The Rural Population and the Birth of the Small Intelligentsia in the Early 19th Century Czech Lands (using the Budweis Diocese as a Case Study)

Abstract

Schooling and education became a prerequisite for the emergence of modern society, a necessary condition for the success of national emancipation, and a path to creating a modern Czech intellectual elite, many of whose members were also recruited from the countryside. For the sons of rural craftsmen and peasants, a future career as a clergyman, teacher, or subaltern clerk was a safe way to join the ranks of the future small-town or rural elite. Many of them subsequently played an essential role in the national movement. The educational journey of rural youths is well documented in the sources of individual schools. This process can be illustrated by the situation in the Budweis diocese in the first half of the 19th century. Among the students of the grammar schools in Budweis, Písek, Jindřichův Hradec and Klatovy, or the Philosophical Lyceum and the Bishop's Seminary in Budweis, the peasant students were the second or third largest social group, and in many cases, a kind of ‘family or village study tradition’ can be traced.