Rebellion in Bohemia
BECK, CURT
Rebellion in Bohemia John Zizka and the Hussite Revolution. By Frederick G. Heymann. Princeton. 521 pp. $9.00. Reviewed by Curt Beck Assistant professor of government, University of...
...Heymann is to be congratulated for having made available, for those readers not trained in the Czech language, material which is necessary to a balanced view of an important event in the 15th century...
...Heymann's interesting subject is not treated in a sufficiently succinct and lucid style to appeal to the layman, nor does his study contain enough new historical research to impress the scholar...
...Heymann's contention that the Hussite movement contained all the ingredients of the subsequent Protestant revolt and would have gained wider recognition if the Hussites had had the printing press at their disposal...
...Apart from buttressing the nationalist past, the Hussite wars furnished Czech historians with other interesting materials of contemporary importance...
...Unfortunately, Mr...
...It was in this period that the followers of Hus, who had been branded a heretic by the Council of Constance, resisted the efforts of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, to impose his authority over the Czechs...
...These disorders in the late medieval period shed light on early manifestations of the traditional German-Czech conflict, on a Protestant movement antedating Luther by a century, and on a social and political conflict between the nobility and the more radical cities and peasantry...
...The Czechs were practically alone in their fight, but they held out until 1436...
...John Zizka (1360-1424), military and political leader, blind in the last few years of his life, was instrumental in the successful organization of this resistance and led it from 1419 to his death...
...However, the diligent reader will be rewarded with a better understanding of the Czech-German conflict and the beginnings of modern methods of warfare...
...He has not really succeeded in bringing his hero to life...
...It should also be mentioned that it is Mr...
...Czech national historians, such as Palacky (1793-1876...
...Zizka was the first to utilize movable fortifications through his wagon fortresses...
...While these wars have long been the center of Czech historical interest, few men besides Count von Lutzow and Matthew Spinka have written about them in English...
...To those educated in the traditional Western European interpretation of medieval history, it will come as a surprise to be confronted with a Czech perspective Mr...
...rediscovered the Hussite wars in the 19th century after two centuries of neglect as a welcome historical justification for the important role which they envisaged for the Czech people in the future...
...His main accomplishment is to have made an account of the Hussite wars available to English readers...
...Reviewed by Curt Beck Assistant professor of government, University of Connecticut The two decades following the death at the stake of John Hus (July 6, 1415) were among the most important in the history of the Kingdom of Bohemia, predecessor of modern Czechoslovakia...
...Frederick Heymann, who teaches European history at the Fieldston School and the New School for Social Research, has attempted to portray the political, religious and social problems of the Hussite wars by centering his study around John Zizka...
Vol. 39 • April 1956 • No. 14
