the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

Chapter I Historical Roots
in a minority of cases. Nevertheless, one
cannot ignore the fact that that
“German” in the sense of foreigner and
enemy is used here to arouse anti-
German emotions. In the Czech
context the negative experience of the
five-year regency of Otto of
Brandenburg (1278-1283) undoubtedly
had much to do with it. The virtual
identification of the German with the
enemy was not prevalent, however, until
the Hussite movement and the
subsequent period. Nonetheless by the
beginning of the fourteenth century
there was a marked aversion towards
foreigners in Bohemia. It was not
motivated by what we would recognise
as (modern) nationalism, however.
Nevertheless, above all in the fourteenth
18
century we encounter a phenomenon
that one might describe as medieval
nationalism. It derived from sense of
shared awareness of being a national
community based on a common
language and shared politics with all the
attendant characteristic ideological
features and economic interests.
The most obvious difference was that
of language – although this would not
seem to have played any fundamental
As a mark of gratitude for the Czechs’ victory at the battle near Chlumec
(Kulm) in 1126, Prince Sobûslav I ordered the rotunda
of St. George on the fabled Hill of ¤íp to be renovated
and extended. A dinar of Sobûslav I (right).
role in the relations
between Czechs and
Germans. Of greater
consequence were legal,
social, economic and, of course, political
differences. The aforementioned surge
of anti-foreigner feelings at the
beginning of the fourteenth century