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

economic sphere also. It is no accident
that the following two decades were
described as the “economic national
revival”. In the course of it, Czech
business make such strides that the
social structure of Czech society was
almost on a par that that the local
German society. It can be said to have
“caught up” in social terms.
The expression used at the time was
“positive economic patriotism” (Albín
A favourite theme of the cartoonists was the impossibility of any reconciliation between
the Czechs and Germans in the Czech provinces. Here a German caricaturist shows
how he thinks Czechs conceive such reconciliation: Michl the German dances to the
tune played by wily Wenceslas the Czech accompanied by his twin-tailed dog-sized lion.
Bráf ); present-day historiography
tends to use the more apposite term of
“economic nationalism”. The very fact
that at the turn of the twentieth
century the economy was interpreted
as a political tool of the national
movement indicates its enormous
significance – it was encapsulated in
the ideological vocabulary of those
days in the slogan “each to his own”. It
implies that Czechs should buy from
31
Historical Roots
Chapter I
Czech shopkeepers and put their
savings into Czech savings banks, and
Czech businesses should co-operate,
where possible, only with other Czech
businesses, etc. A German version of
the same phenomenon
applied to the Germans.
The banks were among the most
typical components of economic
nationalism. On the Czech side, the
first large Czech bank, the Živnostenská
banka (Commerce Bank) came into
existence in the years 1868-69, and
because it was the strongest, it was to
play a crucial role for many subsequent
decades. The Živnostenská banka was
the centre for Czech savings banks and
was a counterweight to the Viennese
and German banks operating in the
Czech provinces. Another financial
institution that was to play a crucial role
in later years was created on the