Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - What Has Been Done for These People and Their Neighbors Now in America? (Symposium) The Rev. Jesse W. Brooks, Ph. D. (presiding) - The Bohemians: Rev. V. Hlavaty - Influence of Hus and Comenius - Bohemian Immigration
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116 What Has Been Done for These People
dred thousand. Religiously they are also divided. The Russians and
Bulgarians being Greek Catholics; while the Poles, Bohemians and
Slovenes are Roman Catholics. There are some two and a half per
cent Protestants among the Bohemians and about twenty-three per
cent Protestants among the Slovaks.
Being located between western Europe and Asia these Slavs in early
history for centuries were attacked on the east by wild tribes of
Huns, Mongols and Tartars, and on the south by Turks. Russia and
the southern Slavs were subjugated by Mongols and Turks for cen-
turies. Even "civilized" Germany took part whenever opportunity
offered itself in oppressing these peoples. They did not perish, but,
on the contrary, developed under great diffculties into an immense
family, with great literature, educational institutions, deep religious
feeling, love for freedom and, in many cases, self-government. These
Slavs have saved western Europe many times from the barbarians,
when they themselves had to endure great suffering. It is natural
that some of them have not had the opportunity of civilization, as the
western people have.
Influence of Hus and Comenius
Bohemia is the most progressive and most civilized of all the Slavic
countries. It was Bohemia that gave to the world the first reformer
in the person of John Hus, who died as martyr to the truth five hun
dred years ago. Bohemia was the cradle of those noble Christians
the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren with their last bishop and edu
cator, John Amos Comenius.
After John Hus, Bohemia was Protestant for two hundred years:
but being ruled by the Hapsburg Roman Catholic Emperors, she was
oppressed and finally robbed of her freedom in 1620. From that time
she was regarded only as a province of the Empire of Austria, always
striving to regain the rights unduly taken from her; until today
Bohemia stands in an open revolt against her tyrants and on the side
of the Allies; and you may read in the papers nearly every day about
the Czechoslovak Army in Russia, Italy and France, organized and
fighting against the common enemy.
Bohemian Immigration
Bohemians began to come to America before the Civil War, before
the sixties. Within the past thirty-five years, their immigration has
been rapid. Between the years 1900 and 1910 over two million Slavs
came to this country from various sources, and there are in the
United States between five and six million Slavs with their descend-
ants; more than five hundred thousand of these are Bohemians, and
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