On the Question of Interest in Comenius and His Work in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Bohemia. The Contribution deals with the topic from several aspecta. First of all it has in view the knowledge and notices of Comenius and of his work expressed by the Czech learned men in the period from the half of the seventeenth century till the end of the eighteenth century. An important part was played here by the generation of the Catholic intellectuals after 1620, i. e. born in the 1620s and 1630s (e.g. B. Balbin, T. Pesina of Cechorod, V. J. Rosa). The latest research adds also Vincentius a S. Guilelme, until lately unknown. Based on Konias s Klic (Key) and Index there has been indicated which works of Comenius became the matter of concern of the representatives of militant Counter Reformation in the period od ist culmination, beginning with the third decade of the eighteenth century. In the 1670 s a qualitatively new situation was created when the scholarly activity of the Enlightenment was developing. New biographical and bibliographical statements, published by M. A. Voigt, F. M. Pelcl, K. R. Ungar and, to a less extend, by J. Dobrovsky and other personalities, however, were evidently influenced by a principially negative ctiticism of the part of Comenuis s work. The baroque scholars of the seventeenth, as well as the scholars of the eighteenth centuries evaluated Comenius, first of all, as an author of language textbooks (Janua) and as a writer of the Czech books (The Labyrint). Another aspect of the study has touched the problematics connected with the edition of Comenius s works in Bohemia. The first period of editorial activity was undisputably connected with the activity of the generation of Catholic scholars and goes back to time of the years 1670-1716 (Janua, the translation of Cato's Disticha moralia). The second period beginns with the edition of the Act of Toleration in the 1780 s. Thw contribution indicates also some chances to further research, e.g. concerning the questions of the reception of Comenius s works by the middle class, by the groups of secret protestants, protestant communities after the Toleration.
