History 260
From Habsburg to Hitler:
Bohemian Politics,
1848-1945

Jeremy King jking@mtholyoke.edu
MW 2:30-3:45 Telephone: x2749
Fall 2000 Office hours: Tues., 12-2
Mount Holyoke College Skinner Hall, room 306

This course explores the complex, often comic, and ultimately tragic history of Bohemia, a territory located today in the Czech Republic, but previously a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, of Czechoslovakia, and of Hitler's Third Reich. Beginning with the Revolution of 1848, students will progress through the stunning achievements and worrisome trends of Emperor-King Francis Joseph's sixty-eight-year reign, as well as through the horrors and hopes of the World Wars. Emphasis will lie on understanding nationalism - in the sense not only of understanding the stances of the two national movements, Czech and German, in Bohemia, but also of understanding how those linked movements eventually succeeded, despite modest beginnings, in dominating Bohemian politics as a whole.

Readings will average slightly more than 100 pages a week, and will come from many primary sources, as well as from a few secondary ones. Please refer to the table of contents in your course packs for full citations of the readings listed for each class session below. Those sessions will feature a combination of lecture and discussion. Come ready to ask questions and to answer them.

Course requirements

Attendance and participation in class (20%)
Take-home midterm examination, due October 30 (30%)
Self-scheduled final examination (50%)

Schedule of Topics and Readings

1. Monday, September 11 INTRODUCTION

2. Wednesday, September 13 BOHEMIA AND THE HABSBURGS

Readings: Kollár, "The Daughter of Sláva," in Selver, An Anthology of Czechoslovak Literature, 42-46
Kohl, Austria, 56-87
Guido Kisch, In Search of Freedom, 26-45, 202-03, 209

3. Monday, September 18 CZECHS, GERMANS, AND JEWS?

Readings: Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival, 19-34
Peter Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold, 286-313
Palacký, Letter to Frankfurt, in Jelavich, The Habsburg Monarchy, 18-22

4. Wednesday, September 20 AFTER 1848

Readings: Cohen, 34-51
von Suttner, Memoirs, 4-17
Kimball, Czech Nationalism, 1-4, 25-42

5. Monday, September 25 INTERMEZZO

Readings: King, Budweisers No More, Chapter 2, 30-45
"Gott erhalte," and "Die Wacht am Rhein," in Bantock, Sixty Patriotic Songs, 60-63, 42-45
"Kde domov mj?," and "Hej Slované," in Botsford, Folk Songs, 130-31, 157, 41-42
"What Is the German's Fatherland?," 1-page text
"Deutschland, Deutschland über alles," 1-page text
Kimball, 61-79

6. Wednesday, September 27 CLASS CANCELLED

7. Monday, October 2 THE COMPROMISE OF 1867

Readings: 1867 Austrian Constitution, in Fichtner, The Habsburg Empire, 51-61, 154-58
May, The Hapsburg Monarchy, 46-53, 58-68
Kimball, 80-91

8. Wednesday, October 4 NATIONAL MUSIC

Readings: Kimball, 124-46
Smetana, Wenzig, and Špindler, Libuše (libretto), 1-33
Synek Graff, "Notes on The Bartered Bride," in Stagebill, 44-47
Beckerman, "Czech Mate," in Stagebill, 24-28

FALL BREAK

9. Wednesday, October 11 THE "IRON RING"

Readings: apek, Talks with T. G. Masaryk, 132-35, 140-45
King, 111-48

10. Monday, October 16 NATIONHOOD AND CLASS

Readings: King, 148-52, 165-85
"The Internationale," 1-page text
Holek, autobiography, in Kelly, The German Worker, 97-120

11. Wednesday, October 18 NATIONHOOD, GENDER, RELIGION, AND MORE

Readings: Hanel, autobiography, in Iggers, Women of Prague, 164-89, 197
Whitman, The Realm of the Habsburgs, 26-42, 76-91, 111-13, 118-21, 278-85

12. Monday, October 23 THE BADENI CRISIS

Readings: Herzl, "Prague Jews between Two Nations," in Iggers, The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia, 231-32
Twain, "Stirring Times in Austria," 208-35
King, 185-207

13. Wednesday, October 25 NATIONHOOD TRIUMPHANT

Readings: King, 219-55
Debate in the Bohemian Diet, in Fichtner, 171-72
Scheu, Wanderungen durch Böhmen, 14pp.

14. Monday, October 30 MIDTERM EXAMINATION DUE

15. Wednesday, November 1 FRANZ KAFKA OF PRAGUE, PART I

Readings: Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Pictures of a Life, 40-41, 103-04, 112, 142-44, 213, 155, 183
Chronology of Kafka's life, in Heller, The Basic Kafka, xxix-xxxv
Kafka, diary entries and letters, in Heller, 256-60, 275-83
Kafka, "The Judgment," in Heller, 54-66

16. Monday, November 6 FRANZ KAFKA OF PRAGUE, PART II

Readings: Kafka, "The Metamorphosis," in Heller, 1-54
Kafka, "Accident Prevention Regulations," in Wagenbach, Kafka's Prague, 82-84

17. Wednesday, November 8 THE GREAT WAR

Readings: King, 255-64
Francis Joseph, "To My peoples," in Fichtner, 190-92
Hašek, The Good Soldier Schweik, 150-74, 188-93, 244-56
Medek, "1914," in Selver, 294-96

18. Monday, November 13 THE NEW MASTER OF BOHEMIA

Readings: King, Chapter 6 (begin)
Egon Erwin Kisch, Sensation Fair, 78-95
Lederer, "Three Encounters," in Iggers, The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia, 328-33
Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia, 26-33

19. Wednesday, November 15 THE CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC

Readings: Boyce and Dawson, The University of Prague, 52-93
Voskovec and Werich, "Liberated Theater," handouts
Hanna Demetz, The House on Prague Street, 1-9, 26-33

20. Monday, November 20 REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

Readings: Hanna Demetz, 33-62
King, Chapter 6 (middle)
Kennan, From Prague after Munich, 114-18, 131-34, 157-59, 179-95, 207-11

THANKSGIVING BREAK

21. Monday, November 27 WORLD WAR II

Readings: Rothschild, Return to Diversity, 32-39
Hanna Demetz, 62-122
Kennan, 226-27, 236-40

22. Wednesday, November 29  GERMAN, CZECH, JEW: THE RACIAL STATE

Readings: King, Chapter 6 (end)
Jacoby, The Racial State, 73-92
Erdely, Germany's First European Protectorate, 55-64, 74-82, 138-150

FILM SCREENING, Sunday evening, December 3:

"The Closely Watched Trains" [1966]. 92 minutes. Based on the 1965 novella by Bohumil Hrabal. Directed by Jií Menzel. Place of screening TBA.

23. Monday, December 4 FINAL SOLUTIONS

Readings: Hanna Demetz, 122-69
Beneš, President Beneš on War and Peace, 132-45

24. Wednesday, December 6 1945: REVERSAL AGAIN

Readings: King, Chapter 7
Hanna Demetz, 170-86
Hanušová, What to Do with Them?, 35
Turnwald, Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, 1-17

25. Monday, December 11 BOHEMIA, FAREWELL

Readings: Stránský, East Wind over Prague, 1-3, 12-16, 22-37
Werfel, "An Essay upon the Meaning of Imperial Austria," in Twilight of a World, 3-40

26. Wednesday, December 13 SUMMING UP