Forged Medieval Czech Manuscripts – Zelená Hora Castle
Fact of the Czech figure „Three Lives of Czech Myths – Prague”
Part of the „The story of the beginning” topic
The Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora manuscripts are supposed to be early medieval fragments of poetic compositions depicting the ancient past of the Czechs and introducing mythical heroes of Czech history , such as the mythical poet Lumír, the warriors Záboj and Slavoj or the princess and oracle Libuše. The Manuscripts were supposedly found at the end of the 1810s in the Zelená Hora Castle and the tower of the Church of St John the Baptist in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. The discovery of the Manuscripts excited a significant response in a society influenced by Romanticism.
The Manuscripts were published in several editions and translated into several European languages during the 19th century. The themes of the manuscripts became the subject of many works of art, literature, and music. Allegedly ancient Czech verse compositions thus became a mainstay for emphasising national uniqueness.The authenticity and age of the manuscripts were questioned soon after their discovery. Critics of the authenticity of the verse compositions proliferated from various quarters, resulting in the well-known, long-running dispute over the Manuscripts’ authenticity.
Among the most famous critics of the Manuscripts, who contributed to the loss of its medieval splendour in the 1870s and 1880s, were the philologist Jan Gebauer, the philosopher and sociologist Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the historian Jaroslav Goll. Today, the manuscripts are widely regarded as forgeries, with nationalist writer Josef Linda and historian and librarian Václav Hanka as the most likely authors.
