“Importing” the Enlightenment and “Enlightenment at the Margins”. The Example of Bohemia as a Language and Religious Frontier, 1770–1800
“Importing” the Enlightenment and “Enlightenment at the Margins”. The Example of Bohemia as a Language and Religious Frontier, 1770–1800

Summary/Abstract: This contribution explores the hypothesis that 18th-century Bohemia, which was effectively a political andinformational periphery directed from Vienna, also functioned – thanks to its geographical position and otherfactors and despite unfavourable circumstances – as a kind of “information membrane”. In particular, thisstudy explores the forms of cultural transfer between Bohemia (Prague) and its neighbouring Protestant regionsin Germany, especially Saxony. In the late 18th18th century, religiously tolerant Saxony, with its educatedcourt in Dresden, book fair, and university in Leipzig, functioned as a sui generis centre of Enlightenmentin Central Europe. Moreover, it was where the canon of new literary and scientific German was takingshape. Saxony also mediated the transfer of new cultural models (and printed materials) from Great Britainand France to the German-speaking environment of Central Europe. Its peripheral position close to the borderenabled a lively cultural transfer with neighbouring Bohemia, and active exchange of information. I believethis was one of the key factors that drove an accelerated “dynamics of Enlightenment” in the Czech environmentduring the last third of the 18th18th century. Contacts with the originally Lutheran Saxony werefacilitated also by the Catholic conversion of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, in 1697, which reinforceda symbiosis between the now Catholic court in Dresden and Lutheran university in Leipzig. I chosethe historical region of Bohemia to illustrate the relationship between centre and periphery, and as a basisfor discussing peripheries that can become centres. After all, many other examples can be found of a peripherythat neighbours on an area which may serve to relativize its apparent marginality.The first part of the study is dedicated to more general observations about cultural transfer, especiallyin relation to the Enlightenment and the dichotomy of centre vs periphery. The second part focusesmore concretely on relations between the Czech Lands and German Protestant regions, with emphasison culture transfer between Bohemia (particularly Prague) and Saxony, (Leipzig and Dresden). Thiscultural exchange is presented using examples mainly from science, literature, and the book market.

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