Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T13:29:08.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conflicting Constructions of Memory: Attacks on Statues of Joseph II in the Bohemian Lands after the Great War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Nancy Meriwether Wingfield
Nancy Meriwether Wingfield
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115–2893.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the wake of independence in October 1918, the leaders of Czechoslovakia designated a multitude of national symbols for the nascent state, among them a flag, an anthem, an emblem, coinage, holidays, and stamps. Czech (and Slovak) art, drama, literature, and music commemorated new heroes and resurrected national historic figures ignored under Austria-Hungary. In this break with the past, national memory helped legitimate the new Czechoslovakia through celebration of the anti-Habsburg leaders in the struggle for independence and through denigration of former Habsburg rulers. Some nationalist Czechs, particularly the Czech legionnaires who had served in the Czechoslovak Army Abroad during World War I, were not content with the simple construction or reconstitution of Czech national symbols, but demanded in addition the destruction of numerous symbols of Habsburg rule. Thus, physical representations of the Habsburg past, many of which were to be found in the German-populated border regions of the Bohemian lands, became targets of their opprobrium.

Type
Articles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 28 , January 1997 , pp. 147 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 In “National Memories in the Modern Period,” in Social Memory (Oxford, 1992), 131Google Scholar, James Fentress and Chris Wickham discuss commemoration of anticolonial leaders as a way for “new” nations to mark clear breaks with the past. Tomáš G. Masaryk, one of the leaders in the Czechoslovak struggle for independence, could be added to their list, which includes Kamal Atatürk, Simon Bolívar, Camilo di Cavour, Guiseppe Garibaldi, and George Washington.

2 Most legionnaires had served in Russia, but some had also served in France and Italy. Returning legionnaires were among the first volunteers to serve in the new army of the Czechoslovak state. Although both the Czechoslovak Communists and Czech Social Democrats included legionnaires among their ranks, they were more often to be found in the nationally oriented Czech National Socialist party. Contemporary sources specifically noted the participation of former legionnaires and legionnaire members of the Czechoslovak army in the attacks on the statues of Joseph II. On the legionnaires in general, see Thunig-Nittner, Gerburg, Die tschechoslowakische Legion in Russland. Ihre Geschichte und Bedeutung bei der Entstehung der 1. Tschechoslowakischen Republik (Wiesbaden, 1970).Google Scholar

3 Freiheit (Teplitz), 11 3, 1920, 2.Google Scholar

4 Ben-Amos, Avner, “Monuments and Memory in French Nationalism,” History and Memory 5, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 1993): 51.Google Scholar

5 Connerton, Paul, How Societies Remember (New York, 1990), 9–10.Google Scholar

6 When the incidents are mentioned, discussion has usually been limited to Eger and Teplitz. See Brügel, Johann W., Tschechen und Deutsche 1918–1938 (Munich, 1967)Google Scholar; Campbell, F. Gregory, Confrontation in Central Europe: Weimar Germany and Czechoslovakia (Chicago, 1975)Google Scholar; Klepetař, Harry, Seit 1918… (M.-Ostrau, 1937)Google Scholar; and Peroutka, Ferdinand, Budování státu: Československá politika v letech popřevratových (The building of the state: Czechoslovak politics in the first post-revolutionary years) (Prague, 1936).Google Scholar

7 According to the Czechoslovak census of 1921, the German populations of Asch, Böhmisch Leipa, Eger, Rumburg, Teplitz, and Warnsdorf were 99%, 88%, 95%, 96%, 83%, and 94%, respectively; Statistický lexikon obcí v Čechách (Statistical handbook of the municipalities in Bohemia), Statistický lexikon obcí v Republice Československé (Statistical handbook of the municipalities in the Czechoslovak Republic), 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Prague, 1924).Google Scholar

8 Čada, Václav's 28. říjen 1918: Skutečnost, sny a iluze (The 28th of 10 1918: Reality, dreams, and illusion) (Prague, 1988)Google Scholar contains a thirty-two-page section of photographs, including several of the removal of Habsburg eagles and one of Austrian insignia piled into a bonfire ready to be ignited. These popular actions occurred throughout the Bohemian lands. See Budweiser Zeitung, 11 8, 1918, 5Google Scholar, on the planned mass demonstration with ceremonies to include the removal of the Austrian eagle from atop the tower of the city hall.

9 Prager Tagblatt, 11 4–5, 1918Google Scholar; Večer (Evening), 11 4, 1918Google Scholar. See also Alexander, Manfred, ed., Deutsche Gesandtschaftsberichte aus Prag, vol. 1: Von der Staatsgründung bis zum ersten Kabinett Beneš 1918–1921 (Munich, 1981), 58–60Google Scholar. For a contemporary interpretation of Czech attitudes about the Marian Column, see Žemla, Josef, “Historie sloupu mariánského na Staroměstském náměstí” (The history of the Marian Column in the Old Town Square) (Prague, vydáno 16. dne republiky rok 1 [11 12, 1918]).Google Scholar

10 For the comments of members of the Národní výbor present, see the first-person account of one of the instigators, the anarchist František (Franta) Sauer, “Naše lůza jesuité a diplomaté: Historický doklad svržení mariánského sloupu na Staroměstském náměstí v Praze” (Our mob, the Jesuits, and the diplomats: Historical paper on the toppling of the Marian Column in Old Town Square in Prague) (Prague, 1923).

11 See Prague city council member František Houser calling for the remains of the Marian Column to be cleaned away and then the statues of Ferdinand [sic! Francis] and Radetzky to be removed also (Archiv hlavního města Prahy [hereafter AHMP], Protokol schůzí rady městské 1918, listopad-prosinec [Protocols of the meetings of the city council, Nov.-Dec. 1918], Zápis o schůzí rady hlavního města Prahy konané dne 27. listopadu 1918 [Minutes of the meeting of the Prague city council, Nov. 27, 1918]). For reports of attacks on statues, see Prager Tagblatt, 09 30, 1919, 3Google Scholar, and Prager Abendblatt, 10 2, 1919, 1Google Scholar. The statues of Francis I and Radetzky, as well as fragments of the Marian Column, can be found today in the Lapidarium of the National Museum in Prague.

12 Státní ústřední archiv (hereafter SÚA), presidium ministerstva vnitra, 1919–1924 (hereafter PMV), sign. IV/P (Pomníky)/47, file 225/159/7, Sochy Josefa II (Statues of Joseph II), n.d. (appears to predate the attack on the statue at Eger).

13 Some Joseph statues were spontaneously removed and many more were boarded up in the aftermath of World War I as Czech troops occupied German towns in the border regions. Although I have found no documents detailing precisely how many statues were attacked in Bohemia in 1919 and 1920, at least one statue was demolished in the spring and three were destroyed in the autumn of 1919. Another statue was attacked in the summer of 1920, as were at least four in the autumn of 1920. In addition, fifteen of the sixty-five statues remaining in Bohemia in the autumn of 1920 were boarded up; SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 25/158/17, “Seznam pomníků a jinakých památek na císaře Josefa II. v Čechách” (Inventory of statues and other monuments to Emperor Joseph II in Bohemia), n.d. (1920; postdates the removal of the statue at Teplitz, but appears to predate the removal of the statue at Eger).

14 There is a substantial body of scholarship on Joseph II in Czech, German, and English. For recent English-language assessments of his achievements, see Blanning, T. C. W., Joseph II (London, 1994)Google Scholar, and Ingrao, Charles, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar. On Joseph II and Germanization, see Blanning, , Joseph II, 70–72Google Scholar, and Ingrao, , Habsburg Monarchy, 203, 206, 218.Google Scholar

15 Franzel, Emil, Sudetendeutsche Geschichte. Eine volkstümliche Darstellung (Augsburg, 1958), 194.Google Scholar

16 Leitmeritzer Zeitung (05 3, 1879), 1–3 (381–83)Google Scholar. On the activities of local committees for the erection of a statue of Joseph II, see Archiv města Ústí nad Labem (hereafter AMÚL), Spolek pro postavení pomníku císaři Josephu II (Committee for the erection of a monument of Emperor Joseph II).

17 SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/4, Zápis o jednání parlamentní vyšetřující komise v Teplicích-Šanově (Record of the proceedings of the parliamentary inquiry commission in Teplitz-Schönau/Teplice-Šanov), comment by German Social Democratic deputy Karl Čermack, Nov. 15, 1920; SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/6, Nejvyšší správní soud v Praze (The highest administrative court in Prague), decision, Apr. 18, 1923.

18 On the production of statues of Joseph II at Blansko, see Grolich, Vratislav, “Tematika zrušení nevolnictví v blanenské umělecké litině”Google Scholar (The theme of the abolition of serfdom in Blansko cast iron art), Rozpravy národního technického muzea (Discussions of the national technological museum) 94, Z dějin hutnictví (From the history of metallurgy) 12 (Prague, 1984): 289–96Google Scholar. On statues of Joseph II in general, see Vojtíšková, Marie, “Josefínské skulptury v severních Čechách” (Sculptures of Joseph II in northern Bohemia), Aktuality 3 (1982): 5–26Google Scholar; and Hojda, Zdeněk, “Císařský svatý, Nibelungové v Čechách a Minnesänger z Duchcov: Zmizelé a zapomenuté pomníky ‘našich’ Němců” (The imperial saint, the Nibelungen in Bohemia, and the Minnesänger of Duchcov: Vanished and forgotten statues of “our” Germans), in Pomníky a zapomníky (Monuments and forgetting), ed. Hojda, Zdeněk and Pokorný, Jiří (Prague, 1996), 134–49Google Scholar. The latter is a collection of essays on statues in the Bohemian lands.

19 I would like to thank William McGrath for bringing to my attention Peter Homans's comments on the relationship between mourning and monuments, as well as on group reaction to the destruction of its monuments, in The Ability to Mourn: Disillusionment and the Social Origins of Psychoanalysis (Chicago, 1989), 270–82.Google Scholar

20 The mayor of Auscha (Úštěk), Bohemia, made these remarks at the unveiling of the statue in that town on November 29, 1881 (Richter, Carl, Geschichte der Kaiser Josef-Denkmäler in Böhmen, Mähren, Niederösterreich und Schlesien [Reichenberg, 1883], 15Google Scholar). The Richter volume contains other speeches reflecting the same sentiments. See similar accounts in Bohemia and Neue Freie Presse, as well as local newspapers in northern and western Bohemia, September, October, and 11 1881.Google Scholar

21 Schorske, Carl E., “Politics in a New Key: An Austrian Trio,” in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York, 1980), 125.Google Scholar

22 See the comments of Bohemian Landtag deputy von Plener, Edler in Stenographischer Bericht über die XV. Sitzung der dritten Jahres—Session des böhmischen Landtages vom Jahre 1878, 10 19, 1881, 345Google Scholar. On the “Emperor Joseph Movement” as a German-national response to the weakening of the German position in Austria under the Taaffe government, see Umlaut, Franz Josef, Geschichte der deutschen Stadt Aussig (Bayreuth, 1960), 354–55.Google Scholar

23 Richter, , Kaiser Josef-Denkmäler, 69Google Scholar. The inscriptions on the Statue at Auscha read “In thankful respect for his good deeds from the German Volk” and “The abolition of Leibeigenschaft”; ibid., 10.

24 A Czech representative made these remarks in the Bohemian Landtag in the early 1880s (ibid., 36). See also Národní listy (National news), 10 30, 1881, 1Google Scholar, on the German nationalists' use of Joseph II.

25 Teplitz-Schönauer Anzeiger, 09 29, 1913, 1Google Scholar. This article was used to illustrate the point about the Germans' use of Joseph II as a nationalist symbol in the decision of the highest administrative court in Prague to uphold the removal of the statue in Teplitz; SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/7.

26 SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/6, Decision of the High Court in Prague, April 18, 1923.

27 See Lidové noviny (The people's newspaper) (Brünn), 10 1918-10 1919Google Scholar, as well as the reports of von Lohneysen, the German consul in Brünn, , in Gesandtschaftsberichte, ed. Alexander, 201–2.Google Scholar

28 SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/Brno/1–5, file 25/15/8, Policejní ředitelství to Předsednictví zemské správy politické v Brně, Sept. 23, 1919.

29 The Czech authorities apprehended the Czech perpetrators, who were freed after their identity was ascertained. See report of von Lohneysen, , 10 19, 1919Google Scholar, in Gesandtschaftsberichte, ed. Alexander, , 200Google Scholar; and Lidové noviny, 09 29, 1919, 1.Google Scholar

30 Peroutka, , Budování státu 3:2022Google Scholar; see also Archiv kanceláře presidenta republiky (hereafter AKPR), sign. D 7665/25/E (situační zprávy: sochy Josefa II), Ministerstvo vnitra, Okresní správa politická v Děčíně (Report of the district political administration in Tetschen/Děčín), July 7, 1920. On Aussig and Tetschen, see SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/160/3, Bürgermeister to the politische Landesverwaltung in Prag, Nov. 6, 1919; Aussiger Tageszeitung, 10 23–24, 1919Google Scholar; Teplitz-Schönauer Anzeiger, 10 29, 1919, 1–2Google Scholar; and Tetschen-Bodenbacher Volks-Zeitung, 11 1, 1919, 1, 2Google Scholar. On Warnsdorf, see Rumburger Zeitung, 11 23, 1920, 2.Google Scholar

31 In addition to the removal of the statue of Joseph II within three days, Czech demands included bilingual street signs and place-names, as well as bilingual city offices, and the removal of all public symbols of the former Habsburg monarchy (SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 22/159/8, č.j. 23174/1920). On alleged mistreatment of army recruits, see Tetschen-Bodenbacher Volks-Zeitung, 10 23, 1920, 1Google Scholar. On the events in Teplitz in general, see reports in SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, files 225/159/4, 225/159/7, and 225/159/8.

32 For a complete record of these events, see SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/57, file 225/159/4, Zápis o jednání parlamentní vyšetřující komise v Teplicích-Šanove, Nov. 15, 1920. See also Teplitzer Zeitung, 10 31-11 21, 1920Google Scholar; Kocman, Alois et al. , eds., Boj o směr vývoje československého státu (The struggle for the direction of the development of the Czechoslovak state), vol. 2 (Prague, 1969), 158–59Google Scholar; and Peroutka, , Budování státu 3:218–21.Google Scholar

33 On the storming of the Reichenberg city hall by Czech legionnaires, see Reichenberger Zeitung, 10 29, 1920, 1.Google Scholar

34 Okresní archiv Cheb (hereafter OACh), okresní úřad Cheb (hereafter OUCh) (fond 437), carton 47, cat. no. 558, Prezidium zemské správy politické v Praze to pan místodržitelsky rada v Chebu, Apr. 16, 1919. On the events in Eger in general, see also reports in SÚA, presidium českého mistodržitelství, 1911–1920 (hereafter PM), 8/1/78/19.

35 OACh, OUCh (fond 437), carton 47, cat. no. 558, Čsl. Zemské četnické velitelství pro Čechy (hereafter CZCVPCh), oddělení Cheb čís. 7, stanice Cheb čís. 1, to Okresní správa politická Cheb, Nov. 15, 1920.

36 Bohemia, 11 16, 1920, 1Google Scholar. The forcible cutting of women's hair is also mentioned in OACh, OUCh (fond 437), carton 47, cat. no. 558, CZCVPCh, oddělení Cheb čís. 7, stanice Cheb čís. 1, to OSPCh, Nov. 15, 1920. See also Teplitz-Schönauer Volks-Zeitung, 11 20, 1920, 1.Google Scholar

37 OACh, OUCh (fond 437), carton 47, cat. no. 558, CZCVPCh, oddělení Cheb čís. 7, stanice Cheb čís. 1, to OSPCh, Nov. 15, 1920.

38 Ibid.

39 OACh, OUCh (fond 437), carton 48, cat. no. 618, Stadtrat Eger to the Ministerrätepräsidium in Prag, Nov. 14, 1920.

40 Egerer Zeitung, 11 16, 1920, 1.Google Scholar

41 OACh, OUCh (fond 437), carton 47, cat. no. 558, CZCVPCh, odděleni Cheb čís. 7, stanice Cheb čís. 1, to OSPCh, Nov. 15, 1920.

42 SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/3, Zpráva o událostech (Report on events), Nov. 16, 1920.

43 For archival material on the demonstrations, see, for example, SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/3, and SÚA, presidium policejního ředitelstvi v Praze 1916–1920, D/6/30. The demonstrations were reported throughout the country from different political-national perspectives, especially between November 18 and 21, 1920. For a German bourgeois perspective, see Teplitzer Zeitung; for a German Social Democratic perspective, see Vorwärts (Reichenberg). For various Czech views, see the following newspapers, all of which were published in Prague: Czech bourgeois, Čas (Time); right-wing Czechoslovak Social Democratic, Právo lidu (Right of the people); and left-wing Czechoslovak Social Democratic, Rúde právo (Red right). See also the report of German minister Samuel Saenger from Nov. 17, 1920, in Gesandtschaftsberichte, ed. Alexander, , 350–58Google Scholar; and the discussion of the Prague city council, AHMP, Protokol schůzí rady městské, listopad-prosinec 1920, Zápis o mimořádné schůzí rady městské, Nov. 17, 1920.

44 On the demonstrations in Pilsen, see SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/1; see also Pilsner Tagblatt, 11 23, 1920, 1Google Scholar; and Teplitzer Zeitung, 11 19, 1920, 1, 2.Google Scholar

45 An estimated thirty thousand people, including representatives from neighboring Bavaria and Saxony, attended the honorary funeral procession and honor guard for the three; Rumburger Zeitung, 11 25, 1920, 1.Google Scholar

46 On the events in Asch in general, see reports in SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/158/20; and SÚA, PM, 8/1/76/13; see also the lead articles in Ascher Zeitung, 11 19–21, 1920.Google Scholar

47 Egerer Zeitung, 11 19, 1920, 1.Google Scholar

48 As an example of unrest, see the report noting that the residents in Franzensbad (Františkovy Lázně) were concerned because legionnaires allegedly wanted to knock down that town's statue of Emperor Francis, which was standing in a spa park (SÚA, PM, 8/1/78/19, č.j. 37811/1920, Nov. 18, 1920). Czech soldiers had removed the statue in Böhmisch Leipa from its pedestal on Josefplatz at the war's end (Teplitzer Zeitung, 11 24, 1920, 1Google Scholar; Tetschen-Bodenbacher Volks-Zeitung, 11 27, 1920, 3Google Scholar). On events in Warnsdorf, see SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/5.

49 SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/5, Bürgermeister to the politische Bezirksverwaltung, Oct. 30, 1922. See reports of the statue's return in Teplitzer Zeitung, 11 24, 1920, 1Google Scholar; and Tetschen-Bodenbacher Volks-Zeitung, 11 27, 1920, 3.Google Scholar

50 On Haida, see Egerer Zeitung, 11 24, 1920, 3Google Scholar. On Schluckenau and Rumburg, see Rumburger Zeitung, 11 23, 1920, 2Google Scholar; and Egerer Zeitung, 11 24, 1920, 3Google Scholar. On Fischern and Karlsbad, see SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/47, file 225/159/5, Bürgermeister to the politische Landesverwaltung in Prag, , 11 22, 1920Google Scholar, and Stadtrat to Bevölkerung, Ficherns, 11 1921.Google Scholar

51 Rumburger Zeitung, 11 23, 1920, 2.Google Scholar

52 SÚA, PM, 8/1/76/13, č.j. 37953/1920, telegram from Hildebrand: “Bitterness [in Asch] was increased by the lack of bread and flour.” On food shortages in general, see reports in SÚA, PM, 8/1/91/68.

53 SÚA, PM, 8/1/78/19, č.j. 38733/1920, letter of Nov. 19, 1920, Bürgermeister (Max Künzel) to the Garnison Eger.

54 Tetschen-Bodenbacher Volks-Zeitung, 11 27, 1920, 5.Google Scholar

55 Vojenský historický archiv, Vojenská kancelář prezidenta republiky, carton 1, no. T141/21, official log of the Military Chancellery of the President, 11 13, 1920.Google Scholar

56 See Peroutka, , Budování státu 3:2018–19Google Scholar, citing the response of Josef Svatopluk Machar to the actions of the legionnaires in Teplitz-Schönau regarding the statue of Joseph II in that city. Machar argued that the emperor had played a positive historic role. See also Saenger, 's report of 11 10, 1920Google Scholar, in Gesandtschaftsberichte, ed. Alexander, , 347Google Scholar. For contemporary comments in German-language newspapers, see, for example, Volksrecht (Aussig), 11 2, 1920.Google Scholar

57 On Teplitz-Schönau, see Kocman, et al. , Boj, 158Google Scholar. On Asch, see Alberti, Karl, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stadt Asch u. des Ascher Bezirkes, vol. 4, “Das 19. Jahrhundert” (Asch, n.d.), 211.Google Scholar

58 “Zákon o názvech měst, obcí, osad a ulic, jakož i označování obci místnímí tabulkami a čislování domů” (Law for the naming of towns, municipalities, villages, and streets, as well as for the designation of municipal place markers and the numbering of houses), Sbírka zákonů a nařízení státu československého (Collection of laws and decrees of the Czechoslovak state) 266/1920 (Prague, 1920), 595–96Google Scholar; and Decree no. 324/1921, Sbírka zákonů a nařízení státu československého (1921), 1310–12Google Scholar. See also Rádl, Emanuel's sharp criticism of this law in Der Kampf zwischen Tschechen und Deutschen, trans. Brandeis, Richard (Reichenberg, 1928), 189–90Google Scholar; the Czech original is Válka Čechů s Němci (Prague, 1928).Google Scholar

59 On the complicated attitudes of the Czech intelligentsia toward the policies of Joseph II, see Agnew, Hugh LeCaine, Origins of the Czech National Renascence (Pittsburgh, 1993), 6–8, 34, 59ff.Google Scholar, and “Josephinism and the Patriotic Intelligentsia in Bohemia,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 10 (10-12 1986): 577–97Google Scholar. See also Svoboda, George J., “The Odd Alliance: The Underprivileged Population of Bohemia and the Habsburg Court, 1765–1790,” in The Czech and Slovak Experience, ed. Morison, John (New York, 1992), 7–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 See the classic tale Babička by Czech national author Božena Němcová, which first appeared in 1854. Early in the story, the Czech grandmother proudly shows her grandchildren the coins Kaiser Joseph gave her when she met him as a young girl near where Ples, later Josefstadt, was being constructed (Němcová, , Babička: Obrazy venkovského života [The grandmother: Pictures from a rural life] [Prague, 1987], 17, 37–44Google Scholar). An exhibition on Joseph II at the Melk Cloister in 1980 contained numerous and varied representations of Joseph II over a period of more than two hundred years, including the plow the emperor used in the southern Moravian village of Slawikowitz bei Brünn (Slavíkovice) in 1769 (Landesausstellung, Niederösterreichische, Österreich zur Zeit Kaiser Josephs II. Mitregent Kaiserin Maria Theresias, Kaiser und Landesfürst [Vienna, 1980])Google Scholar. The plow and other representations of Joseph as a friend of the peasants are part of the collections of the Moravian Museum in Brno.

61 I would like to thank Jeremy King for reminding me of the importance of including a third category of self-identification, “imperial,” for the inhabitants of the Bohemian lands during the early nineteenth century.

62 See, for example, the entries “Joseph II” and “Josephinism” in different editions of the Czech-language encylopedia, Ottův slovník naučný (Ottův encyclopedia), from the late nineteenth century. Popular Czech attitudes toward Joseph II remain ambivalent to this day; Rak, Jiří, Bývali Čechové: České historické mýty a stereotypy (Once upon a time, the Czechs were: Czech historical myths and stereotypes) (Prague, 1994), 139–40, 142.Google Scholar

63 Jan Černý's speech to the National Assembly, Těsnopisecké zprávy o schůzích Národního shromáždění republiky Československé, 18. schůze (Stenographic protocols of sessions of the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic, 18th session), 11 9, 1920, 248–50Google Scholar, has been reprinted in Kocman, et al. , Boj, 158.Google Scholar

64 SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/32–47, file 225/158/16, contains correspondence from Národní jednota severočeská dating from the early 1920s alleging a German-nationalist cult of Joseph II as grounds for the removal of statues of the same.

65 This fear was apparently widespread. See Bohemia, 11 11, 1920, 1Google Scholar; and Právo lidu, quoted in Čas, 11 18, 1920, 2Google Scholar. See also an announcement criticizing the unlawful behavior in Prague, signed by Baxa, Karel, mayor of Prague, in Čas, 11 18, 1920, 1.Google Scholar

66 Representatives from every other Czech political party in the parliament except the newly formed Marxist Left cosponsored Franke's bill. See also Kaadner Zeitung, 12 1, 1920, 1, 2Google Scholar. Komotauer Anzeiger, 11 24, 1920, 1Google Scholar, reported that the Czech National Democrats wanted to amend the law of April 14, 1920, in order to remove all Habsburg monuments.

67 Karlsbad Volkswille, 11 16, 1920, 4.Google Scholar

68 Vorwärts (Reichenberg), 11 17–19, 1920.Google Scholar

69 Freiheit (Teplitz), 11 3, 1920, 2.Google Scholar

70 Freiheit, 11 16, 1920, 1.Google Scholar

71 Tisty k těsnopiseckým zprávám o schůzích poslanecké sněmovny Národního shromáždění republiky Československé (Attachments to the stenographic protocols of the meetings of the chamber of deputies of the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic), vols. 5, 8 (Prague: 1920, 1921), nos. 736, 737, 745, 783–84, 788, 2006, 2012.Google Scholar

72 “Zákon na ochranu republiky” (Law for the defense of the republic), Sbírka zákonů a nařízení statu československého, 50/1923 (Prague, 1923), 207–17Google Scholar; “Verordnung des Minister des Innern, der Justiz und der Finanzen,” Reichs-Gesetz-Blatt für das Kaiserthum Oesterreich 10/1853 (Vienna, 1853), 65–110.Google Scholar

73 SÚA, PMV, sign. IV/P/32–47, file 225/158/16, Horšův Týn, odstranění sochy císaře Josefa II (Horšův Týn, removal of the statue of Joseph II), July 31, 1923.

74 I would like to thank Hugh Agnew for providing me with a photograph of this statue, which now stands at the roadside pub “U Cisaře” in Kunratice, sporting, as he says, “a coat of high-gloss enamel in something approximating living color.”

75 During the Protectorate, the Nazis—also no friends of the Habsburgs and certainly aware of the importance of symbols—confiscated the statue of Joseph II from the city museum and melted it down, along with other statues from Aussig, including one of Masaryk; Lidové noviny (Prague), 09 25, 1993, TV&R insert, 4.Google Scholar

76 Only monuments of artistic merit, for example the statue of Kaiser Joseph in Teplitz, were to be re-erected. This was intended more for “the reparation of German cultural objects than for the reawakening of the memory of the time before 1918, particularly of the Habsburgs”; AMÚL, Landrat, inv. č. 884, “Beseitigung bzw. Wiederaufrichtung von Denkmälern,” 01 18, 1939.Google Scholar

77 On the naming and renaming of the streets, parks, bridges, squares, and gardens in Prague, see Čarek, Jiří, Hlavsa, Václav, Janáček, Josef, and Lím, Václav, Ulicemi města Prahy od 14. století do dneška (Through the streets of Prague from the fourteenth century until today) (Prague, 1958)Google Scholar. The Nazis were especially concerned with compliance in the renaming of streets and other public places in the Protectorate; see correspondence from 1939 to 1940 in AKPR, sign. T 1170/21 (Praha—obec a magistrát).

78 On the odyssey of Soviet tank 23, which became the focus of much public debate in late April 1991, after art student David Černý gave it a coat of pink paint, see Lidové noviny (Prague) and Mladá fronta dnes (Young front today) (Prague), 04 29-05 18, 1991.Google Scholar