Origins of the Czech National Renascence

With the fall of socialism in Europe, the former East bloc nations experienced a rebirth of nationalism as they struggled to make the difficult transition to a market-based economy and self-governance. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia, in particular, underscored the power of ethnic identity and ancestral loyalties.Hugh Agnew develops the argument that Czechoslovakias celebrated national revival of the mid-eighteenth century has its intellectual roots in the Enlightenment and defined the nations character and future development. He describes how intellectuals in eighteenth-century Bohemia and Moravia-the patriotic intelligentsia-used their discovery of pre-seventeenth-century history and literature to revive the antiquated Czech vernacular and cultivate a popular ethnic consciousness. Agnew also traces the significance of the intellectual influences of the wider Slavic world whereby Czech intellectuals redefined their ethnic and cultural heritage.<i>Origins of the Czech National Renascence</i> contributes to a renewed interpretation of a crucial period in Czech history.