English Translation

We are not a young people with regard to our cultural aspirations, as it is sometimes assumed from the less informed side. The 1000-year-old wrestling under very peculiar conditions finds its expression in our peculiarity. The ancient truth, according to which the struggle is the father of all things, πóλεμos πατs ππαvtωv, has also been confirmed here; Bohemia and Moravia have always been a hot ground and the many struggles have hardened its inhabitants, Čechen and Germans. However, it has not always been about the struggles of the two nations against each other, often it was common against the emperor and his system. The memorial plaque on the Old Town Square in Prague, which counts the victims of the Habsburg counter-reformation after the battle on the White Mountain, lists besides Czech also many German names, whose bearers have bled together for high spiritual values. After the religious struggles many, high-quality elites had to leave the Bohemian country. The great German chemist Ke- kulé of Stradonitz (a village near Laun) came from a čech émigré family. Even in peaceful times many Čechen have moved into the world and many of them have done important things. I have only recently called the Cleveland famous fabri- kant Vlček, a blacksmith from southern Bohemia, and my honored friend Mr. President Ing. Lehký in Buenos Aires. The abnormally large, constant departure of the highest quality Elemen was a special misfortune of the Czech people. We have been systematically decapitated for a long time and have suffered greater losses than any other people in Europe, in particular because of the internationalization of the remaining nobility classes, even in the leading strata. Despite all this, even after tragic events, the Czech people have preserved their peculiarity and remained incredibly tenacious in their ethnicity. Larger Slavic tribes than we, e.g. the Elbe Slavs, have been sucked up for a long time. It is wrong to believe that the reawakening of the Czech People's Thought at the beginning of the 19th century an artificial appearance under a mere outside of it. 5