May Conspiracy
May Conspiracy | |||||||
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Part of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Czech Radical Democrats | Austrian Empire | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Josef Václav Frič Mikhail Bakunin | Franz Joseph I |
The May Conspiracy (Czech: Májové spiknutí) was an unsuccessful attempt of radical democrats in the Czech lands to overthrow the government of Austrian Empire in May 1849.
History[]
In 1844 a group of Czech Radical Democrats which included both Czechs and Czech Germans formed a secret political club called "". This was named after the mass Irish movement to repeal the Act of Union from 1800. Among the leaders were Josef Václav Frič, Karel Sabina, , and . The club attracted radical students and local intelligentsia and remained active after revolutions of 1848 were suppressed.
In March 1849, Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian Pan Slavic revolutionary, visited Prague and suggested to organize an armed uprising in Prague and several German-speaking cities as a response to post-1848 political reaction. The date of the uprising was set for 12 May 1849 but, owing to amateurish organization, police took the organizers into custody on the night of 9-10 May 1849.
Prague and a few towns were put under a state of emergency (also called "the siege", stav obležení), press was put under censorship by the military and a military commission was established to investigate the conspiracy. The emergency was only lifted 4½ years later, on 1 September 1853.[1] Seventy-nine young radicals were sentenced to prison, and most of them were released in general amnesty on 8 May 1857. Others fled to Britain, but had to devote their efforts to survival with little ability to further the revolution as exiles.[2]
See also[]
- Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire
- Forty-Eighters emigrees after 1848
- May Coup (Serbia) in 1903
References[]
- ^ Hugh Agnew (1 September 2013). The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. Hoover Press. pp. 431–. ISBN 978-0-8179-4493-3.
- ^ Sabine Freitag; Rudolf Muhs (15 July 2003). Exiles From European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England. Berghahn Books. pp. 135–. ISBN 978-1-78238-979-8.
- History of Austria-Hungary
- 19th-century revolutions
- 1849 in the Austrian Empire
- 1849 in politics
- 19th century in Prague
- Politics of the Austrian Empire
- Austria-Hungary stubs