Vítězství poražených : martyrologická interpretace popravených vůdců stavovského povstání v Koruně neuvadlé mučedlníkův Božích českých
The Victory of the Vanquished. A Martyrological Interpretation of the Executed Leaders of the Bohemian Revolt in Koruna neuvadlá mučedlníkův Božích českých

Summary/Abstract: In the study of early modern Christian hagiography over the last twenty years, there has been a tendency not to adopt uncritically the concept of the post-Tridentine Roman Catholic Church which has appropriated the cult of saints and hagiography as its self-identifier, but to ask to what extent hagiography was practiced beyond Catholic writing. Martyrology seems to have been particularly productive in all early modern Christian denominations, especially in regions where the Reformation had gained significant influence. This case study tries to demonstrate that the aforementioned statement can also be applied to Bohemia, although this originally multi-confessional land with an overwhelmingly non-Catholic population gradually became a Catholic country during the 17th century. For the purpose of this study, Koruna neuvadlá mučedlníkův Božích českých was selected as a representative of 17th-century Bohemian hagiography of non-Catholic origin, being a text dealing with the public execution of the leaders of the Bohemian Revolt on 21 June 1621. Although it has been attributed to the Bohemian Utraquist priest and later religious émigré Jan Rosacius Hořovský (1581–1632), its author remains unknown. The key aim of the paper is to show that the work is a distinctly martyrological text with many traditional martyrological topoi. Another aim of the present analysis is to contribute to the study of martyrology as an art of interpretation with a subversive potential and of martyrological discourse as a tool of power.

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