THE SLAV PEOPLES NIEDERLE. 607 



The most detrimental procedure of some of these rulers was the 

 colonization of parts of Bohemia and Moravia by Germans. This 

 colonization and contemporaneous germanization continued, favored 

 also by the nobility and the clergy, until the fourteenth century, when 

 it was checked effectually for a time by a revulsion of the people, 

 manifested in part in the wonder-inspiring Husite wars. The pro- 

 cess of Germanization at that time extended even to the Slovaks in 

 northern Hungary. 



The Husite (after Jan Hus, the martyred reformer and patriot) 

 wars were conducted victoriously mainly under the banner of religion, 

 but at the same time it was a struggle for Bohemian nationality and 

 against the invading Germans. As a result of these wars, the Bohe- 

 mian language again became the official language in Bohemia, Mora- 

 via, and Silesia, and there was a general national rejuvenation. 



The German waves, however, could be stayed only for a time, and 

 in the sixteenth and particularly the seventeenth centuries their effect 

 again became manifest. 



The early part of the seventeenth century (1620) marks the dis- 

 astrous battle of Bila Hora, near Prague. Then followed a period of 

 intense religious oppression, confiscation of property, exile of tens of 

 thousands of the best families, and the repeated destructive invasions 

 of the Thirty Years' War, all of which left the Bohemian element 

 greatly reduced in numbers and on the verge of exhaustion. Then 

 came further German colonization and more germanization. 



Toward the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century it seemed as if the Cechs were to follow the fate of the 

 Elbe Slavs. Instead of this, however, there became manifest a 

 marked and gradually growing reawakening of the national spirit, 

 attended with a purification of the language, and not merely a suc- 

 cessful opposition to further germanization, but a slow and continu- 

 ous gain of old positions in all directions. 



A century ago it seemed as if the nation was doomed. To-day it 

 stands among the most cultured and united, as well as intellectually 

 and industrially productive, in the compact strength of nearly 

 7,000,000, exclusi^'e of the 2,000,000 Slovaks in Hungary. The history 

 of the people from the fourteenth century to date reads like a fable. 



The Slovaks are subject to forcible magyarization which, with 

 their environment, has retarded their progress in all directions. 



The total number of Bohemian Slovak people in existence is esti- 

 mated at somewhat over 9,000,000 individuals, and of that number 

 at least 300,000 Bohemians and 500,000 Slovaks live in the United 

 States. 



There is a considerable difference between the Bohemians and 

 Slovaks in education. Among the former the percentage of those 

 able to read and write exceeds even that among the Gennans, and is 



