Abstract
This case study deals with the destiny of three young priests, disciple of Josef Dobrovsky at the general seminary (Generalseminarium) in Hradisko near Olomouc, whose represent a rather unique documentation enabling a glimpse into the mental landscape of the Josephine clergy, that is, to young priests whose notions were informed by the ideals of Josephine utilitarianism, anti-monarchism, and a degree of apparent anti-clericalism, who were confronted with the reality of a police state under Emperor Francis II, among whose aspirations was the renewal of the pre-Josephine authority of the Catholic Church. these sources reveal the channels through which information traveled among the emerging young clergy in South Moravia, indicating, to what degree (and from what provenance) these "rural scholars" drew their information of the current world affairs - and above all current affairs in revolutionary France, which represented to them a source of both illusion and hope.