Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-03T11:11:29.631Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Zap's Prague: the city, the nation and Czech elites before 1848

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2013

CHAD BRYANT
CHAD BRYANT*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 468 Hamilton Hall, CB# 3195, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Karel Vladislav Zap, who came of age during the 1830 revolutions in Europe, belonged to a generation of Czech elites determined to promote national consciousness while actively carving out a space within Prague's middle-class social milieu. Zap, as his topographies of the city demonstrate, also called on his countrymen to claim the city and its structures from their German-speaking neighbours, thus contributing to a dynamic that would continue throughout the century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 181 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘Karel Vladislav Zap’, Národní listy, 3, 2 (Jan. 1871), 2; ‘Zap, Karel Vladislav’, Ottův slovnik naučný. Illustrovaná encyklopædie obecných vědomostí (Prague, 1888–1909), vol. XXVII, 430–2; Kunský, J., Čeští cestovatelé, 2 vols. (Prague, 1961), vol. I, 344Google Scholar; Forst, V. (ed.), Lexikon české literatury. Osobnosti, díla, instituce (Prague, 2008), vol. IV, 1681–2Google Scholar.

2 Zap, K.V., Popsánj kr. hlavního města Prahy pro cizince i domácí (Špinka, 1835)Google Scholar.

3 In the course of my research, I have been unable to locate a first edition of Zap's Guide. Thus, this article will rely on the second edition: Zap, K.V., Průwodce po Praze: Potřebna přiruční kniha pro každého, kdo se s pamětnostmi českého hlawního města seznámiti chce (Prague, 1848)Google Scholar. Publication of the 1847 edition was announced in the winter edition of Časopis českého Museum, 21, 4 (1847), 465. Just before the revolution, the same journal announced the publication of the 1848 edition. See Časopis českého Museum, 22, 3 (1848), 324. During the period in between, Zap's publisher released his chapter on the Hradčany district of Prague, probably in the last months of 1847, the listed publication date aside. Zap, K.V., Popsánj král. hradu, chrámu sv. Wita a všech ostatních památnosti na Hradčanech w Praze (Prague, 1848)Google Scholar. See Časopis českého Museum, 21, 6 (1847), 673. The precise publication date of the German translation is unclear. Given the fact that the German translation makes no mention of the revolution we might assume that it was published before or shortly after March 1848. Zap, K.V., Wegweiser durch Prag. Ein nothwendiges Handbuch für Fremde, die sich mit den Merkwürdigkeiten der böhmischen Hautpstadt bekannt zu machen wünschen, trans. Ritter von Rittersberg, L. (Prague, 1848)Google Scholar.

4 Despite his relative importance, Zap is rarely mentioned in studies of pre-1848 Prague or the early Czech national movement. See, however, Sayer, D., The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton, 1998), 129–30Google Scholar; and Štepanová, I., ‘Obrazy z zrcadla. Etnografika a slavika v díle manželů Zapových’, Český lid, 93 (2006), 137–51Google Scholar, especially 139–43.

5 A point well made by Hroch, M., Comparative Studies in Modern European History: Nation, Nationalism, Social Change (Aldershot and Burlington, 2007), 33–44Google Scholar. See also Štaif, J., Obezřetná elita. Česká společnost mezi tradicí a revolucí 1830–1851 (Prague, 2005), 15–49, 144–75Google Scholar.

6 Štaif, Obezřetná elita, esp. 70–8, 98–105, 144–53.

7 These efforts by the Czechs, of course, did not happen in isolation. For a study of Hungarian elites’ attempts to claim Buda and Pest as a national capital, see Nemes, R., The Once and Future Budapest (DeKalb, 2005)Google Scholar.

8 Brock, P., The Slovak National Awakening: An Essay in the Intellectual History of East Central Europe (Toronto, 1976), 29–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 After that point, the journal's banner simply stated that it was a journal of amusements (‘zábavník’). Kwěty, 15, 156 (1847), 1; and Kwěty, 15, 1 (1848), 1.

10 Bracewell, W., ‘Travels through the Slav world’, in Bracewell, W. and Drace-Francis, A. (eds.), Under Eastern Eyes: A Comparative Introduction to East European Travel Writing on Europe (Budapest and New York, 2008), 147–95Google Scholar, esp. 158–9; and Štaif, Obezřetná elita, 134–43. On pan-Slavism more generally, see Kohn, H., Pan-Slavism: Its History and Ideology (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

11 Štaif, Obezřetelná elita, 30–49; Kořalka, J., František Palacký (1798–1876). Der Historiker der Tschechen im österreichischen Vielvölkerstaat (Vienna, 2007), 106–7Google Scholar.

12 For an excellent overview, see Johnson, L., Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends (New York, 2011), 124–7, 129–35Google Scholar.

13 Hroch, Comparative Studies, 271.

14 Štaif, Obezřetelná elita, 70–8. For a description of this Stand's legal obligations and rights within the city, see Griesel, A.W., Neuestes Gemälde von Prag (Prague, 1825), 68Google Scholar.

15 On German as the lingua franca of east-central Europe, see Nemes, The Once and Future Budapest, 15. On the predominance of German in Prague, see Cohen, G., The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861–1914 (West Lafayette, 2006), 18–23Google Scholar. On the mixing of languages, see Griesel, Neuestes Gemälde, 65; and Zap, Průwodce, 250.

16 Lněničková, J., České země v době předbřeznové, 1792–1848 (Prague, 1999), 254–72Google Scholar, esp. 270–1.

17 Štaif, Obezřetelná elita, 98–101, 144–57; Šimůnková, A., ‘Měšťanská beseda ve střetu zájmů: politizace a nacionalizace pánského klubu’, Kuděj, 7, (2005), 73–92Google Scholar.

18 Sayer, The Coasts, 82.

19 Štaif, Obezřetelná elita, 99, 101.

20 Hroch, M., Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe: A Comparative Analysis of the Social Composition of Patriotic Groups among the Smaller European Nations (New York, 1985), 38Google Scholar, table 2. See also Sayer, The Coasts, 80–1.

21 Kárníková, L., Vývoj obyvatelstva v českýh zemích 1754–1914 (Prague, 1965), 105, 107Google Scholar.

22 Bugge, P., ‘The Czech world of Vladimír Macura’, in Macura, Vladimír, The Mystifications of the Nation: The ‘Potato Bug’ and Other Essays on Czech Culture, trans. H. Píchová and C. Cravens (Madison, 2010), xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

23 ‘Wýtah k aučtů Českého museum týkajících se příjmů a wydání Matice české roku 1846’, Časopis českého Museum, 21, 6 supplement (1847), 16.

24 Časopis českého Museum, 20, 3 (1846), 399.

25 Chmelenský, J.K., ‘Literatura česká’, Časopis českého Museum, 9, 1 (1835), 113Google Scholar. Zap's 1835 topography also received mention in Michl, J.W.J., Auplný literturnj létopis, čili obraz slowesnosti Slowanůw nářečj českého w Čechách, na Morawě, w Uhřjch atd., od léta 1825 až do léta 1837 1/4 (Prague, 1839), 163Google Scholar; and Časopis českého Museum, 9 (1835), 130k.

26 Zap, K.V., Pomněnky na Prahu. Popsání nejpřednějších památností tohoto hlavního města s 21 ocelovými rytinami a 1 plánem (Prague, 1845)Google Scholar; Zap, K.V., Wšeobecný zeměpis, 2 vols. (Prague, 1846)Google Scholar. Both works are described in Kunský, Čeští cestovatele, vol. I, 345.

27 Heim, M.H., The Russian Journey of Karel Havlíček Borovský (Munich, 1979), 58–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 ‘Tomek, Wáclav Wladivoj; Zapovi, Karlu Vladislav’, 1841, Karel Vladislav Zap, Památník národního písemnictví; Tomek, Václav Vladivoj, Děje pražské w krátkém nástinu (Prague, 1845)Google Scholar.

29 Zap, Anon. Karel Vladislav, trans., ‘Cesta na Tatry’, Časopis českého Museum, 13, 1 (1838), 24–61Google Scholar.

30 Zap, K.V., Zrcadlo života na wýchodni Ewropě, 3 vols. (Prague, 1843–44)Google Scholar. See also Kunský, Čeští cestovatelé, vol. I, 345; Sayer, The Coasts, 129; Štepanová, ‘Obrazy’, 138–43.

31 ‘Proslov’, Pautník. Časopis obrázkový pro každého, 1 (1846), 1.

32 Schaller, J., Beschreibung der königlichen Haupt- und Residenzstadt Prag: sammt allen darinn befindlichen sehenswürdigen Merkwürdigkeiten, 4 vols. (Prague, 1794–97)Google Scholar. See also Huber, H., Beschreibung der königlicher Haupt- und Residenzstadt Prag (Prague, 1781)Google Scholar; and Opiz, J.F., Vollständige Beschreibung der königlichen Haupt- und Residenzstadt Prag (Prague and Vienna, 1787)Google Scholar.

33 Tantner, A., Ordnung der Häuser, Beschreibung der Seelen: Hausnummerierung und Seelenkonskription in der Habsburgermonarchie (Innsbruck, 2007)Google Scholar. It was these authors’ reliance on census data as well their reliance on archival research that distinguished their topographies from those of their predecessors. See, for example, Redel, C.A. and Friedrich, R.J., Das sehens-würdige Prag (Nuremberg and Prague, 1710)Google Scholar.

34 On the Bohemian nobility's embrace of history, see Agnew, H., Origins of the Czech National Renascence (Pittsburgh, 1993)Google Scholar.

35 On the popularity of Prague as destination for Germans, see Demetz, P., Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (New York, 1998), 272–4Google Scholar; and the voluminous quotations from various German travel writers in Schottky, J., Prag wie es war und wie es ist (Prague, 1831), 15–31Google Scholar. A number of German-speaking British travellers ventured off the Grand Tour to visit Prague as well. Bugge, Peter, ‘“Something in the view which makes you linger”: Bohemia and Bohemians in British travel writing, 1836–1857’, Central Europe, 7 (May 2009), 3–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 On these developments more generally, see Buzard, J., The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to Culture, 1800–1918 (Oxford, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bohls, E.A., ‘Introduction’, in Bohls, E.A. and Duncan, I. (eds.), Travel Writing 1700–1830: An Anthology (Oxford, 2005), xiii–xxviiGoogle Scholar; and Parsons, N., Worth the Detour: A History of the Guidebook (Stroud, 2007)Google Scholar. My thanks to Rosemary Sweet for her helpful thoughts on this topic and others.

37 Sweet, R., ‘The changing view of Rome in the long eighteenth century’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 33 (2012), 145–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 146–7.

38 Schaller, J., Beschreibung der königlichen Haupt- und Residenzstadt Prag (Prague, 1820)Google Scholar. See, however, Edler von Geissau, A.F., Kurze Beschreibung der Königlichen Haupt- und Residenzstadt Prag im Königreiche Böhmen (Prague and Vienna, 1805)Google Scholar.

39 Schaller, Beschriebung (1820), 1–11.

40 Ibid., 43–5.

41 See, for example, Klutschak, F., Der Führer durch Prag (Prague, 1845), 31–42Google Scholar (original edn 1838).

42 Zap, Průwodce, i.

43 Zap gracefully acknowledged this debt in his 1847 publication. Zap, Průwodce, ii.

44 Zap, Popsánj kr. hlavního města Prahy pro cizince i domácí, ii.

45 Schmidl, A., Reisehandbuch durch das Königreich Böhmen, Mähren, Schlesien, Galizien, die Bukowina und nach Jassy (Vienna, 1836), 22–3Google Scholar.

46 Klutschak, Führer.

47 Baedeker, K., Handbuch für Reisende durch Deutschland und den oesterreichischen Kaiserstaat (Coblenz, 1842), 190–8Google Scholar; Murray, J., A Handbook for Travelers in Southern Germany (London, 1843), 385–99Google Scholar.

48 Zap, Průwodce, 332.

49 Macura, ‘Prague’, in Macura, Mystifications, 35–46.

50 Nemes, The Once and Future Budapest, 9.

51 Zap, Popsánj kr. hlavního města Prahy pro cizince i domácí, ii.

52 Zap, Průwodce, ii.

53 Ibid., iv.

54 Ibid., 7

55 Ibid., 9.

56 Ibid., 11.

57 Ibid., 15.

58 Ibid., 21.

59 Ibid., 25.

60 Ibid., 48.

61 Ibid., 44.

62 Ibid., 47.

63 Ibid., 210.

64 Ibid., 210.

65 Ibid., 230.

66 Ibid., 246.

67 Schottky, Prag, vol. I, 15.

68 Schaller, Beschreibung (1820), 225.

69 Klutschak, Führer, 15; Časopis českého Museum, 20, 3 (1846), 399.

70 Zap, Průwodce, 124–8.

71 Ibid., 142.

72 Zap, Wegweiser.

73 Zap, Průwodce, ii.

74 Schaller, Beschriebung (1820), 11, 51.

75 On the emerging, middle-class practice of strolling and the cult of nature in Prague, see Lněničková, České země, 271; and Marek, M., Kunst und Identitätspolitik. Architektur und Bildkünste im Prozess der tschechischen Nationalsbildung (Cologne, 2004), 24–32Google Scholar. On the phenomenon more generally, see König, G.M., Eine Kulturgeschichte des Spazierganges. Spuren einer bürgerlichen Praktik 1780 bis 1850 (Vienna, 1996)Google Scholar; Amato, J.A., On Foot: A History of Walking (New York, 2004), 71–124Google Scholar; Jarvis, R., Romantic Writing and Pedestrian Travel (Houndmills and New York, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robinson, J.C., The Walk: Notes on a Romantic Image (Norman, 2006), esp. 70–7Google Scholar.

76 Schmidl, Reisehandbuch, 40.

77 Jenny, R. and Schmidl, A., Handbuch fuer Reisende in dem oesterreichischen Kaiserstaate (Vienna, 1823), 431Google Scholar; Zap, Popsánj kr. hlavního města Prahy pro cizince i domácí, 198–9; Murray, Handbook, 328; Baedecker, Handbuch, 195; Zap, Průwodce, 53.

78 Schmidl, Reisehandbuch, 40–1.

79 Zap, Popsánj kr. hlavního města Prahy pro cizince i domácí, 204–6. Schmidl also recommended Coloured Island but notes that all of Prague's islands offer up gardens and walking paths. Schmidl, Reisehandbuch, 41–2.

80 Murray, Handbook, 334. See also Schmidl, Reisenhandbuch, 41

81 Zap, Průwodce, 297–8, 299–300, 302–4.

82 Zap, Popsánj kr. hlavního města Prahy pro cizince i domácí, 198.

83 Zap, Průwodce, 55.

84 Ibid., 56.

85 Ibid., 324.

86 Ibid., 324–5.

87 Ibid., 55.

88 A point developed well in Amato, On Foot.

89 See, for example, Nord, D.E., Walking the Victorian Streets: Women, Representation, and the City (Ithaca, 1995), 19–48Google Scholar; Amato, On Foot, 153–78; and O'Byrne, A., ‘The art of walking in London: representing urban pedestrianism in the early nineteenth century’, Romanticism, 14 (2008), 94–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90 Baudelaire, C., ‘The painter in modern life’, in Mayne, J. (trans. and ed.), The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays (London, 1964), 9, 40Google Scholar.

91 Lorimer, H., ‘Walking: new forms and spaces for studies of pedestrianism’, in Cresswell, T. and Merriman, P. (eds.), Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects (Burlington, 2011), 20Google Scholar.

92 For an excellent overview, see Pech, S.Z., The Czech Revolution of 1848 (Chapel Hill, 1969), 47–78Google Scholar; and Štaif, Obezřetná elita, 203–13.

93 Erickson, J., ‘The preparatory committee of the Slav Congress, April–May 1848’, in Brock, P. and Skilling, H. G. (eds.), The Czech Renascence of the Nineteenth Century (Toronto, 1970), 176–201Google Scholar. The quotation is from Žáček, V., Slovanský sjezd v Praze roku 1848. Sbírka dokumentů (Prague, 1958), 89Google Scholar.

94 Demetz, Prague, 296–300; Pech, The Czech Revolution, 139–62; Štaif, Obezřetná elita, 255–68.

95 ‘A’, review of Průwodce po Praze, Časopis ceského Museum, 23 (1949), 131–5. Quotation from 132. Several years later the same journal listed Zap's Guide in a bibliography of new and noteworthy publications. See ‘Bibliographie’, Časopis ceského Museum, 27, 2 (1853), 403.

96 Zap, K.V., Der Kleine Wegweiser durch Prag: Ein Auszug aus dem grosseren Werke (Wegweiser durch Prag) (Prague, 1850)Google Scholar.

97 Zap, K.V., Zeměpis Císařství Rakouského (Prague, 1851)Google Scholar.

98 ‘Zap, Karel Vladislav’, Ottův Slovnik, 431–2. One of Zap's most popular books, first published in 1862, was the Czech-Moravian Chronicle, which claimed as its goal the ‘bringing to life and explaining the past, in which the whole of our national being consists’. Zap, K.V., Česko-Moravská kronika (Prague, 1862)Google Scholar. Quotation from Sayer, The Coasts, 130.

99 Semotanová, E., ‘Historical geography’, Historica, 7–8 (2000–01), 227–46Google Scholar.

100 See, for example, Ruth, F., Kronika královské Prahy a obcí sousedních, 3 vols. (Prague, 1995–96Google Scholar; original edn 1903–04); and Poche, E., Prahou krok za krokem. Uměleckohistorický průvodce městem (Prague, 1958)Google Scholar.

101 Sayer, The Coasts, 180–2, 357–8 n. 111.

102 Paces, C., Prague Panoramas: National Memory and Sacred Place in the Twentieth Century (Pittsburgh, 2009), 59–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Nekula, ‘Institutions of memory: Prague pantheons since 1848’, paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Nov. 2009; Cohen, The Politics, 145–8; Sayer, The Coasts, 100–3; and Wingfield, N.M., Flag Wars and Stone Saints: How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech (Cambridge, MA, 2007)Google Scholar, esp. 48–78.

103 Many guidebooks intended for Czechs from the countryside appeared in anticipation of the 1891 Jubilee Exhibition in Prague. See, for example, Hynek, A., Hynkův průvodce po Praze a po zemské jubilejní výstavě v roce 1891 (Prague, 1891)Google Scholar; and Kafka, J., Illustrovaný průvodce všeobecnou zemskou jubilejní výstavou s průvodcem Prahou (Prague, 1891)Google Scholar. See also J. Randák, ‘Die Formierung des Prager Raums. Narrative des Nationalen in Prag- Reiseführern (Mitte des 19. Jh bis Mitte des 20. Jh.)’, paper presented at ‘Soziale/Kulturelle (Stadt-)Räume und Transkulturalität in Prag’ conference, Constance, 2011.

104 On tourism and nationalism more generally, see Koshar, R., German Travel Cultures (Oxford and New York, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On nationalism and tourism in Bohemia, see Judson, P., Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 141–76Google Scholar; and Murdock, C., ‘Tourist landscapes and regional identities in Saxony, 1878–1938’, Central European History, 40 (Dec. 2007), 589–621CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105 Guistino, C., Tearing Down Prague's Jewish Town: Ghetto Clearance and the Legacy of Middle-Class Ethnic Politics around 1900 (Boulder, 2003), 267–306.Google Scholar

106 On the contested meanings of Prague's various Czech nationalist monuments, see Paces, Prague Panoramas.