Frič, Herzen, and Bakunin: The Clash of Two Political Cultures
Frič, Herzen, and Bakunin: The Clash of Two Political Cultures

Summary/Abstract: The location of Central Europe and its participation in the Slavic language group has created a tension in Czech political thinking between two basic allegiances: Slavic solidarity and political liberalism. The corresponding historical constructs are as follows: (1) The Czech national awakening (after a virtual assimilation into the Austro-German world) received much of its inspiration and sustenance from the awareness of a strong Slav community, underwritten by the size and power of Russia and the Russians. And although this Slavic influence did not become a cultural and political force until the late eighteenth century, its origin in the Czech intellectual milieu dated at least to the prominent baroque encyclopedist Bohuslav Balbin in the seventeenth century. (2) The opposing force derived from a realistic awareness of the difference between Russia's autocratic tradition and the more humane political culture with which the Czechs had historically been associated. [...]

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