Abstract
This paper aims to chart the genesis of Czech political clericalism in the early 1860s, when there was a renewal of constitutionality and parliamentarianism in the Habsburg monarchy. Using the example of the clerical daily newspaper Pozor and its editors, it attempts to identify the staffing and ideological background of this newspaper and the composition of the politically engaged group of nationally oriented Czech clergy.
It examines this group's changing relationship with the liberal-oriented National Party, led by František Palacký and František Ladislav Rieger as well as with the Czech conservative aristocracy and especially the church hierarchy headed by Cardinal Friedrich von Schwarzenberg. At the same time, this study examines the reception of the politically active and nationally oriented clergy activities by the contemporary Czech public, particularly in the context of a possible change in this perception between the "pre-March" period and the start of the 1860s.