Karel Schelle

On the traditions of Czech state right thinking: Parliamentarianism and the struggle for Czech state right during the second half of the nineteenth century

SUMMARY Moderate constitutional requirements became an integral part of the Czech national programme since its very beginning. At first, they were restricted to formal confirmation of the historical rights of the Czech state. The requirements of the Czech nation relied on the statement that the independent medieval Czech state had never de iure declined. Habsburg centralization and interference, the reduction of common Czech institutions, the transfer of decisive powers to Vienna and other similar measures were declared unlawful. Therefore the Czech representatives demanded in practical politics an internal reconstruction of the Empire along federal lines that might have ensured a similar position for the Czech state as it had held when the monarchy was created in 1526. The further fortunes of the Czech nation were therefore connected with the emergence of a Habsburg monarchy in which better conditions should have been created for national development (Austroslavism). The struggle for the Czech ‘state right’, as it was called, influenced Czech politics in the course of the second half of the nineteenth century. Unlike the Hungarian efforts, it was completely unsuccessful.