), 1, p. 149. Cf. Václav L. Beneš, “Bakunin and Palacký’s Concept of Austroslavism” Indiana Slavic Studies, II (1958), pp. 79–111.
43. Betrachtungen über die Zeitverhältnisse, insbesondere im Hinblicke auf Böhmen (Prague, 1849), pp. 96–97.
44. From Moraczewski’s manuscript “O kongresie słowiánskim w Pradze, zebranym 31 maja 1848,” in Žáček, Slovanský sjezd, p. 515. This passage on Palacký was deleted from the published version of Moraczewski’s account of the congress: Opis pierwszego Zjazdu słowianskiego (Poznań, 1848).
45. Ed. Josef Jirásek (Bratislava, 1931), pp. 185 ff. Štúr’s manuscript was first published in 1867 under the Russian title Slavianstvo i mir budushchago.
46. Friedrich Engels, Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, in The German Revolutions, ed. L. Krieger (Chicago, 1967), pp. 177–180. Engels’ work originally appeared in the New York Daily Tribune in 1851–52 under Marx’s name.
47. See pp. 9–14.
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