Introduction: the Enlightenment in Bohemia 1 IVO CERMAN The present volume endeavours to contribute to the current discussions on the European Enlightenment by pointing to the centrality of ethics within Enlightenment thought. The intention is not to interpret the whole European Enlightenment from this point of view, however, for we focus solely on Bohemia – a peripheral Catholic country in Central Europe. We will treat the Bohemian lands as part of the Habsburg Monarchy, which emerged in 1526/1527 through the union of the Habsburg hereditary lands and the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary. 2 We do not intend to shock the reader by overestimating Bohemia’s significance, nor do we declare it to be a centre of the Enlightenment. Indeed, Bohemia was on the periphery, but even case studies on such peripheral areas have some bearing on the image of the European Enlightenment. 3 Recently, John Robertson chose two peripheral lo- cations, Scotland and Naples, as points ‘from which to observe the European Enlightenment’. 4 Robert Evans has also made a similar claim for Wales, which he explicitly compared to Bohemia. 5 Despite its apparent marginality, Bohemia was a very interesting periphery, where Catholic intellectual culture was significantly enriched by a Jewish minority and a cosmopolitan nobility. It was certainly not a 1 1. The author wishes to thank Rita Krueger, Susan Reynolds and Robert J. W. Evans for their valuable comments on the first drafts of the present article. This article originated in the framework of the grant project GAC ˘ R P410/11/0608. 2. For a magisterial account of early modern Central Europe in English, see Robert J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: an interpretation (Oxford, 2002; reprint of Oxford, 1979); R. J. W. Evans, ‘The Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia, 1526- 1848’, in Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs: Central Europe c.1683-1867 (Oxford, 2006), p.75- 98. 3. See Peripheries of the Enlightenment, ed. Richard Butterwick, Simon Davies and Gabriel Sa ´ nchez Espinosa, SVEC 2008:01; Charles W. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment: thinking geographically about the age of reason (Chicago, 2007); James Bradley and Dale van Kley, ‘Introduction’, in Religion and politics in Enlightenment Europe, ed. J. Bradley and D. van Kley (Notre Dame, IN, 2001), p.1-45. 4. John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples 1680-1760 (Cambridge, 2005), p.ix. 5. R. J. W. Evans, ‘Was there a Welsh Enlightenment?’, in From medieval to modern Wales: historical essays in honour of Kenneth O. Morgan and Ralph A. Griffiths, ed. R. R. Davies and Geraint H. Jenkins (Cardiff, 2004), p.142-59.