Czech Baroque literature; countryside; literature for rural classes; peasant as a literary type

Czech Baroque literature in the vernacular languages was limited to certain genres, themes, and readers from the lower strata of society. It is, however, thematically quite universal (homiletics, prayers, religious songs). Despite the seeming animosity, it reveals the affinity of the town and village. The urban drama had previously made the farmer into a comic type which survived deep into the Baroque era. The image of the village is more realistic there, but one-sided and hyperbolized. Rural priests respected the work of their parishioners, and often defended them against contempt and cruel treatment by the nobility. They criticized the villagers’ bad habits in order to encourage them to true piety and lead them to a basic education. Although education had been promoted in the countryside since the 16th century, literacy had long been limited to higher-ranking members of village society and rural artisans. The more educated rural classes probably also played a key role in mediating the urban culture that flooded the village from the turn of the 19th century, when peasants also began to read more. This is visible in the unprecedented expansion of chapbooks and books of popular reading (broadside ballads, folk reading, and prayer books) as well as the adopting of urban fashion.