Czech Literature - The Hussite Era

The Hussite Era

The Hussite revolution of the 15th century created a definite break in the literary evolution of Czech literature and forms its own separate history within Czech literature. The main aim of this literature was to communicate and argue for a specific religious doctrine and its form was generally prose. Jan Hus' theological writing first appears at the beginning of the 15th century; he wrote first in Latin, later in Czech, and this divide remained for much of the later period: poetry and intellectual prose used primarily Latin, whereas popular prose was written in Czech or German. Hus' writings center on technical, theological questions; however, he did publish a set of his Czech sermons and created rules of orthography and grammar that would be used to create the foundations of modern Czech in the 17th and 18th centuries. Only fragments remain of the literary works of the radical Taborite faction - these were generally Latin apologia defending the Taborite doctrine (Mikuláš Biskupec z Pelhřimova, Petr Chelčický). In general, Hussite writings differed from the preceding era by their focus on social questions - their audience consisted of the lower and lower middle classes. Works defending Catholicism and attacking the Hussite utraquists were also written, one example being Jan Rokycana's works. The Hussite period for the first time also truly developed the genre of Czech religious songs as a replacement for Latin hymns and liturgy, e.g. the Jistebnický kancionál, the Jistebnice Hymnal.

After the election of George of Poděbrady to the Czech throne following the Hussite wars, a new cultural wave swept into Bohemia. Humanism saw in the classics of antiquity an ideal for literature and culture. The main feature of the literature of this period is the competition between Catholics writing in Latin, e.g. Bohuslav Hasištejnský z Lobkovic and Jan Dubravius) and Protestants writing in Czech, e.g. Viktorin Kornel z Všehrd and Václav Hájek. New literary devices incited scholars, e.g. Veleslavín, to construct a more complex grammatical structure, based on Latin, as well as an influx of loan words. Gutenberg's printing press rendered books and pamphlets more accessible, which slowly changed literature's status in society.