CZECH-GERMAN RELATIONS OF THE PRE-WESTFALIAN ERA IN THE ASSESSMENT OF UKRAINIAN HISTORIANS (XIX-EARLY XX CENTURY)

Abstract

The article examines the study by scientists of higher educational institutions of Ukraine of Czech-German relations in the 9th – first half of the 17th centuries. It is shown that the interest of domestic researchers in this topic was associated with the successes of the contemporary Czech national Renaissance, the great achievements of Czech historical science, the publication by its representatives of fundamental research on the medieval past of the Czech Kingdom, the relations of the Czechs with their neighbors, primarily with the Germans. The purpose of the article is to explore Czech-German relations of the pre-Westphalian era in the assessments of historians of Ukraine in the 19th and early 20th centuries and to find out how their concepts reflected the state of medieval and Slavic studies of that time. The author employs the methods of historical and comparative analysis, systematization and generalization, and retrospective analysis. The article shows that in the Czech-German relations of the pre-Westphalian era, medievalists of pre-revolutionary universities in Ukraine identified and studied three key topics: 1) the influence of German colonization, law and institutions on the development of the Czech state in the X-XIII centuries (N. Ivanishev, A. Yasinsky); 2) the Hussite movement and the Hussite wars (V. Nadler, V. Bilbasov, A. Vertelovsky); 3) the struggle of Czech Protestants against the Habsburgs at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War (P. Lavrovsky, A. Kochubinsky). Domestic historians have made a great contribution to the study of Czech-German relations, devoted fundamental monographs and articles to this topic, and carried out an in-depth study of documents. At the same time, they absolutized the severity of Czech-German relations at different stages of history.