Reactionaries or Progressors? The Czech Slavophiles and Their Role during Formation of Modern Lithuanian Nation in the Middle of the 19th Century
2018
Abstract
Four Czech Slavophiles, Pavel Josef Šafařík, Václav Hanka, Karel Vladislav Zap and Ludvík Ritter from Rittersberg, became regular members of Vilnius Archaeological Committee in 1856. For a decade, there were more intensive contacts between the Czech and Lithuanian environment.
The Vilnius Archaeological Committee together with the Museum of Antiquities were the only cultural and educational institutions working in Lithuania after the Vilnius University was closed in 1831. For the main aristocratic representatives of the Committee who promoted patriotism without nationalistic connotations, the idea of the culural unity of South and Central European Slavs and the idea of the mutual cultural missions were attractive.