Page - 104 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

104 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Shortly before the inauguration of the Czech university, Wittelshöfer stated that “there could be no doubt on which side the ‘stronger lineage’ [das ‘stärkere Geschlecht’] is, and some names, which one hears as the future professors of the Czech medical faculty, ap- pear to us very incredible. There are times in which also the professors are scarce as hen’s teeth.”62 The argument of scientific underdevelopment can be found throughout the century and beyond, but it was not the main thorn in German Bohemian sides. To quote Wittelshöfer once more: “To try to take possession of the oldest German university through ruses and through completely unnatural coalitions in the Diet is an assassination attempt on nineteenth-century sci- ence and culture, a pillage and destruction of a 500-year-long strenuously acquired intellectual property.”63 With such an accentuation of science and culture, it is quite clear that Wittelshöfer was defending “German” science and its main institution in Bohemia, the Charles-Ferdinand University. This was also a clear claim that politics was endangering Wissenschaft, which would otherwise sustain its leading role in Bohemia: “Not that we fear that German science could be dimmed by the Czech one, but she will be put to death through these influences, which originate in lack of knowledge, greed, and quarrelsomeness.”64 In 1882, when the university in Prague was divided into two, the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift sadly complained that this meant “the end of the German university.”65 It is ironic that this argument, the downfall of the German Charles-Ferdinand University, is present even in the works of scholars critical of German nationalism. I will discuss later how there was not much support for this argument. In fact, it is likely that this was an unconscious continuation of German nationalist discourse—present, for example, in Wittelshöfer’s words—rather than a reflection of reality. The Czechs of the East and the Ruthenians of the West The similarities and entanglements in the Ruthenian and Czech struggles for cultural independence are well known.66 Both opposed leading cul- tures—Polish in Ruthenian cultural areas and German in Czech areas—that controlled the university system, which saw itself as a source of intellectual and cultural well-being. At the same time, adherence to these leading cul- tures and, to a large extent, common intellectual and cultural roots made emancipation attempts akin to tilting at windmills. Despite rhetorical claims