Count Joseph of Auersperg (1767-1829) was a lawyer, the president of the Bohemian Land Court and a member of the Prague Masonic lodge "At the Truth and Unity at the three Crowned Pillars" (Zur Wahrheit und Einigkeit zu den drei gekrönten Säulen). After the so called Jacobin trials (1794-1795) the Masonry was forbidden in the Habsburg monarchy and the Masonic lodges stopped their activities in order to avoid the state persecution. Despite the official proscription of Masonic lodges count Auersperg attempted to renew this lodge. Auersperg made use of the atmosphere of the illusive political thaw after the defeat of the Austrian army in 1809. He managed to succeed in his efforts until 1812 when the Austrian police traced this activity on the grounds of opening and controlling his correspondence. The count was then punished by transfer to Brno to serve there as the president of the Appellate Court in Moravia. In Brno he entered the environment influenced by local masons who after the dissolution of their lodge channelled their activities to philanthropy, culture and organization of science. They initiated a plan to found the Moravian museum in Brno after the example of Joanneum in Graz in Styria. In the person of Auersperg these men found an ardent supporter of this idea. Auersperg participated in presenting the programme of the new museum to the MoravianSilesian Gubernium. The plan was approved by the authorities and Auersperg thus became one of the founders of this prominent institution. The harassment he suffered from the police regime and his overall case are illustrative of the methods used by the Austrian state against its real as well as supposed opponents. In his private correspondence with friends Auersperg made critical remarks about the situation at the Land Court in Prague, which was also revealed by the police and reported to the emperor. Moreover, the contacts Auers, Dušan Uhlíř., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
This study examines how love was represented in late 18th century Czech fiction, as exemplified in the works of Antonín Josef Zíma and Prokop Šedivý. First we place Czech writing in its historical context with reference to contemporary French literature. We then focus on the formal features of works on love, discuss the influence of Sentimentalism on Czech culture, and finally consider the relationship between love and morality. Our study concludes that there is no evidence of originality in attitudes to love in late 18th century Czech fiction; instead, writers looked to foreign literatures for their themes. The resonance they produced in the Czech context, however, was different from that in countries with a richer literary tradition., Tomáš Dufka., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The paper focuses on the links between the doctrines taught by Joseph von Sonnenfels at the University of Vienna and his moral weekly Der Mann ohne Vorurtheil. The hypothesis that Sonnenfels uses his publication to divulge his academic findings to a wider public is supported by a comparison of his academic and literary works, and three of the many aspects are presented. Sonnenfels writes not only about moral issues but also about the ideal relationship between the state and its citizens, and he uses the moral weekly to express his ideas about the Viennese theatre and the way it should be censored. With regard to censorship there exist some differences between the theory defended by Sonnenfels and his personal experience as an author. In fact some pieces of his moral weekly got him in trouble and he was forbidden to address certai topics, such as the Church and the situation of the peasants. The most prevalent themae, however, is marriage and gender relations. According to his doctrines high ethical and educational standards as well as a high population keep a state safe from within and that leads Sonnenfels to concentrate on this issue., Magdalena Matzneller., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
This paper presents a detailed analysis of the development of the postal network in the territory of Moravia during the period of its most significant expansion, based on hitherto largely unused archival material, chiefly from the Postal Museum in Prague and the Moravian Archive in Brno. Using these key sources, chronological lists were reconstructed of postmasters in each post office, allowing us to determine the exact period in which each official served. This data on periods of service made it possible to compile a list of the postal routes set up by individual offices in the period under consideration and trace changes that occurred due to military conflict or for logistical reasons. Attention was also given to the hitherto neglected network of letter collection points in Moravia, which grew rapidly towards the end of the 18th century. The study represents a paradigm shift in research into the Moravian postal network. Besides already known postal routes, we also reconstructed routes whose existence had only been deduced from the records of one or two stations, and others that had escaped the attention of researchers altogether. With regard to letter collection points, the study considers the issue of which "mother" stations they were attached to. More generally, the study deepens our knowledge of the structure of the communications network in Moravia in the second half of the 18th century and provides a more precise picture of how it was connected with centres beyond the country’s borders. These results will provide potential future researchers into the Moravian postal service with a solid factual platform in which to anchor and contextualize their findings on specific post offices, stations or entire routes. The study can thus be seen as a contribution to economic and social history, as well as to that of communications., Vojtěch Klíma., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its Soviet domination after World War II. It began on January 5, when reformist Alexander Dubček came to power, and continued until August 21, when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies invaded this country to halt the reforms. The Prague Spring reforms were an attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to citizens as a part of his partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. and Jitka Vondrová.
The paper deals with the stories representing the suicide of Prague (German writing) authors, Christian Heinrich Spieß, Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht and Reactions to the Wertheriads, which document the divergent development of cutures of subjectivity (Reckwitz) in Central Europe in the age of Enlightenment. The first part of the paper reconstructs the influence of the radical preromantism and Sturm und Drang, namely The Sorrows of Young Werther in the Bohemian Lands. Next, It compares the Stories written by Spieß and Albrecht with Werther as a paradigmatic text and its model of Subjectivity. It focuses to the Story Die neue Sapfo written by Spieß in 1779, which documents the genesis of his later stories and the development of the conception of the role of the subject., Václav Smyčka., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The article maps a numerically limited and religiously and socially discriminated group of pre‐tolerance and tolerance non‐Catholics, thus a group of persons of restricted education, which was except some rare examples limited to the basic level. In this regard, the text offers a more compendious analysis of one confessional and social group that was most of the time just a restricted recipient of the enlightened ideas and education spread by so‐called "plebeian" intelligence and most of all by new protestant preachers. This group showed however a great ability to absorb, transform, create and spread within their community the adopted and own thoughts, the fact that significantly contributed to their emancipation in the following period., Eva Hajdinová., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The study presents an empirical analysis of the risky practice of illegal marriage and baptism among Huguenots in 18th century France, drawing on contemporary pamphlets to trace the problematic evolution of French Calvinist inheritance law - a process that played a decisive part in efforts to relegalize Calvinism in the kingdom. Agitators for the reformed church pursued two main lines of argument: Calvinist pastors, both within the country and in exile, made increasingly active use of Enlightenment philosophical discourse that condemned religious intolerance. At the same time, especially from the 1760s on, pamphleteers emphasized the social and economic importance of the Huguenot upper class. Together, these arguments helped overcome received ideas about the risk of an anti‐state "protestant conspiracy" organized by the exile community ("conjuration de l’étranger Huguenot"), which was in turn linked to the financial power of the Huguenot banking families that had been a leitmotif of criticism since the 16th century. Instead, a positive image of the Calvinists’ social contribution was presented, stressing their usefulness and loyalty to state and sovereign. Among their supporters at court were the lawyers and ministers de Breuil and de Malesherbes, who eventually succeeded in pushing through reforms., Eva Hajdinová., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
Theatrical activities of Václav Mihule (1758 - after 1808) are documented at his various positions in 19 European cities. Born in Prague Mihule left his home at a young age. His earliest experience was as an actor (1781-89), traveling to distant places such as Warszawa (1781), St. Peterburg (1784-86), Königsberg (1787-88), Mainz and Frankfurt a. M. (1788-89). His first Prague ensemble (1789) was a collaboration with Jean Butteau, the company played at ThunPalace Theatre at the Lesser Town of Prague. Later he directed the ensemble Vlastenské divadlo (Patriotic Theatre) in the Theatre U Hybernů (in summer in Karlovy Vary) and the German company at the Nostitz Theatre. After his abrupt departure from Prague in mid 1793 he became a theatre director in Augsburg (1793-94), in Nürnberg, Ansbach, Erlangen, Ulm and Nördlingen (1794-97), Stuttgart (1797), Wiener Neustadt (1797/98), Olomouc (1800-02), Opava (1802-04), Prešov (1805) a Košice (1804-08). He seems to have ended his career in Košice, where he may have died. In the time from 21. 12. 1796 till 13. 9. 1797 he led on lease the Court Theatre Company of Friedrich Eugen II. of Württemberg in Stuttgart. It was in Stuttgart for the first time, when the Court Theatre was rented to a theatre entrepreneur. The Duke tryed in this way to keep the theatre running in the bad economic situation in the course of the War of the First Coalition (1792-1797). For the director Mihule was the offered contract for 6 years - after experience with various theaters in the cities - an extraordinary occasion to achieve a firmly established place of work with above standard conditions. It is possible to describe and characterize the Stuttgart period of the entrepreneur Mihule on the basis of archive documents and account books (aspect of organization) and periodicals (theatre repertory). Some features of the abilities of actors an, Alena Jakubcová., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy