The interest of the educated Czech public in India during the first phase of the Czech national revivalist movement spanning the first four decades of the 19th century was formed almost exclusively by leading personalities of this movement and the selection of themes connected with Indian civilization was largely subordinated to its ideological program. The predominantly linguistic and literary character of Czech emancipatory efforts directed the attention of leading Czech intellectuals towards the study of Sanskrit as a prestigious language of great antiquity and historical relationship to Slavic languages. Important topics during this phase of the movement included debates on the nature of Czech verse and metrics (with imitations of Indian meters), national “characterology,” comparative mythology and literary aesthetics. Selection of examples of alleged Indian parallels was subordinated to the perceived needs of national ideology with a relatively weaker link to actual facts and their original context. In this early stage the more “down-to-earth” motives of political advantage or economic gain were absent. From the 1840s the focus of attention gradually shifted from this naive and narrowly pragmatic comparatistic stage to a more informed and less biased interest in the classical Indian culture as potential source of universal human values and aspirations. Still, several early stereotypes persisted well into the twentieth century.