Making Politics in the European Countryside 1780s-1930s

0564251 - HÚ 2023 RIV BE eng M - Monography Chapter
Řepa, Milan
Between the nation and self-interest: the Czech peasantry in Moravia at the daybreak of civil society, 1848-1914.
Making Politics in the European Countryside 1780s-1930s. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022 - (Brassart, L.; Marache, C.; Pan-Montojo, J.; Van Molle, L.), s. 223-246. CORN Publication Series, 19. ISBN 978-2-503-59506-1
Research Infrastructure: LINDAT/CLARIAH-CZ - 90101
Institutional support: RVO:67985963
Keywords : 19th-century history * rural history * politicisation
OECD category: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

The politicisation of the Moravian peasantry came from the mutual impact of the nationalist movement and associational life. It was primarily associational life that led to the foundations of civil society in Czech Moravia. The Czech nationalist doctrine, however, provided the much-needed idealistic fervour. Czech political representation phrased its demands in the attractive form of an emotionally tense struggle for the rights of the Czech people, and thus managed to gain the attention of the wider population for national affairs. How successfully public opinion was mobilised became clear by the protests in 1868–1873. Until the 1890, the Moravian National Party remained the only representative of the Czech nationalist camp. This privileged position did not force it to intensify its agitation or to build an internal party structure. The associations and their activities basically substituted the functions that were later performed by political parties. The dense network of associations was thus, besides the growing Czech national consciousness, the most important factor that advanced the politicisation of the countryside, to a much greater extent than local self-government.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0336021