This study examines the role which the Cyril-Methodius tradition played in the 19th and early 20th century in religious, national and political developments in Moravia. It takes as its starting point Masaryk's criticism of the Young Czechs' demand for the introduction of a Slavonic liturgy. It tries to answer the question of whether this criticism was justified, whether it had a wider relevance than merely that of the historical period and whether it was also relevant for Moravia. The study shows that throughout the 19th century the Cyril-Methodius idea was used both by the church (unionism) and by national and political groups and even political parties. The Moravian Young Czechs used their demand for Slavonic worship, albeit unsuccessfully, in the election campaign against the Catholic parties in 1900–1901. Masaryk's criticisms proved to be justified and to a certain extent were even prescient, as Masaryk gave supporters of political Catholicism the right to use the Cyril-Methodius idea, and following their establishment Moravian Catholic parties fully adopted this idea.
The paper presents 15 recently discovered manuscripts of Latin Herbarius by Prague master Christian of Prachatice († 1439) arranged in alphabetical order. The total sum of extant medieval copies, in which the treatise has come down to us, therefore amounts to 19. The principal text of the second redaction (surviving in 16 manuscripts) and the manner of its alphabetical ordering are discussed as well as the changes and additions in the lemmas, which were recorded in this redaction along the written tradition. The author aims to find out to what extent the newly added lemmas and the differences in ordering the original ones may help clarify relationships between the preserved manuscripts.
The article argues that the role of T. G. Masaryk in Czech as well as Austrian society before 1914 can best be understood as an intellectual expert on religion. It analyzes letters sent to Masaryk by his followers in order to show, that the unusually far-ranging influence he commanded was based on his perception as a sincere champion of a new kind of religion, which transcended simple, anticlerical confrontation. This function of a religious intellectual expert could work precisely only because Masaryk did not specify what kind of religion he sought, but rather appeared as a "religious type", that very different – and conflicting – opinions could relate to.
Different European states had different attitudes towards Jews and their social standing. In the Habsburg monarchy, several hundred people of the Jewish faith were ennobled between 1789 and 1918 (both in Austria and later in Hungary), while Jews were granted equal social status in 1867. In Prussia the social status of Jews had improved since the rule of Frederick II and in 1812 they were able to become Prussian citizens. However, Jewish emancipation reached a high point in July 1869 when a law on equal religious rights was declared in Prussia as well as in all the states of the North German Confederation. However, in Prussia the issue of granting aristocratic titles to people of the Jewish faith or of Jewish origin was, of course, more vexed and the ennoblement of these people was very rare.
The study is dedicated to an reappraisal of the sovereign's fief policy in late middle age Austria. While the older research tendencies were mostly based on the idea of a slightly declining system signed by a rigid formalism, a new analysis of the fief structures in the hereditary territories of the Habsburg dynasty shows a slightly different picture. The anatomy of fief letters and books, reverses and letters of conveyance show that the increasing literacy transformed fiefdom into one of the central playgrounds of sovereign chancelleries. Mostly in case of dominion divisions or changes in late medieval rulership that vassality became important. Despite the reification of fiefdom, territorial rule and vasality do not oppose each other. The sovereign fiefdom in the 14th and 15th century is considered as an important often monetarised instrument among others, used to enhance and consolidate the sovereign's rule.
Cyprian, an educated Hesychastic-oriented monk, was one of the most important representatives of the Orthodox church in medieval Eastern Europe. All of the measures which he carried out during his time as the Metropolitan of Kiev were aimed at maintaining the unity of the metropolis, covering the whole of Eastern Europe, regardless of political divisions. He used proposals for negotiating a church union to find a solution to the situation which had arisen after the foundation of the Polish-Lithuanian union, which presented the Orthodox church with a new situation. He continued the reforms to the monasteries in the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which helped create the conditions for the development of the Russian autocephalous church. After a critical period in the 1380s, he contributed towards the restoration of the authority of the Russian metropolis and the entire ecclesiastical hierarchy.
At the Council of Constance, the issue of the Christianisation of Lithuania and Samogitia came to the fore in the dispute between the Polish-Lithuanian Union and the Teutonic Knights. The whole matter was brought about by a Polish-Lithuanian delegation (1416), which in two indictments, Proposicio Polonorum and Proposicio Samagitarum, accused the Grand Master and the Order of hostility towards the recently baptised Lithuanians and against the Samogitians, who had expressed the same willingness to accept the Catholic faith. On the contrary, the Order's delegation, calling on its own historical experience, accused the dukes of Lithuania, including King Vladislav Jagello of Poland, of hypocrisy, dishonesty and treachery. Surprisingly, the Order's reply does not call into question the very fact of the mass baptism of Lithuanians, who willingly accepted Christianity, but doubted their simple-mindedness and inability to understand the content of the creed and the significance of the ceremony they had undergone. The Polish-Lithuanian party's argument was more successful because it was based on numerous biblical motifs, such as the light and peace that Jesus Christ brought to earth and which were desired by the pagans in Lithuania and Samogitia. On the contrary, the political and historical arguments of the Order's delegation lacked a similar positive emotional charge. The practical long-term consequence of the controversy was the official baptism of the Samogitians, the establishment of a diocese (1417) and the permanent annexation of the disputed territory to Lithuania.
Bohemian prince and first king Vratislav II († 1092) encouraged the building of an exemptchapter dome, dedicated to St. Peter and Paul opposite to Prague castle. It was situated near the second important dwelling of the dynasty, the Přemyslid castle of Vyšehrad on the left shore of Vltava river. In the first years of the chapter's existence, under the rule of Vratislav II and Soběslav I (1125–1140), there were four phases of associated privilege making. The study emphases on those charters that contain the chapter's justification and some references to alleged privileges of the founder Vratislav II and pope Alexander II. The same accounts for the charter's placement in the memoria of the chapter.
The essay deals with the Czechoslovak state's measures put in place against the properties of the Liechtenstein primogeniture shortly after the liberation of the country in 1945. It analyzes the reasons behind these steps, which are apparent in the negative relationship the Czech society had towards to the family connected with events in Bohemia following the Battle of White Mountain (1620) but also in the treatment of the German speaking population in Bohemia after the Second World War (the transfer/expulsion of Germans). This all happened without regard for the foreign citizenship and status of the Liechtensteins as a ruling family in the independent Liechtenstein Principality that had remained neutral during the war. The author also links the implementation of the national administration to the post-war shift of Czechoslovak politics to the left and points to the communist-run Ministry of Agriculture, which had made the decision on the above measures. In large part the essay also deals with the defense of the Liechtensteins using diplomacy, especially to the role that Swiss diplomacy played as well as to the fruitless attempts made by the family to positively influence Czech administration.
This article by political scientist and long-standing high-ranking diplomat Roland Marxer provides an insight into Liechtenstein-Czech relations seen through the eyes of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Principality of Liechtenstein. For Liechtenstein as a state, for the princely family, but also for individual Liechtenstein nationals who did not belong to the princely family, a difficult situation arose after the Second World War, largely as a result of the Beneš decrees. Liechtenstein repeatedly stated to Czechoslovakia that it considered the confiscation of Liechtenstein property as assets of persons of "German nationality", which took place in 1945, to be an unacceptable violation of international law. Especially since the beginning of the 1990s, numerous initiatives have been taken at both bilateral and multilateral level in order to achieve lasting recognition of the sovereignty of Liechtenstein by Czechoslovakia, or more exactly, by its two successor states. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the associated changes in Eastern Europe, the European political landscape changed fundamentally, raising promising hopes for future cooperation in Europe. It must have seemed strange that three European states which were members of different European and international organizations and, as a result, were committed to cooperation that pursued the same goals, still did not have a resolution – in addition to the still unresolved issues of compensation – to mutual recognition and the establishment of diplomatic and consular relations. An agreement on the establishment of diplomatic relations and future cooperation was signed on 8 September 2009. On 7 April 2010, a Memorandum on the Establishment of the Czech-Liechtenstein Commission of Historians was signed, followed by a visit by the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs to Vaduz.