Several notes on the relations between Hájek's Czech Chronicle and Beckovský's Poselkyně (Messenger of Old Czech Tales)
Abstract
This paper compares two important Czech chronicles separated by over 150 years. The author of this paper has focused his main attention on several selected subjects, particularly on the issue of the importance of the church and ecclesiastical orders in the views of both chroniclers and the differences between both texts in their views of temporal patrons, in their relations to Hussitism, in their different evaluations of the government of selected monarchs, their view of patriotism, current affairs in the texts and the like.
Beckovský's Messenger of Old Czech Tales is a notable text, which amongst other things provides testimony of the interest at the end of the 17th and in the 18th century in Hájek's Czech Chronicle, as well as being a notable source on the changes in worldview and national history that took place between the mid-16th century and the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. Then in the substantialy different sociocultural circumstances of the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and the first half of the 19th century both chronicles were involved in the supposed miracle of the Czech National Revival as favourite reading matter among the populace.