National identity in fifteenth century Bohemia and the formation of a Czech Paideia

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the formation of an ideal of Czechness in the fifteenth century. Here, supported by the late Middle Ages historiography, we first reflect about the possibility of using the terms nation and others related to it to refer to that period, showing how the association between the terms language and nation is remembered by researchers. Next, we show how this association helps to understand the nationalization of the University of Prague, which occurred at the Decree of Kutna Hora, 1409, agreed upon by the King Wenceslas IV and the university’s Czech nation aiming to make it dominant over the other nations. After a description of Hussitism and religious wars that spread through the Czech historical lands in the early fifteenth century, we reflect on the importance of this historic moment for the formation of an ideal of Czech nationality, transmitted in the form of a collective heritage and a content to be taught to future generations. Thus, we borrow the term Paideia to interpret the ideal of Czechness formed in the Hussite period and indicate its scope and future appropriation by the Czechs – since the Czech Brethren and Comenius to Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia Republic.