Dějiny věd a techniky 2015, 4

DVT – DĚJINY VĚD A TECHNIKY XLVIII (2015), 4
is allowed that Prussian citizens “openly encourage Austrian Germans to break
‘hard Slavic skulls’ ... then we have full right to require categorically from the
government to defend from injustice part of its subjects who are not ... of an
‘inferior category’.” 80
The protest was issued in Polish and four world languages and distributed to
universities, professional associations and learned societies all over the world
except Germany. The Cracow daily newspaper Nowa Reforma [New Reform]
expressed its astonishment at the conduct of the German scientists who had
not protested against the intervention of the Prussian government and in this
way excluded themselves from international cooperation. The article even labels
them “political monsters” who should remain isolated in their own society and
urges Slavic scholars not to use the “comfortable beaten German track when
entering the international field”. 81 The Czech organizing committee, which felt
a certain responsibility for this unprecedentedly escalating conflict, invited the
Polish physicians and naturalists to organize an alternative congress in Prague, 82
but ultimately the meeting was postponed and called in 1900 to Cracow which
celebrated the 500 th jubilee of the Jagellonian University.
It is necessary to say, however, that the severe reaction of the Prussian
administration was not entirely groundless. Despite all assurances of the apolitical
character of the Polish conventions, the community of Czech physicians had
taken the initiative already before the Posen convention to mobilize Slavic scientists
to common actions in the international field which would act as a counterweight
to growing German influence. 83
Endeavour to Institutionalize the Pan-Slavic Scientific
Cooperation at the Turn of the 19 th Century:
The Establishment of the Slavic Medical Committee
The affair with the unrealized Polish convention in Posen amplified the already
existing tensions between the German and Slavic scientific communities and
transferred them from the local to the international scene. The almost impenetrable
barriers now dividing the German- and Czech speaking scientific communities
80
Ibid., p. 677.
81
Ibid., p. 678.
82
Spolek českých lékařů, XVIII. schůze týdenní dne 11. července 1898 [Association
of the Czech Physicians, 18 th weekly meeting, July 11, 1898]. Časopis lékařů českých
37, 1898, 585.
83
OBERMAJER, op.cit. 1965.
294
Soňa Štrbáňová