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HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE, Vol 18 No 1 (2026), 27–43
ArticleCestovatelé a emigranti z Českých zemí a jejich reflexe otrokářství na jihu USA v první polovině 19. století prismatem mýtu ztracené věci
[Travelers and Emigrants from the Czech Lands and Their Reflections on Slavery in the American South in the First Half of the 19th Century Through the Prism of the Lost Cause Myth]
Lukáš Perutka
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23363525.2026.3
published online: 21. 07. 2026
abstract
This article aims to explore the authentic opinions of travellers from the Czech lands on the institution of slavery in the southern United States during the first half of the 19th century. In the form of a probe, it focuses on five people who visited this region and therefore had eyewitness experience with the social conditions there. They were Karel Antonín Postl, Vilém Pflanzer, Vojta Náprstek, Gottfried (Bohumír) Menzel and Antonín Michael Dignowity. The effort was to determine to what extent they were able to formulate their own opinion on slavery and how the apologetic and romanticizing view that we today call the Lost Cause Myth influenced them. The working hypothesis is that since they were liberals, humanists who mostly rejected the Austrian political and social system, they had to reject unequivocally the myth. After all, they still had experience with serfdom and related corvée. However, this hypothesis was confirmed only partially. Most travellers rejected the Lost Cause Myth and condemned slavery. Nevertheless, Karel Antonín Postl was more conciliatory towards it than others, and Antonín Michael Dignowity considered slavery wrong, but, on the other hand, regarded African Americans as inferior, grounding his opinion in the ideas of Social Darwinism.
keywords: travelling; slavery; southern United States of America; Lost Cause Myth; Karel Antonín Postl (Charles Sealsfield); Gottfried (Bohumír) Menzel; Antonín Michael Dignowity
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Cestovatelé a emigranti z Českých zemí a jejich reflexe otrokářství na jihu USA v první polovině 19. století prismatem mýtu ztracené věci is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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