The Life and Professional Wanderings of Advocates and Physicians in Moravia and Silesia at the Turn of the 20th Century

The Life and Professional Wanderings of Advocates and Physicians in Moravia and Silesia at the Turn of the 20th Century andrea Pokludová KEY WORDS: Education — Professional Careers — Patterns of Conduct — Intelligentsia — Bohemian Lands The writing of the study presented here preceded the appearance at the conference, Educated Persons above the Bounds of “Provincionality”.1 In the lines below, I do not mean to devote attention to the conceptual questions of terminology, i.e. who from a historical perspective we consider to be an educated person or how we define provincionality. The domestic historical community still uses these terms very loosely and the actual definition in the rendition of the conceptions differs, which is certainly detrimental to comparative research. With the interval of a few short years, I have returned to the topic of the social group of the intelligentsia, whose representatives at the turn of the 20thcentury had the status of educated men in the eyes of the society. They were not, however, intellectuals in the interpretations of Foucault or Bourdieu; this boundary was surpassed by very few of them. In my opinion, it is possible to consider as typical representatives of the social group of the intelligentsia, advocates and physicians; both professions were marked by high society-wide prestige based on the attained doctoral title. I do not intend to present below socio-demographic data related to the formation of both professions in selected Moravian and Silesian towns, I did that years ago in a monograph and several component studies;2 I set the goal in this place to expand the existing state of research by a new historical-anthropological interpretation. I opened my appearance at the conference with the complaint of one of the physi1 The conference Educated Persons above the Bounds of “Provincionality” was organised on 25–26 April 2013 by the FF-OU; presentation: Professional Wanderings of the Representatives of the Liberal Arts at the Turn of the 20th Century. 2 The text of the study comes from the conclusions of research focused on the forming of the intelligentsia on Moravia and Silesia, which was published in the monograph Andrea Pokludová, Formování inteligence na Moravě a ve Slezsku 1857–1910, Ed. 1, Opava: 2008, 326 pp.; Andrea Pokludová, Advokát. In: Milan Myška — Aleš Zářický (eds.), Člověk v Ostravě v XIX. století, Ostrava 2007, pp. 225–233; Andrea Pokludová, Lékař. In: Milan Myška — Aleš Zářický (eds.), Člověk v Ostravě v XIX. století, Ostrava 2007, 81–95; Andrea Pokludová, Lékař — příklad Františka Boučka a Nikodéma Kroczka. In: Lukáš Fasora — Jiří Hanuš — Jiří Malíř (eds.), Člověk na Moravě 19. století, Brno 2004, pp. 61–79; Andrea Pokludová, Opavská advokacie v druhé polovině 19. a na počátku 20. století, Slezský sborník 102, 2004, No. 3, pp. 184–194; Andrea Pokludová, Advokáti v Moravské Ostravě před sto léty, Bulletin advokacie 6, 2004, pp. 71–77. aNdREa POKlUdOvÁ 49 cians from Prague from the beginning of the 1880s, who lamented on the pages of a professional press the worsening material provision of the doctors of medicine: “Today, we are already on the level that every mindful father must reconsider allowing his son to study medicine, and in that everyone admits that it must be considered seriously whether to marry a daughter to a physician, if she does not have enough property herself.”3 A few years later, an obituary, published on the occasion of the untimely death of 35-year-old general practitioner, who was to have overdosed on morphine because of poverty, brought a more expressive portrayal of the dismal conditions of the physicians of Prague.4 Were the physicians around 1900 wavering over the chasm of poverty? From the periodical press of Bohemian lawyers, it seems that material problems did not affect only physicians but also a number of Prague advocates. The leading representatives of the Prague Bar publically proclaimed the opinion that the number of professionals educated in Law surpassed the opportunities of their finding posts in the job market. At the Bar Association, they even seriously discussed the re-establishment of the regulation principle of numerus clausus (limitation of student numbers).5 Professional journals defended the position that a society-wide saturation of the professions of physician and advocate had occurred and spread the fears of the future posts of graduates in the plentifully expanding fields at the Faculties of Law and Medicine.6 Was the situation really so serious or did the professional press merely narrow view of the representatives of the centre? It is one of the key questions to which I try to bring an answer on the background of the professional wanderings and careers of selected advocates and physicians. Let’s devote ourselves to the tabled issue of attention from the perspective and interpretation of the situation in the regional centres, specifically in Opava, Olomouc, Moravská Ostrava and Těšín. At this point, there is no scope to outline the detailed development of the selected localities, only the substantial fact should be emphasized that they were towns affected to different degrees by dynamic modernization processes.7 3 Časopis lékařů českých 19, 1880, No. 38. pp. 639–640, Medical wages. 4 Časopis lékařů českých 39, 1900, No. 3. p. 67, 1900. 5 Právnické rozhledy. Orgán Spolku českých advokátů v království českém 3. No. 9. p. 162; O zásadách reformy advokacie, No. 11. pp. 121–122; O cílech a prostředcích reformy advokacie. 6 In the course of the second half of the 19th century and particularly at the beginning of the 20th century, the numbers of study positions at non-Hungarian general secondary schools and universities increased progressively. in school year 1856/57 there were 26,620 students registered at general secondary schools, by 1899/1900 their number had increased through the opening of new institutes to 119,970 and by 1909/1910 140,545. At the same time, there were 3,709 university students and 2,235 students of technical schools registered by academic year 1856/57, for 1899/1900, their number had increased to 14,331 and 4,833 and a decade later to 23,063 and 10,110. 7 Pavel Kladiwa — Andrea Pokludová — Renata Kafková, Lesk a bída obecních samospráv Moravy a Slezska 1850–1914. Díl II., svazek 2. Budování infrastruktury, Section 2, Volume 2, 1st edition, Ostrava 2009; Pavel Kladiwa — Andrea Pokludová — Renata Kafková, Lesk a bída obecních samospráv Moravy a Slezska 1850–1914. Díl II., svazek I. Muži z radnice, Section 2, Volume 1, 1st edition, Ostrava 2008. 50 WISOHIM/ESHP 20 Opava in terms of its legal position was a land capital city like Prague, Olomouc and Těšín were regional administrative centres and Moravská Ostrava an industrial town growing at an American rate in the opinion of the contemporaries. They are hence not town, which would for the purpose of a comparison with Prague show entirely different typological criteria. If in the given research we plan to surpass the boundaries of an outline of the development of the examined professions, it is inevitably necessary to leave the narrow view focused only on the years of the practice of the profession. According to cultural and social anthropologists, childhood and youth are a period in which the personality of each individual is formed by the process of enculturation. Although we have the most limited source base on the early phases of the life of the representatives of the intelligentsia, the memoirs written with an interval of many years capture the subjective retrospective of the person; correspondence was seldom kept; the registry records and catalogues of the schooling institutions provide only simple data. Literature and sources of a visual nature have been used only marginally so far. It is evident from the existing state of the research that childhood and youth, i.e. the years of study connected with the preparation for the practice of the future profession, most differed from the present. The motivation of the parents standing before the decision to put their son in studies is difficult to interpret from the plain basic sources. We know that a modern position to education was rooted in the middle class of urban society as one of the ways leading to the improvement of the social status of an individual or at least to the maintenance of the existing status in the next generation. The memoirs of Hans Kudlich can contribute in great detail to knowledge of the models of behaviour of the rural elites.8 According to those, his father saw lawyers as influential men which had influence in his decision-making on the future careers of his sons, but a role could also have been played by the fact that with the indivisibility of rural homesteads in inheritance proceedings he planned for his sons who attained education or learned a trade to assure a better standard of living than would await them in the position of second son. Another of the alternatives for the lifelong provision of men was also the priesthood. A part of the monastic priests and high clergy were traditionally recruited from the aristocracy and farmers could follow this time-tested strategy and adopt it as their own. From the analysis of Kudlich’s memoirs, yet another factor rises to the surface that could have played an important role, namely the existence of an educated man among the wider relatives. An uncle or godfather who was educated and successful in his professional life was not only an image of a suitable following, but was a man with certain connections, who principally “knew how the world works”. He could help the fathers, representatives of the patriarchal family typical for that time, at the time of deciding on the future of their sons, later they could guarantee the young man in some places, etc. Family relations and the function of godparents played a more important role in the 19th century than in contemporary society.9 8 Hans Kudlich, Rückblicke und Erinnerungen, I. Band. Wien 1873. Available at: http://archive.org/details/rckblickeunderi01kudlgoog [accessed on 15 September 2013]. 9 Kudlich’s uncle was a doctor of laws. The lawyer was the godfather of the important Moravian advocate and politician J. Kozánek. aNdREa POKlUdOvÁ 51 The crucial decision that a son be enrolled at a general secondary school usually occurred around the boy’s eleventh year of age. In 1833, the eleven-year-old Hans Kudlich was enrolled at the general secondary school in Opava. The situation did not change for 50 years and the same aged Richard Fischer, the significant Moravian politician and advocate in his adulthood, commenced his studies at the general secondary school in Olomouc. It could be states at this point that the situation today is similar. The enrolment procedures for multiple-year general secondary schools take place in the fifth form, but a fundamental difference dominates here. Boys from the rural or small-town milieus accepted at the general secondary school left their families and moved for education in one of a few towns where there was a general secondary school. The residence of the family in a regional centre of education was a significant advantage at that time in terms of the availability of a general secondary school. The issue of secondary and tertiary education in the monarchy including the intergenerational and spatial mobility of students and their confessional and “national” composition has been treated years ago in a singular way by Gary B. Cohen;10 more recently Petr Kadlec has devoted himself to the topic in partial studies focused on the regional level.11 The phenomenon of the over-representation of students of the Jewish faith to the students of Christian confessions has been given attention also by other authors such as Victor Karady.12 Of the Czech works dealing with the advancement of learning in the Czech lands, the inspiring work by Havránek should certainly not be forgotten.13 However, in all of the outputs mentioned above, minimal attention has been paid to the everydayness of student life so far, which in my opinion played a significant role in the life of every educated and civically engaged man. In terms of the models of behaviour, the boys from a tender age knew how to take care of themselves. General secondary schools were not boarding establishments; accommodation was usually in modest lodgings. In the lodgings, as many as five boys 10 Garry B. Cohen, Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria: 1848–1918. West Lafayette 1996. 11 Petr Kadlec, Dějiny středního školství a vzdělanosti 19. a počátku 20. století v české a zahraniční historiografii Historica. Revue pro historii a příbuzné vědy 2, 2011, No. 2, pp. 199–218; Petr Kadlec, Střední školství a formování české inteligence na severní Moravě a ve Slezsku ve druhé polovině 19. a na počátku 20. století, Slezský sborník 109, 2011, No. 3–4, pp. 207–234; Petr Kadlec, Střední školy v Moravské Ostravě před rokem 1914 a jejich židovští studenti. In: Petr Pálka (ed.), Židé a Morava XVII. Sedmnáctý svazek ediční řady Židé a Morava. Kniha statí ze stejnojmenné konference konané v Muzeu Kroměřížska dne 10. 11. 2010, Kroměříž 2011, pp. 158–175. 12 Steven Beller, The social and ethnic foundations of a cultural elite: Jewish over-representation in Vienna’s Gymnasien. In: Victor Karady — Wolfgang Mitter (ed.), Bildungswesen und Sozialstruktur in Mitteleuropa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert = Education and Social Structure in Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Köln — Wien 1990, pp. 163–174; Garry B. Cohen, Education, Social Mobility, and the Austrian Jews 1860–1910. In ibid., pp. 140–155; Victor Karady, Jewish Over-Schooling in Hungary: Its Sociological Dimension. In ibid., pp. 209–245; Victor Karady, The Jews of Europe in the Modern Era: A socio-historical outline. Budapest 2004. 13 Jan Havránek et al., Dějiny Univerzity Karlovy. III, 1802–1918, Praha 1997. 52 WISOHIM/ESHP 20 could live in one room. From the memoirs, the lodgings seem to be cool, damp and dark rooms. Long-term residence in them was certainly not beneficial for the health of the students. At an early age, boys already had to learn to economize with limited financial means. Hans Kudlich in his memoirs stated that he received the food for the whole week, such as bread, butter, cheese and flour, from home. The food was either brought by one of the farmers, who was going to the Opava Market, or one of his sisters brought it.14 A similar system of food provision was recorded in the memoirs of Richard Fischer as well. At the end of the week, he always received bread, butter, milk and in the winter pig-slaughter foods from home. Foodstuffs were sent through the stallholders in small wooden suitcases; the parents had one key and the student the other.15 Sending foodstuffs from their own agricultural production thus reduced the expenses connected with living in town. Fischer’s recollections concerning boarding expanded and introduce us to the everydayness of the students. At noon as with many other students he ate in the so-called people’s kitchen, where soup cost 3 Kreutzers, meat with a side dish 10 Kreutzers and a whole lunch 12 Kreutzers. In the evening, he went for tea with a cake or to the sausage seller for cheap sausage for 3–4 Kreutzers. According to him, the visit of parents or relatives in the town, who invited them for food in a pub, always meant an improvement of the meals of students. It can generally be stated that the food of the students was not diverse or nutritious. Some of the poor students ate sufficiently only thanks to the philanthropy of the representatives of the intelligentsia, who usually invited them home for lunch a few times a week. Besides the fact that the boys in the family of an established advocate, physician or clergyman ate sufficiently, an important role in the process of socialization was played by the regular visitation of these families in my opinion. Thanks to these visits, the students could become aware of the importance of education, i.e. by graduation from these studies and practicing a profession they could become solidly supported and socially recognized men, who could afford to rent an apartment at a representative address in town, employ a servant and devote part of their incomes to charity. They thus acquired an important and priceless life experience, i.e. knowledge of the striking difference between the lifestyle led by their parents in the countryside or in the milieu of a small-town self-employed person and the lifestyle of the intelligentsia at the top of their professional career, which certainly motivated them strongly in their further studies. We can consider modesty in clothing as another typical model of behaviour in the families of the students. Kudlich’s father with plots of 52 hectares was part of the rural elites of the municipality of Úvalno, and despite that his son stated in his memoirs that clothing was adjusted from worn-out clothes, hence in his opinion: “…Das “Studiren” war damals keine kostspielige Sache. Kleider und Wäsche wurden im Dorf besorg, so daß ich niemals in Gefahr kam, für einen Dandy gehalten zu werden.“16 14 Hans Kudlich, Rückblicke und Erinnerungen, I. Band. Wien 1873, p. 72. Available at: http:// archive.org/details/rckblickeunderi01kudlgoog [accessed on 15 September 2013]. 15 Richard Fischer, Cesta mého života, I–1, p. 62. 16 Hans Kudlich, Rückblicke und Erinnerungen, I. Band. Wien 1873, p. 72. Available at: http:// archive.org/details/rckblickeunderi01kudlgoog [accessed on 15 September 2013]. aNdREa POKlUdOvÁ 53 Fischer’s father homesteaded on a few hectares of land and his son also remembered that they saved on clothing. They were sewn by a tailor in Loštice. In his opinion, the clothes prepared were neither following the latest fashion nor a good fit. From the recollections related to the quality of the clothing, it is evident that in adulthood the complete social rise was inseparably connected with the representation of the individual in society, i.e. in the period in question e.g. on the level of tailored clothing from quality materials. With increasing age, the students at the general secondary schools began to share in the co-financing of their studies. Awareness of the diligence, talent and moral integrity of the students went beyond the walls of the educational institute and opened doors in the local society. Private tuition or tutoring weaker students was a usual source of incomes for gifted students.17 According to Fischer, it was realistic through teaching to make 12 to 15 guldens a month on the side. It was not an insignificant sum, because a comparable amount was given to him by his parents.18 Tutoring or private tuition was not the only source of incomes for students, but it was another significant introduction into society. The impression, which the young men through native intelligence and verbal and nonverbal communication left in it, co-formed their status. The soft web of interpersonal relations began to be weaved, in which the individual learned to manage the social roles, rules and norms characteristic for the middle class or the elite of the local society. If he came from a rural or small-town milieu or from the lower middle class, it was an important phase of the socialization process for him. The greater the distance of the hometown from the regional centre of education, the more limited the personal contact of the student with his parents and siblings was. An important function in the communication with the family was played by correspondence. The sons informed their parents on the course of their studies. Hans Kudlich e.g. reported to his father in detail also on other affairs associated with his studies, such as the purchase and sale of textbooks. The correspondence also resolved common things like the purchase of new clothes or the sending of laundry from home.19 The fathers mainly informed their sons with the events in the family and asking them to take it to heart that they not forsake their study obligations. The students were reminded of their moral commitments to their parents and philanthropists also by the secondary-school teachers and the clergy. A successful study capped 17 At the time of the absence of girl’s secondary-school education, some of the students ensured the education of daughters in modern-thinking households. In the family of F. Mošner, Olomouc professor of obstetrics, the future Moravian advocate and politician Jan Kozánek taught the daughter Marie the Czech language, at the time he was a 17-year-old student of the Primae classis gramaticae studiosi in Olomouc. Later, he married her. Zdeněk Fišer, Mladá léta Jana Kozánka. In: Sborník Státního okresního archivu Přerov 1996, unpaginated. http://www.rosmus.cz/archiv/sborniky/sbornik-statniho-okresniho-archivu-prerov-1996.pdf 18 Richard Fischer, Cesta mého života. I, p. 115. 19 Freudenthaler Ländchen : Geschichtsund Sittenbilder aus alter und neuer Zeit zur Vertiefung der Heimatliebe und für Heimatkunst 13. Jahrgang, Freudenthal 1933, Zwei Hans Kudlich Briefe, pp. 20–21. 54 WISOHIM/ESHP 20 with a school-leaving examination was expected from the students from many sides. However, as G. B. Cohen discovered, this aim was achieved on average by only one quarter of the students accepted; according to his conclusions, nearly one half of the students stopped studying in the course of the first year.20 Passing the schoolleaving examination was an important rite of passage in the life of a young man and the school-leaving examination certificate from a classical general secondary school above all opened the path to university education. From Kadlec’s latest research, it arises that the majority of the graduates from general secondary schools decided to continue in university studies.21 In the case of law or medical studies, the students from the Czech lands usually chose between study in Vienna or Prague. A good number of the lawyers and physicians of that period remembered, more often in the case of a social origin from the rural milieu, that their family rather expected them to study divinity, because a priest in this provincial milieu had significant respect of status and authority. Sometimes, it was therefore necessary to convince the father, namely for the aid of educated relatives or other authorities, that the selection another field was right. From the memoirs, it seems that the provision of the financial side of university studies was not an irresolvable problem, but it was again connected with all of the members of the family tightening their belts. Hans Kudlich mentioned in his memoirs that just like him many of the students from the provinces came from the families of farmers,22 which he perceived as the lowest class of society. At the same time, he stated that the dominant system made studies easier for them financially: “From entry at general secondary school to passing the viva voce examinations, I did not pay even a Kreutzer for teaching or a college”.23 Saving money was an imperative for many students. To save money in the course of their studies, students of the Faculties of Law spent part of their studies in self-study in the household of their parents.24 They had attendance at lectures confirmed by colleagues; in the case of future physicians, this form of absence was not possible considering the practical exercises. Student life differed only minimally from the secondary-school student years in the last years of general secondary school. They lived in lodgings, with either several students in a room or alone. Part of the expenses associated with studies was covered from means from the parents. Poor students were supported by stipends from foundations and school societies. Students usually made money on the side for their studies, 20 Garry B. Cohen, Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria: 1848–1918. West Lafayette 1996, p. 173. 21 Petr Kadlec, Vývoj středního školství a formování inteligence na severní Moravě a ve Slezsku ve druhé polovině 19. a na počátku 20. století: Graduační práce, Filozofická fakulta Ostravské univerzity v Ostravě, 2012, p. 305. 22 Hans Kudlich, Rückblicke und Erinnerungen, I. Band. Wien 1873, p. 138. Available at: http://archive.org/details/rckblickeunderi01kudlgoog [accessed on 15 September 2013]. 23 Hans Kudlich, Rückblicke und Erinnerungen, I. Band. Wien 1873, p. 143. Available at: http://archive.org/details/rckblickeunderi01kudlgoog [accessed on 15 September 2013]. 24 Richard Fischer, Cesta mého života. I-2, p. 12; Rostislav Bartocha, Dr. Jan Ošťádal, kulturní a národohospodářský budovatel moravský: 1864–1937, p. 14. aNdREa POKlUdOvÁ 55 namely by tutoring, holding positions as stenographers at state offices or scribes in the law offices of established advocates. It also happened often that students ended up without financial means and then pawned things like watches in pawn shops, but it was also possible to pawn your student index, which had to be paid back during the examination term. Cash was vitally necessary for concluding studies. The fees connected with the passing of the viva voce examinations reached high sums. For illustration of how high the fees were, I present the relevant passage from the viva voce regulations for all of the faculties of medicine in the monarchy from 1872: “For each viva voce, the candidate will pay a tax and for the first 55 guldens, for the second 60 guldens and for the third 65 guldens. The graduation tax for the doctorate from any medicine entails at all so-called Cislaithian universities 60 gulden. For a student to be allowed to sit medical examinations, he first had to have passed three public previous examinations from botany, zoology and mineralogy at any Cislaithian university. For each of these examinations, the tax consisted of 7 guldens. In total, the next doctorate of medicine cost 261 guldens.” The final sum is high and similar amounts were related also to the study of law or philosophy. The payments did not end with the successful passing of the viva voce, it was still necessary to pay the tax for graduation.25 The young man in the bloom of his mental and physical powers was like during the course of his studies at general secondary school under pressure from his family and relatives. It was expected that he would successfully complete his studies and it was not a topic that was not discussed and was quietly hoped for, but it was often the main contents of the correspondence maintained with the sons. If the studies were extended, the entreaty in the letters became more emphatic, as is evident from the correspondence of Johann Kudlich with his son: “While reading this letter, think, dear son, about how your mother, sisters and I have helped you and have tried and toiled for 14 years already to take care of you well. So, do not fear any troubles, even if your viva voce examinations cost you a great deal of effort.” The father was supported morally even by the elder brother, who had already disappointed the hope put in him and not finished school, but he advised his brother: “When for some time you refuse newspapers and Die Grenzboten, you will move forward. It is a mental Turnerism.”26 We know the least about the contents of the study, i.e. what knowledge and skills the student acquired during his studies, whether the examining professors emphasized the mentoring of learned facts or positively evaluated independent consideration and innovative approaches to the established problems and questions. From 25 Andrea Pokludová, Každodennost studentů na přelomu 19. a 20. století, In: Jiří Malíř — Martin Rája (eds.), JUDR. Václav Kounic a jeho doba, Brno, 2009, pp. 337–343; Richard Fischer, Cesta mého života. I. Loštice-Olomouc. 1,2. Olomouc 1934; Fischer, Cesta mého života. II. Praha, Olomouc 1934; Fischer, Cesta mého života. III. Olomouc. Od r. 1896–1918. First Part. Olomouc 1936; Rostislav Bartocha, Dr. Jan Ošťádal, kulturní a národohospodářský budovatel moravský: 1864–1937. Olomouc 1937. 26 Pavel Kladiwa — Andrea Pokludová, Hans Kudlich (1823–1914). Cesta života a mýtu [Hans Kudlich (1823–1914), Ostrava 2012, p. 39. Translator’s Note: Turnerism refers to an exercise club from the 19th century. Some of these clubs still exist. 56 WISOHIM/ESHP 20 the plain information, it seems that the reservedness of the representatives of the academic community to the students winds like a red thread through the modern history of university education. At the end of the 19th century just like at the end of the Biedermaier or Vormärz Period, students were treated like elementary school pupils. Pluralistic discussions between the students and lecturers did not take place; the professor was an authority not allowing the exchange of opinions.27 Fischer found the situation at the Czech university in Prague to be fossilized and described the relations between the professors and students as: “The professors — except for Drs. Rezek, Masaryk and Stupecký — were old men, they had no relations with youth or a friendly attitude, they considered academic citizens as pupils, who are only to attend lectures and sit examinations.”28 Yet, they were always able to find among the professors people who managed to speak to the students not only in terms of the profession but also as people and treated the students are younger colleagues.29 Professional preparation was indelibly connected with study in libraries, which were normally accessible for the students for free. The opinions and positions of the students were formed besides by study of the required literature also the free-time reading of contemporary authors. Kudlich in his memoirs stated that among the students in Vienna at the end of the Biedermaier Period they read besides Goethe and Schiller authors like Adolf Ludwig Follen (a Late Romantic), Max von Schenkendorf (author of the texts of the patriotic songs Freiheit, die ich meine and Wenn alle untreue werden), Johann Ludwig Uhland (Romantic poet), Anastasius Grün (celebrated warrior for freedom in the Biedermaier Period, representative of German political lyric poetry and model of the production of the Young Germany literary movement). According to him, many colleagues admired and planned follow the ideals of the journalist Carl Ludwig Börne, an adherent to the idea of spreading democracy as a prerequisite for freedom. Others on the other hand were closer to the socially attuned opinions of Georg Herwegh or in the political poems capturing the positions of Ferdinand Freiligrath.30 Every generation has its favourite authors whom they admire and identify with their ideals. R. Fischer e.g. in his memoirs mentions one work, namely the allegory of the Písně otroka [Songs of a Slave] by Svatopluk Čech. Before we proceed to a more detailed description of the free-time activities of the students, it is proper to remember a relatively well-known fact that many of the students were literarily active during their studies. They attempted poetry, fiction or wrote journals. Many were successful in the field of journalism. For some, journalism and literary production remained a lifelong free-time activity. Several times, the already mentioned Hans Kudlich or Richard Fischer were not exceptions.31 Of the advocates of 27 Garry B. Cohen, Education and Middle-Class, pp. 18–19. 28 Richard Fischer, Cesta mého života. II, Praha–Olomouc 1934, p. 40. 29 Kladiwa’s interpretation of the relation of Hans Kudlich to Prof. Holger. Pavel Kladiwa — Andrea Pokludová, Hans Kudlich (1823–1914). Cesta života a mýtu, Ostrava 2012, p. 37. 30 Hans Kudlich, Rückblicke und Erinnerungen, I. Band. Wien 1873, p. 144. Available at: http://archive.org/details/rckblickeunderi01kudlgoog [Accessed on 15 September 2013] 31 Richard Fischer contributed to Olomouc’s Pozor (magazine), Selské listy (newspaper), Národní listy (newspaper). He published ca 40 works reflecting the political and econom-