The Czechs in the Austrian Monarchy 1740 - 1848

- The road to a modern legal state?

This course focuses on the position of Czech society within the Austrian monarchy during the early modern and modern era. The course covers the period from the beginning of the reign of Maria Theresa in 1740 to the revolutionary year of 1848. It focuses on political history and examines the legal status of individuals and social groups. The aim of the course is to track emancipatory and liberalizing tendencies that were manifested in the absolutist monarchy, both in terms of legal theories and individual rights codification. The course also pays attention to economic and social changes that played an important role in the process of freeing individuals from serfdom and in the development of the Czech national movement.

Course objectives

The course aims to introduce foreign students to Czech history in the context of broader Central European development. The entire course is designed to familiarize students with the modernization tendencies that are characteristic of the studied period, in addition to the basics of our society's history.

Syllabus

1. The reign of Maria Theresa - Wars of the Austrian Succession, Administrative Reforms, Seven Years' War

2. Enlightenment and Josephinism - Religion and Reason, Jansenism, Pietism, Febronianism, Modern Journalism

3. Enlightened Absolutism - Modern Concept of Freedom, Criminal and Private Law, Modern Army

4. The reign of Joseph II and Leopold II - Frederick the Great and Joseph II, Administrative Reforms, Crisis of Enlightened Absolutism, Integration of the Habsburg Monarchy and Provincial Patriotism

5. Czech Countryside and Demographic Changes - Demographic Changes, Lordship and Serfs, Agrarian Reforms

6. Industrialization - Manufacturing, Economic Policy, Development of Scientific Life

7. Napoleonic Wars I - First Coalition War, Repressive State - Censorship, Second Coalition War

8. Napoleonic Wars II - From Austerlitz to Wagram, Fall of the Napoleonic Empire, Echoes of War

9. New Concept of State under Francis I - Legal or Police State?, Metternich System, Public Administration Reforms

10. Industrial Society - Economic and Social Changes, Transport Revolution, Demographic Changes

11. Education and Scientific Life - Education and Literacy, Learned Societies and Academic Institutions, Public Health

12. From Metternich to Bach - Holy Alliance and Monarchical Absolutism, National Movement, 1848 Revolution

Course

- Lecture

Proposed Credit Subsidy

- 3 credits, KVALIFIKOVANÝ ZÁPOČET

Assessment

1. Course Attendance - at least 75%, maximum of three absences

2. Ongoing Preparation for Class - reading of assigned article

3. Short Presentation in Class - Personality of Czech Culture / Architectural Monuments

Required Literature

Pánek, J. et al., 2018. A history of the Czech Lands Second, enlarged English edition., Prague: Charles University, Karolinum Press.

Recommended Literature

Adler, S., 2020. Political economy in the Habsburg monarchy 1750–1774 the contribution of Ludwig Zinzendorf, Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Bassett, R., 2015 - 2015. For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619-1918, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Beales, D.E.D., 1987. Joseph II. [Vol.] 1, In the Shadow of Maria Theresa 1741-1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cranckshaw, E., 1970. Maria Theresa 2. impress., London: Longman.

Ersoy, A. et al., 2010. Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States, Budapest: Central European University Press

Hochedlinger, M., 2013 - 2003. Austria's wars of emergence: war, state and society in the Habsburg monarchy, 1683-1797, Oxfordshire, [England]: Routledge.

Komlos, J., 1989. Nutrition and economic development in the eighteenth-century Habsburg monarchy: an anthropometric history, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Moore, S.O., 2020. Teaching the empire: education and state loyalty in late Habsburg Austria, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press.

Taylor, A.J.P. (A.J.P.), 1990. The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918: a history of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.