J. A. Comenius and the historical tradition

The author thinks about the content and the meaning of the concept „tradition“ which she understands to be both a purposeful and an unconscious linking of certain social groups to concrete values of one’s own past, and an important means of the group identity and emancipation. The new-time historical tradition of Comenius originated among the teachers and other school-workes during the 19th century and was connected with the efforts to create a conception of national education both in the theory and in its practical pushing through. The efforts to create an independent Czech educational system set-free of foreign influences-growing up from fostering feelings of national exclusiveness-which had been common phenomenon of the 19th century national traditions-could not have been successful. The time of strugles concerning goals of constitutional laws of the Czech politics whose compound was the struggle against the school law from the year 1869 emphasized more the topical heritage of Comenius’s work from the point-of-view of the everyday-politics than a systematic study of his work. A positive of the interest in Comenius’s work has been the development of a systematic Comeniologic exploration which started develop in the last quarter of the 19th century.