See current and past issues in our e-shop
Enter e-shop
>LITTERARIA PRAGENSIA 2021 (31) 61
ABSTRACT (en)
The article explores how African slavery was perceived in the Czech Lands. After a brief review of earlier Czech reflections of modern slavery, the text focuses on The Book of Joseph (1783-1784), a rare source in German and Czech language that was aimed to communicate to the public in the Czech Lands the essence of the Enlightenment reforms. In the text, the theme of slavery was used in several different ways when discussing the problems of political autonomy, religious tolerance, and abolition of serfdom. While responding to the widespread Enlightenment discourse of “liberation” from the bonds of prejudice, superstition, and ignorance, the author(s) of the text also followed up on more than two centuries of indirect encounters of Czech readers with the complex world of the Atlantic and, at the same time, reacted to the specific political claims and debates that marked public discourse in the Czech Lands of the late eighteenth century.
KEYWORDS (en)
Intellectual history; Atlantic history; slavery; Enlightenment; Czech Lands; Václav Matěj Kramerius
DOI
https://doi.org/10.14712/2571452X.2021.61.7
REFERENCES
Agnew, Hugh LeCaine. Origins of the Czech National Renascence. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993.
Akerman, Susanna. Queen Christina of Sweden and Her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical Libertine. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1991.
Atwood, Craig D. The Theology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009.
Barreira, Baltasar. “Concerning the Slaves who Come from the Parts of Guinea called Cape Verde” (1606). In Hair, P.E.H. “A Jesuit Document on African Enslavement.” Slavery and Abolition 19, no. 3 (1998): 118-27.
Bernard, Paul. Jesuits and Jacobins: Enlightenment and Enlightened Despotism in Austria. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971.
Berghausen, Hans Wolfgang. “Die ‘Verneuerte Landesordnung’ in Böhmen 1627: Ein Grunddokument des habsburgischen Absolutismus.” Historische Zeitschrift 272, no. 2 (2001): 327-51.
Binková, Simona. “Manifestaciones de la leyenda negra antiespañola en los países checos y posibles vías de su diffusion.” Historie – otázky – problémy 8, no. 2 (2016): 39-63.
Binková, Simona. “Os paìses checos e a zona lusitana (Contactos e testemunhos dos séculos XV-XVIII).” Ibero-Americana Pragensia 21 (1987): 137-60.
Blackburn, Robin. “The Old World Background to European Colonial Slavery.” William and Mary Quarterly 54 (1997): 65-102.
Blažíček, Oldřich. Umění baroku v Čechách (Baroque Art in Bohemia). Prague: Obelisk, 1971.
Blitz, Rudolph C. “The Religious Reforms of Joseph II (1780-1790) and Their Economic Significance.” The Journal of European Economic History 18, no. 3 (1989): 583-94.
Bloch, Marc. Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages. Translated by William R. Beer. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975.
Burke, Peter. A Social History of Knowledge II: From the Encyclopaedia to Wikipedia. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2012.
Burke, Peter. “Translating Knowledge, Translating Cultures.” In Kultureller Austausch. Bilanz und Perspektiven der Frühneuzeitforschung, edited by Michael North, 69-77. Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau, 2009.
Clay, Lauren R. “‘Cruel Necessity’: Capitalism, the Discourse of Sympathy, and the Problem of the Slave Trade in the Age of Human Rights.” Slavery and Abolition 37, no. 2 (2016): 256-83.
Comenius, Jan Amos. Orbis Sensualium Pictus […], Visible World: or a Nomenclature, and Pictures of all The chief things that are in the world […]. Translated by Charles Hoole. London: Joseph Kirton, 1659.
Comenius, Joannes Amos. Opera didactica omnia, vol. 1. Prague: Academia, 1957. Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966.
Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Davis, Robert C. Holy War and Human Bondage: Tales of Christian-Muslim Slavery in the Early-Modern Mediterranean. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2009.
de Jaucourt, Louis. “Esclavage [Droit naturel/Morale/Religion].” In Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 5, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond D’Alembert, 934-39. Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1755.
de Jaucourt, Louis. “Traité des negres [Commerce d’Afrique].” In Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 16, edited by Denis Diderot, 532-33. Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1765.
Dickins, Tom. “The Czech-Speaking Lands, Their Peoples, and Contact Communities: Titles, Names and Ethnonyms.” The Slavonic and East European Review 89, no. 3 (2011): 401-54.
Friedrich, Markus. “‘Türken’ im Alten Reich: Zur Aufnahme und Konversion von Muslimen im deutschen Sprachraum (16.-18. Jahrhundert).” Historische Zeitschrift 294, no. 2 (2012): 329-60.
Greene, Jack P. Imperatives, Behaviors and Identities: Essays in Early American Cultural History. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992.
Gibson, Charles. The Black Legend: Anti-Spanish Attitudes in the Old World and the New. New York: Knopf, 1971.
Hausberger, Bernd. “Sobre Renate Pieper y Peer Schmidt (eds.), Latin America and the Atlantic World / El mundo atlántico y América Latina (1500-1850): Essays in Honor of Horst Pietschmann.” Historia Mexicana 57, no. 1 (225) (July-September 2007): 279-91.
Hroch, Miroslav. “From Ethnic Group toward the Modern Nation: The Czech Case.” Nations and Nationalism 10, no. 1-2 (2004): 95-107.
Israel, Jonathan. Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Kalista, Zdeněk. Čechové, kteří tvořili dějiny světa: Z historikova skicáře o XVI. a XVII. věku (Czechs who Shaped the History of the World: From an Historian’s Sketchbook of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries). Prague: Českomoravský Kompas, 1939.
Komenský, Jan Amos. “Truchlivý” (Mournful). In Joannis Amos Comenii Opera Omnia / Dílo Jana Amose Komenského, vol. 3., edited by Milan Kopecký, 19-129. Prague: Academia, 1978.
Kramerius, Matěj Václav. Historické vypsání, kterak čtvrtý díl světa Amerika skrze Kolumbusa vynalezena byla (A Historical Account of How the Fourth Part of the World, America, Was Discovered through Columbus). Prague: M.V. Kramerius, 1803.
K[ramerius], M[atěj] V[áclav]. Kniha Josefova, sepsaná od jistého spatřujícího osmnácté století: dílem již stalé věci a dílem proroctví, na způsob Biblí […] (The Book of Joseph, Composed by a Certain Witness of the Eighteenth Century, Partly Accomplished Deeds and Partly Prophecies, Presented in the Manner of the Bible […]). Prague: M.V. Kramerius, 1784.
Kraus, Arnošt. “Augustin Zitte.” Sborník filologický 5, no. 1 (1915): 140-61.
Křížová, Markéta. “Frontiers of Race, Frontiers of Freedom: Fabrication of ‘Negro slave’ in European Discourse of the Early Modern Era.” In Imagining Frontiers, Contesting Identities, edited by Steven G. Ellis and Luďa Klusáková, 109-23. Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2007.
Křížová, Markéta. La ciudad ideal en el desierto: Proyectos misionales de la Compaňía de Jesús y la Iglesia Morava en la América colonial. Prague: Karolinum, 2004.
Křížová, Markéta. “Meeting the Other in the New World: Jesuit Missionaries from Bohemian Province in America.” Historie – Otázky – Problémy 8, no. 2 (2016): 35-46.
LeRoy, Louis. On the Interchangeable Course, or Variety of Things in the Whole World. Translated by Robert Ashley. London: Charles Yetsweirt, 1594.
Louthan, Howard. Converting Bohemia: Force and Persuasion in the Catholic Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Macura, Vladimír. Znamení zrodu a české sny (The Sign of Birth and Czech Dreams). Prague: Academia, 2015.
Mathesius, Vilém. Co daly naše země Evropě a lidstvu: od slovanských věrozvěstů k národnímu obrození (What Our Countries Contributed to Europe and the Slavery and Liberation World: From the Slavonic Missionaries to the National Revival), vol. 1. Prague: ELK, 1940.
Melmuková, Eva. Patent zvaný toleranční (The So-Called Edict of Toleration). Prague: Mladá fronta, 1999.
Morgan, Philip D. “A Comment.” In Europeans Engaging the Atlantic: Knowledge and Trade, 1500-1800, edited by Susanne Lachenicht, 151-60. Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus Verlag, 2016.
Munck, Thomas. The Enlightenment: A Comparative Social History 1721-1794. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Murphy, Daniel. Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of His Life and Works. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1995.
Müller, Joseph Theodor. Geschichte der Böhmischen Brüder, 3 vols. Herrnhut: Verlag der Missionsbuchandlung, 1922-31.
Nešpor, Zdeněk. Náboženství na prahu nové doby: Česká lidová zbožnost 18. a 19. století (Religion on the Threshold of the New Age: Czech Popular Religiosity of the 18th and 19th Century). Ústí nad Labem: Albis, 2006.
Novotný, Jan. Matěj Václav Kramerius. Prague: Melantrich, 1973.
Opatrný, Josef. “La imagen cambiante de América en la sociedad de Bohemia entre 1500 y 1848.” In Latin America and the Atlantic World / El mundo atlántico y América Latina (1500–1850), edited by Renate Pieper and Peer Schmidt, 97-113. Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau, 2006.
Pánek, Jaroslav and Oldřich Tůma, eds. A History of the Czech Lands. Translated by Justin Quinn, Petra Key, and Lea Bennis. Prague: Karolinum, 2018.
Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Pieper, Renate, and Peer Schmidt, eds. Latin America and the Atlantic World / El mundo atlántico y América Latina (1500-1850): Essays in Honor of Horst Pietschmann. Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau, 2006.
Pokorná, Zuzana, and Martin Svatoš, eds. Bohuslav Balbín und die Kultur seiner Zeit in Böhmen. Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau, 1993.
Quirk, Joel, and David Richardson. “Anti-slavery, European Identity and International Society.” Journal of Modern European History / Zeitschrift für moderne europäische Geschichte / Revue d’histoire européenne contemporaine 7, no. 1 (2009): 68-92.
Rataj, Tomáš. České země ve stínu půlměsíce: Obraz Turka v raně novověké literatuře z českých zemí (Czech Lands in the Shadow of the Crescent: The Image of the Turk in Early Modern Literature from the Czech Lands). Prague: Scriptorium, 2002.
Raynal, Guillaume-Thomas, Abbé. Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, 6 vols. Amsterdam: s.p., 1770.
Riegger, J.A. Materialien zur alten und neuen Statistik von Böhmen, Heft 12. Prague and Leipzig: Kaspar Widtmann, 1794.
Robertson, William. The History of America, vol. 1. Dublin: Whitestone et al., 1777.
Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South. New York: Vintage Books, 1956.
Stöcklein, Joseph, ed. Der Neue Welt-Bott. Allerhand so Lehr- als Geistreiche Brief-Schriften und Reis-Beschreibungen, welche von denen Missionariis der Gesellschaft Jesu aus beyden Indien, und andern uber Meer gelegenen Ländern. Augsburg and Graz: Philipp, Martin und Johann Veith, 1726-1761.
Šašek z Bířkova, Václav. Ve službách Jiříka krále (In the Service of King George). Prague: ELK, 1940.
The Travels of Leo of Rozmital through Germany, Flanders, England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, 1465-1467. Edited and translated by Malcolm Letts. Cambridge: The Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1957.
Tyson, Thomas N., and David Oldroyd. “Accounting for Slavery during the Enlightenment: Contradictions and Interpretations.” Accounting History 24, no. 2 (2019): 212-35.
Urbánek, Vladimír. “Displaced Intellectuals and Rebuilt Networks: The Protestant Exiles from the Lands of the Bohemian Crown.” In Religious Diaspora in Early Modern Europe: Strategies of Exile, edited by Timothy G. Fehler, Greta Grace Kroeker, Charles H. Parker, and Jonathan Ray, 167-79. London and New York: Routledge 2016.
Verlinden, Charles. “L’origine de sclavus = esclave.” Archivvm Latinitatis Medii Aevi 12 (1942): 97-128.
Wittman, Tibor. “La imagen de Nuevo Mundo en las obras de Juan Amos Comenio.” Ibero-Americana Pragensia 5 (1971): 139-48.
Ziegler, Franz Adam. Das Buch Joseph. Prague: Wolfgang Gerle, 1783.
Zikmund z Púchova. Kozmografia česká (Czech Cosmography). Prague: Tiskárna severinsko-kosořská, 1554.
