This essay aims to describe hitherto unknown notes of aesthetics lectures given by August Gottlieb Meißner (1753-1807) at Prague University. It compares these notes (made by a certain Wagner, and deposited in the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus) with notes deposited in Czech libraries, and seeks to determine their place chronologically amongst notes made by others attending Meißner’s lectures over the years. The most important difference in content between the earlier known notes and Wagner’s is Meißner’s negative attitude towards the Schlegel brothers. This attitude slightly alters our existing notion of his views on the relationship between literature and morality. Taken alone, the collections of notes in Czech libraries had led one to conclude that this Prague ordinarius was an ardent libertine, who dared, even at a conservative Austrian university, to push for the autonomy of art, including a thorough split between art and morality, regarding not only works of art, but also, to a certain extent, the artists themselves. By contrast, the Vienna MS as a matter of priority restricts this split to art, and limits it to the higher, moral aims of the artist as citizen. His approach to questions of morality and to the Schlegel brothers demonstrates that while Meißner considered himself part of the liberally enlightened current of contemporaneous literature, which made moving the emotions the central aim of art, he was no longer an adherent of upandcoming Romanticism with its extreme conviction about unlimited authorial liberty, which stemmed from the philosophical Idealism of the times. This attitude to the Schlegel brothers also suggests that Wagner attended Meißner’s lectures in aesthetics and rhetoric in the winter of 1800/1., Tomáš Hlobil., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
Between the Baroque and Romanticism attitudes to death and the discursive framework of the emotional experience of dying fundamentally changed among the Catholic high nobility. The ideal baroque death was supposed to take the form of an extreme point at which the dying person confessed their sins through theatrical gestures and utterances. The deathbed ritual explicitly confirmed the denominational and spiritual orientation of the family. In succeeding generations, both aristocrats and commoners were expected to be confirmed in that orientation by a written and iconographic testimony rich in symbols. Romanticism, on the other hand, imbued the process of dying with sentiment, loving care and family cohesion, which among the high nobility brought solace and a peaceful death. Finally, between the Baroque and Romanticism the relative status of private and public experience of the last moments changed. The Baroque "theatrical" deathbed, which was presented with the central figure of the dying individual and the priest, was a public event. Gradually it changed into a more intimate, quiet contemplation with only a few witnesses gathered in the family circle. Moreover, the doctor came to replace the priest as the chief attendant at the dying person’s bedside. What remained unchanged was the anxious determination to conform to expected patterns of behaviour. By trying to fulfil the contemporary ideal of a "good death", the counts of Martinice and the princes of Schwarzenberg tried to affirm their unique position in Bohemian (and European) aristocratic society. Their emotional experience of death was intended to serve as an example to their descendants and form one of the constitutive elements of the family’s collective memory., Václav Grubhoffer, Josef Kadeřábek., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
In the context of Maria Theresa’s educational reforms, the article analyses the introduction of new school textbooks in Bohemia as an attempt to build a new type of state economic enterprise. For the first twenty years after compulsory education was introduced in 1774, a balance had to be struck for the publication of textbooks between standardization and adaptability, in order to over- come the obstacles and conflicts inherent in the reforms. In implementing the reforms it was thus necessary to deviate from certain fundamental principles - dirigism, uniformity and centralization. An economic system based on the awarding of privileges was faced with the challenge of meeting public order on an unprecedented scale. Moreover, an economic model for publishing schoolbooks had to be devised that could function as an instrument of social policy while remaining financially sustainable. The new publishing house had to ensure regular high-volume distribution of the new product throughout a territory that lacked any commercial infrastructure in the field of bookselling., Claire Madl., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The 58th article of the penal code issued by Maria Theresa (Theresiana - 1768), let as say the Article on Sorcery (1766) did not represent (as suggested traditionally in the literature) only a not very successful compromise between the traditional penal law doctrine on the one hand and new impulses of the philosophy and legal thinking of the Age of Enlightenment, though it may appear so at the first sight or by superficial reading. The Empress achieved in Theresiana the decriminalisation of the offense of magic art not only in practice but de iure as well. De facto, in practice, this stage had been reached already earlier, in the second half of the fifties of the 18th century. This manner of decriminalisation is typical for the (central)european penal law in the earlier phase of the Enlightenment through which was also just passing the Habsburg monarchy under the reign of Maria Theresa. In the same way is for this phase of development typical the strenghtening of the protection and the rights of the accused or investigated person within the penal procedure by creating different formal and real guarantees and obstacles during the proceedings. This approach was partly a continuation of the early modern and in the early stage of Enlightenment voiced criticism of magic art and sorcery trials., Petr Kreuz., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
his study traces the changing portrayals of Maria Theresa in the writings of the most important Czech historians (F. M. Pelcl, W. W. Tomek, J. Kalousek, B. Rieger, J. Svátek, J. Pekař and J. Prokeš) up until the end of the First Republic. It also considers the works of popular chroniclers, the French historian E. Denis, and school textbooks. The author shows that from the end of the 18th century to the 1930s Czech historiography presented an image of Maria Theresa as an exceptionally capable ruler whose wide-ranging reforms brought considerable progress in many different spheres of life both in Bohemia and the monarchy as a whole. From the outset, however, there was also criticism of various aspects of her policies that were perceived as inimical to the Czech nation. First there was Germanization, especially in the education system; then, from the 1860s, the centralizing tendency of administrative reforms that threatened the (albeit limited) autonomy of the Czech state and opened the door to dualism. This criticism was especially abrasive in the works of J. Kalousek, B. Rieger and J. Svátek. Some even pointed to an actively hostile attitude on the part of the empress towards the Czech Lands. As the proliferation of factual evidence consolidated the positive image of the great monarch, critical assessments became more objective, though they never disappeared altogether. It is worth noting that, with few exceptions, the positive importance of absolutist enlightenment reforms for the emergence of the modern Czech nation-state was often overlooked., Eduard Maur., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy