Last updated The former Komenský school in the Quellenstraße, number 72The former Komenský school in the Wielandgasse, now known as the Ernst-Kirchweger-HausThe Komenský school at the Sebastianplatz, number 3The former Komenský school in the Vorgartenstraße, number 95-97
During the 20th century, there were numerous Czech schools in Vienna. These provided the city's large Czech population with instruction in Czech.
Czech, historically also Bohemian is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. Spoken by over 10 million people, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of mutual intelligibility to a very high degree, as well as Polish. Like other Slavic languages, Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order. Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German.
The first Czech primary school with attached kindergarten was opened in the Quellenstraße in Favoriten in 1883. In 1908, a technical college was also founded; it was felt that the need for this was more pressing than for a grammar school.
Favoriten, the 10th district of Vienna, Austria, is located south of the central districts. It is south of Innere Stadt, Wieden and Margareten. Favoriten is a heavily populated urban area with many residential buildings, but also large recreational areas and parks.
The Komenský association, which was responsible for these schools, struggled to obtain public status for these institutions, which would have entitled them to state funding. Although the Dezemberverfassung laws of 21 December 1867 granted every "nationality" linguistic equality and thus the right to public schooling in its language, Vienna's mayor Karl Lueger feared that the city risked becoming increasing dominated by Slavs (it is estimated that as many as 500,000 Czechs lived in the city, which had a total population of 1.6 million). The Lower Austrian parliament, which was also responsible for Vienna at the time, ruled from 1896 onward that German should be the only language of instruction in all state schools.[1] At first, the pupils in the Komenský association's private schools were even required to travel to Břeclav to take their final exams. It was not until 1908 that education minister Gustav Marchet resolved that Czech teachers could also hold these exams in Vienna. The city council criticised this as a serious attack on the German school system and Vienna's German character.[2]
Karl Lueger was an Austrian politician, mayor of Vienna, and leader and founder of the Austrian Christian Social Party. He is credited with the transformation of the city of Vienna into a modern city. The populist and antisemitic politics of his Christian Social Party are sometimes viewed as a model for Adolf Hitler's Nazism.
Lower Austria is the northeasternmost of the nine states of Austria. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been St. Polten, the most recently designated capital in Austria. Previously, Lower Austria's capital was Vienna, even though Vienna has not officially been part of Lower Austria since 1921. With a land area of 19,186 km2 (7,408 sq mi) and a population of 1.612 million people, Lower Austria is the country's largest state; it is the second most populous after the federal state of Vienna. Other main cities are Amstetten, Krems an der Donau and Wiener Neustadt.
Břeclav is a town in the Moravia, South Moravian Region, Czech Republic, approximately 55 km southeast of Brno. It is located at the border with Lower Austria on the Dyje River. The nearest town on Austrian territory is Bernhardsthal. Břeclav also lies 10 km northwest of the Slovak border at Kúty and 100 km north of the Austrian capital city Vienna.
Lueger's successor, Josef Neumayer, from the Christian Social Party, ordered the closure of a newly established Komenský school in the Schützengasse on 23 September 1911. This act provoked not just a critical response in other parts of the empire, but also led to anti-Czech protests by German nationalists and members of the Christian Social Party. The largest rally attracted some 5000 people to a demonstration against Vienna's Czechs.[2] During World War I, the Komenský association offered to let the City of Vienna use the school buildings as a lazaret. The buildings had been kept closed by the authorities, allegedly because of their poor construction, but the City accepted the association's offer.[3]
The Christian Social Party was a major conservative political party in the Cisleithanian crown lands of Austria-Hungary and in the First Republic of Austria, from 1891 to 1934. The party was also affiliated with Austrian nationalism that sought to keep Catholic Austria out of the state of Germany founded in 1871, that it viewed as Protestant Prussian-dominated, and identified Austrians on the basis of their predominantly Catholic religious identity as opposed to the predominantly Protestant religious identity of the Prussians. It is a predecessor of the contemporary Austrian People's Party.
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Dual Monarchy, was a constitutional monarchy in Central and Eastern Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed when the Austrian Empire adopted a new constitution; as a result Austria (Cisleithania) and Hungary (Transleithania) were placed on equal footing. It dissolved into several new states at the end of the First World War.
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, the Seminal Catastrophe, and initially in North America as the European War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the resulting 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.
First Republic
The former Komenský school in the Erlgasse (in Meidling)
The Treaty of Saint-Germain included provisions requiring the protection of minority rights in education. The Brünner Vertrag between Austria and Czechoslovakia, which also concerned the school system, was signed on 7 June 1920.
The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was signed on 10 September 1919 by the victorious Allies of World War I on the one hand and by the Republic of German-Austria on the other. Like the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary and the Treaty of Versailles with Germany, it contained the Covenant of the League of Nations and as a result was not ratified by the United States but was followed by the US–Austrian Peace Treaty of 1921.
Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia, was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.
The realisation of the obligation to provide public schools for Vienna's Czech children was problematic. Czechs complained that the city's bilingual schools (which offered separate German and Czech instruction at different times during the day) required their children to attend in the afternoon, and that there were twice as many children in each classroom in the afternoon as during the German instruction in the morning. The government ban on teaching German at public Czech schools led many children to attend the Komenský schools.[4]
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol in Italy, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and Liechtenstein. It is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages that are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
In response to the lack of space made available in public schools, the Komenský association built the Krofta-Schule, which included a kindergarten, high school and technical college in the Herbststraße in Ottakring in 1923/24. This was made possible thanks to financial support from the association's backers in Prague.
In 1933, the Komenský association had 35 schools and kindergartens in Vienna:
17 Kindergartens
6 Primary schools
6 High schools
1 Technical grammar school
1 Technical college
1 Business school
1 School for women's professions
2 Slovak language schools
The Komenský association and its educational institutions were not directly touched by the Austrian Civil War, because they were not aligned to the Social Democrats. All school staff were however required to join the Vaterländische Front (Patriotic Front). In 1935, the technical grammar school relocated to a new site at the Sebastianplatz, while a new kindergarten was opened in Inzersdorf.[5]
1938–1945
By 1938, the Komenský association was not only one of Vienna's Czechs’ most important organisations; it was also one of the wealthiest. The association owned, in addition to its financial wealth, numerous school buildings and properties, the largest Czech library in Vienna (which had 70,000–100,000 books), two school busses as well as educational materials.
Following the Anschluss, the new authorities decreed that all non-Aryan state employees should be made redundant. This also affected the Komenský association's teachers. Following the Munich Agreement, the situation became more dire; the association's schools could only re-open fully in October 1938. As none of the Komenský association's representatives was an ethnic German and a member of the NSDAP, its employees were not approved by the authorities. In order to maintain public funding for its schools, the association was forced to accept the imposition of German school principals and ethnic German teachers for German lessons in 1939/40. From May 1941, all state funding was cancelled, and the schools lost their public status after the 1940/41 academic year.
The Komenský association's most important source of income during this time was the rent that it earned from its buildings. School authorities and the army were prompt payers, but NSDAP offices refused to pay rent to the association. On 18 February 1942, representatives of the association were called to the Gestapo headquarters at the Morzinplatz in central Vienna and were informed that their association was being dissolved.[6] The association's buildings and properties in and around Vienna were confiscated.[7]
Second Republic
The Komenský school in the Schützengasse, number 31
The last two public Czech primary schools to be maintained by the city of Vienna were closed before the end of the war in 1945 and were not later reopened.[4] The last Czech grammar school pupils completed their schooling shortly after the war.[6]
The majority of the Komenský association's wealth – which the Nazis had invested – as well as its buildings and properties were returned by the Republic of Austria after the war.
As a result of large-scale Czech emigration from Vienna during and after the war, the Komenský association's activities were greatly reduced. It was operating only three schools in 1949: a high school at the Sebastianplatz, and primary schools in the Vorgartenstraße and the Herbststraße.
The Komenský association sold the majority of its buildings between 1960 and 1980. They were bought by private individuals, firms, the Republic of Austria, the city of Vienna dn other public organisations.[8] Only the school at the Sebastianplatz continued to offer lessons. The school was financed at first by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic; since 1980, the teachers have been paid by the Republic of Austria.[6]
The Komenský association has once again been using a building in the Schützengasse for educational purposes; it houses a bilingual Oberstufenrealgymnasium, which began life in the 2000/01 academic year at the Sebastianplatz. The school offers the 9th to 12th forms and has a total of approximately 80 pupils.[9] In 2004, pupils took their high school leaver's exams at a Komenský school for the first time since 1942.[10]
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References
↑ Michael John, Albert Lichtblau: Schmelztiegel Wien – Einst und jetzt, Böhlau Verlag Gesellschaft m.b.H und Co.KG, Wien, ISBN3-205-05209-9, page 278 (in German)
1 2 M. John, A. Lichtblau: Schmelztiegel Wien – Einst und jetzt, page 278
↑ Franz Pesendorfer (ed.), Karl und Marta Brousek: Wiener Impressionen – Auf den Spuren tschechischer Geschichte in Wien / Vídeňské imprese – po českých stopách dějín Vidně, Verband Wiener Volksbildung – Edition Volkshochschule, Wien 2003, ISBN3-900799-38-5, page 83 (in German)
1 2 M. John, A. Lichtblau: Schmelztiegel Wien – Einst und jetzt, page 279
↑ Karl Maria Brousek: Wien und seine Tschechen – Integration und Assimilation einer Minderheit im 20. Jahrhundert, Wien 1980, Verlag für Geschichte und Politik Wien (in German)
1 2 3 K. M. Brousek: Wien und seine Tschechen – Integration und Assimilation einer Minderheit im 20. Jahrhundert
↑ Eduard Kubu und Gudrun Exner: Tschechen und Tschechinnen, Vermögensentzug und Restitution, Oldenbourg Verlag Wien München, 2004, ISBN3-7029-0527-8, page 59 (in German)
↑ E. Kubu, G. Exner: Tschechen und Tschechinnen, Vermögensentzug und Restitution
↑ orgkomensky.atprivates Oberstufenrealgymnasium Komensky, accessed 28 July 2009 (in German)
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