Bohemian History, by Peter DOLECHECK, 1917
DOLECHECK, HUS, COMENIUS
Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 5/13/2010 at 18:24:18
Ringgold Journal
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, June 21, 1917INTERESTING ARTICLE on BOHEMIA
Peter DOLECHECK of Washington Township
Writes a Special Article for JournalBelow we print a special article by Peter DOLECHECK of Washington township concerning the Bohemians. Although natives or an enemy country the Bohemians are nearly all loyal to their adopted land and welcome the day when German autocracy is overthrown.
The writer, Peter DOLECHECK, is one of the most substanial farmers of this county and has been a resident of Ringgold county since 1866.
Who are the Czechs? (Bohemians). In this effecting time a brief explanation in regard to the ancestry of the small settlement of Czechs of Ringgold county and U.S. at large will be in its place.
Czechs are the most western branch of the Slavonic country, which they occupied from the dark middle ages, namey Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and northern Hungary.
Total number of Czechs and Slavs in these districts is estimated at 9,000,000.
Bohemia is well-known in history as a fortification against eastern hordes of Magyars, Tartars and Turks.
NOTE: The Magyars were a tribe of Asiatic people who once lived in the land between the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains. During the early Christian era, they moved southward, then in the beginning of the 5th Century A.D. they moved westward. They were herders who were in alliance with the Turks. They were considred the scourge of Europe because they raided many areas, ferociously attacking anyone that they came in contact with.
NOTE: The Tartars were of the Turkic and Mongolian people of central Asia. They invaded western Asia and eastern Europe during the Middle Ages, and were regarded as ferocious and violent.
NOTE: The Turks or Turkics were Eurasian people who resided in northern, central and western Asia, Mongolia, southern Siberia and northwestern China.
NOTE: The Bohemian Crown was roughly the territory of modern-day Czech Republic, over which the Emperor of Austria (1827-1867) ruled in his capacity as king of Bohemia, margrave of Moravia, and duke of Upper and Lower Silesia.
Although the United States did not enter into World War I until April of 1917, the conflict began in August of 1914 after an intense period of military buildup and imperial competition between Germany & Austria-Hungary (The Central Powers) and Britain, France and Russia (The Allies). In 1915, Turkey joined the Central Powers and Italy joined the Allies.
John HUS, their beloved leader, was their first warrior for religious and intellectual liberty in Europe. His work has been continued by Bohemian Brothers and John Amos COMENIUS, the celebrated educator.
NOTE: John HUS, or Jan HUSS, (ca. 1369-1415) was a Czech priest, philosopher, reformer, and master at Charles University in Prague. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities for his views which the Catholic Church regarded as heresy, a criminal offense. HUS was key in the influence of the Protestant movement in Europe during the 16th Century and in the existence of a reformist Bohemian religious denomination.
NOTE: John Amos COMENIUS (1592-1670) was a Moravian bishop whose life's work was devoted to the improment in the ways students were taught from infancy through university class work and beyond. His philosphy was that humans were born with a natural craving for knowledge and goodness which were discouraged by the educational system of the time. COMENIUS has been called the 'father of modern education.'
Bohemia has struggled against German influence and aggressiveness ever since she tried to establish Bohemia as a state.
The threatening dangers from the Turks compelled them to form an alliance with Austria and Hungrary, but the German dynasty robbed them of this independence. Finally her brave resistance at the ill-fated Battle of White Mount in 1620 was of no avail, a large portion of the Czechs were banished and wiped out.
NOTE: The Battle of White Mountain was fought on November 8, 1620, an early battle in the Thirty Years' War in which an army of 15,000 Bohemians under Christian of Anhalt faced 27,000 men of the combined armies of Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Catholic League. The battle was fought near Prague and marked the end of the Bohemian period of the Thirty Years' War. Bohemia was the first to revolt against the seizure of their lands and interests by King Ferdinand. The revolt started when Bohemian nobles threw King Ferdinand's appointees and his secretary out of a window in the royal castle in Prague. They survived but only because they fell into a heap of manure. During the Battle of White Mountain 5,000 Bohemian soldiers were either wounded or killed as opposed to 2,000 dead or wounded of their adversaries. Survivors of the battle, Frederick V. of Bohemia, his entrourage and a stream of refugges fled in panic, allowing the Imperial forces to take Prague with no resistance. Forty-seven noble Bohemian leaders were tried with twenty-seven executed on "the Day of Blood" at the Old Town Square of Prague. Today, 27 crosses have been inlaid in the cobblestone as a tribute to those victims. With Bohemian refugees fleeing in fear, the population went from 3 million to 800,000 after the year of 1648.
G. K. [Gilbert Keith] CHESTERTON [1874-1936], the English historian, writes of this period of Bohemian history:
Austria's treatment of the Czechs was as vile as that of Poland, which, equally unpardonable as the brutality of Prussia not altogether because of her acts but because they were done conscientiously. Austria has built and is building her might on the Christian countries as a shield against her own disaster.
For two hundred years Austria tried to [illegible] the Czechs. Bohemia restored herself to a nation at the close of the eighteenth century.
The period between 1800 and 1880 witnessed a remarkable restoration of culture, art and political economy of Bohemia. This Vienna observed with uneasiness.
In 1867 by special agreement with Hungary, a formation of a new state government was accomplished. Austria resolved on this change in consequent of the growth of Bohemian political strength and the other Slav nationalities against which resistance was inevitable.
Large natural resources in Bohemia were robbed by the Vienna government. In fact, Vienna harvested all the highly developed industries of Bohemia in her own service for the sole purpose of enslaving Bohemian nationality.
The present was provoked purposely against Serbia and the southern Slav countries by the oppressive Austrian government, the Czechs as a whole showed their sympathies for their Slav brothers and their Allies, who point out the rights of small nations such as the leading principle of their program.
Czechs sympanty for the Allies have been shown immediately at the beginning of the war.
Austria forced Czech soldiers to a Slav brother murdering war, they in turn voluntarily surrendered in whole masses to Russia and Serbia, thus making it possible for these countries to gain victories in the beginning of the struggle. Others who were across the border formed the legations in France and Russia and offered their service to the Allies.
Volunteer Czechs in the RUssian army have already gained over 500 St. George's Crosses for their bravery.
NOTE: The Cross of St. George was granted to non-commissioned officers, soldiers and sailors for their military heroism and awarded only for extreme bravery in the face of the enemy and for acts of gallantry on the battlefield.
The French senate and ministers of war have coffered awards of merit upon many members of their Czech legions. Directly after the outbreak of the war Czechs asked the department of war in Great Britain to accept their services in the British army. Numerous Bohemians have shown commendable activities for the Allies. Not mentioning their untiring co-operation in favor of the Red Cross they have proved themselves a nationality devoted to the Allies. It is mainly the Czechs merit that the German propoganda was discovered and steps taken to suppress its act. The intrigues of Dr. DUMBA and other officials of Austria and Germany were disclosed by the Czechs. They also made an effort to stop the spoils of munition factories, etc. and other such actions.
NOTE: Dr. Konstantin DUMBA (1856-1947) was an Austro-Hungarian diplomate, serving as the last accredited Ambassador to the United States. He became famous for his expulsion during World War I following accusations that he committed acts of espionage.
The Czechs devotion to the cause of the Allies stirred much anger among Magyars and Germans. From the beginning of the war horrible deaths were committed in Bohemia. Over 1200 subjects, not mentioning the large number of soldiers, were convicted to death, to possess a manifest of the Russian Grand Duke Nicholas, was sufficient cause for a criminal verdict. Influential Bohemian delegates perish in prison; all leading newspapers are silenced or oppressed; Bohemian wifes and daughters are molested, property confiscated in general, even of the poor laboring classes.
These terrors could not frighten the Bohemian race. In the countries of the Entente, a trustee-board has been formed who have proclaimed a manifest, demanding full independence for the kingdom of Bohemia.
The joint intention of Germany and Austria, to form a European state from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf thru Balkan and Turkey must be frustrated.
Independent Bohemia, restored Poland under Russian government, untied south Slavonick State, are the three effective obstructions against the realization of the pan German dream of uniting Berlin and Bagdad (sic) and also that the best guarantee for permanent peace in the future.
The first settlers of Czechs came to Ringgold county in 1856 and in 1865 increased by three families. In 1866 this settlement added ten families more when ye scribe was among them.
Since then it has been diminishing and increasing to thirty families at the present time.
At this trying time it can be noted that who are Czechs, born in Bohemia or their descendants are in great majority loyal to U.S. and hope that the U.S. and their Allies will win in their present conflict [World War I], which would give freedom to the Bohemian kingdom, as it has been announced by President WILSON and a resolution to that effect has been read by Senator KENYON in the U.S. senate.
On the other hand nearly all Germans and their descendants, even if born in Bohemia and able to speak the Bohemian language are in favor of the German cause for fear they would lose their own ruling in Bohemia and other Slavik countires, even if the Germans are in small minority in those sections.
The Hapsburg misrule has been as yet oppressing Czechs in their rights so far as they can.
They are deprived where it is possible of schools, of the Bohemian language and forced to German schools.
Now when circumstances have developed, that Bohemia might pull loose from Autria-Hungary, the new emperor is promising revised government for Bohemia, but their promise is nothing when it is inconvenient for them to stand by it.
- PETER DOLECHECK
NOTE: Czeckoslovakia was formed after World War I and after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It consisted of the Bohemian crown lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and part of Silesia, Slovakie, and an area of Hungary which was inhabited by Slavonic people. Bohemia and Moravia were the two largest regions of the Czech Republic.
NOTE: The DOLECHECK family left Klasterec nad Ohri, Czechslovakia, Bohemia, in 1866, settling in Ringgold County. The DOLECHECK family included Leopold, his wife and children, and his brothers Vetus and Peter with their families, and the widowed matriarch, Frantiska who died in Ringgold County in 1875. Other Bohemian settlers in Ringgold County included the PACHA, TOMAN, KRECHKY, and SEDLICEK families. Peter DOLECHECK served as lay minister for 25 years at the Bohemian Church.
NOTE: Peter DOLECHECK was born June 28, 1821, and died in December of 1903. He was interred at the Bohemian Cemetery near Diagonal, Ringgold County, Iowa.
NOTE: Access maps from webpage, link below
Additional Sources:
thenagain.info/webchron/EastEurope/Magyars.html
thefreedictionary.com/Tartars
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus
froebelweb.org/web7002.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_White_Mountain
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_St._George
en.wikipedia.org/wiki?Konstantin_DumbaTranscriptions & compilation by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2010
Bohemian History by Peter DOLECHECK, 1917
Ringgold Documents maintained by Tony Mercer.
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