Czech Literature - Baroque

Baroque

The demise of the Czech Protestants after the Battle of the White Mountain decidedly affected Czech literary development. The forceful re-Catholicization and Germanization of Bohemia and the ensuing confiscations and expulsions virtually eliminated the Protestant middle classes and split the literature into two parts: the domestic Catholic and the émigré Protestant branches. Unlike in other European countries of the time, the nobility in Bohemia was not a part of the literary audience and thus this split of literary effort led to a certain lack of development and stagnation of Czech baroque literature in comparison to other European countries of the time, especially in genres that were written for noble courts. The largest personality of Czech evangelical baroque writing is John Commenius, who spent his youth in Bohemia but was forced into exile later in life. He was a pedagogue, theologian, reformer of education, and philosopher; his works include grammars, theoretical tracts on education, and works on theology. With his death in the late 17th century, Protestant literature in the Czech language virtually disappeared. Catholic baroque works span two types: religious poetry such as that of Adam Michna z Otradovic, Fridrich Bridel and Václav Jan Rosa, and religious prose writings (i.e. homiletic prose and hagiographies), and historical accounts (Bohuslav Balbín), as well as the Jesuit St. Wenceslas Bible.