The Odd Alliance: The Underprivileged Population of Bohemia and the Habsburg Court, 1765–1790

Abstract

The occasion of the bicentennial of Joseph II’s death marks renewed interest in the significance of his reign and the meaning of his reforms.¹ In Bohemia unbridled criticism of the emperor as well as admiration bordering on worship were already expressed during his lifetime.² Then the controversy was between the aristocracy and clergy whose careers and property were threatened by the Emperor’s policies, and the peasants who considered the reforms beneficial to their advancement. The attitudes towards Joseph II were sometimes based on the ideology of his observers rather than on their social and economic interests. Often public polemics dealing with the emperor’s personality and his political abilities surpassed the limits of rhetoric and became a part of the political struggles in Bohemia. For instance, in 1771 Count Stephan Olivier Wallis, in an attempt to convince his serfs to recall complaints to Vienna, publicly ridiculed Joseph II as an unreliable ally.³ In contrast, Josef Červinka, a serf from Mnichovo Hradište, organised a revolt against Count Wallenstein by making positive statements about Joseph II and calling the emperor his friend.⁴ Public polemics about Joseph II had direct political repercussions for the last time when the Bohemian estates staged a movement to abolish his heritage in the early 1790s.⁵ Thereafter the impulsive judging of the emperor’s rule in Bohemia faded, and the political or opportunistic reasons for showing affection or aversion toward him vanished.