r/Historydom

As we have established in previous posts, by early 1420, Bohemia was in chaos. King Wenceslaus IV had died in 1419 shortly after the First Defenestration of Prague. His brother, Sigismund of Luxembourg, claimed the throne and began assembling forces to crush the growing Hussite movement which was effectively preventing him from claiming the Bohemian throne. The Pope had already declared a crusade against the “heretics,” and Catholic nobles loyal to Sigismund were mobilizing, though they weren't ready yet.

Meanwhile, radical Hussite preachers were urging the faithful to leave Prague and other cities for safety. Small groups of Hussites were moving across the countryside, often escorted by armed defenders. It was during one of these movements that the first major clash occurred.

Jan Zizka, leading a modest force of about 400 fighters (mostly peasants and townsmen), was escorting a larger group of Hussite refugees and families toward the town of Tabor. On March 25, 1420, they were intercepted near Sudomer in southern Bohemia by a much larger royalist army of roughly 2,000 men commanded by the Catholic noble Peter of Sternberg.

Despite being heavily outnumbered, Zizka did not retreat. He quickly positioned his men and wagons defensively near a fish pond, using the terrain to limit the enemy’s ability to maneuver. When the royalist cavalry charged, the Hussites held firm. The battle turned into a fierce close-quarters fight, and the Hussites ultimately routed the force, which was five times their size and was better trained and equipped. Peter of Sternberg was killed, and the royalists suffered heavy losses.

Sudomer was the first open-field victory for the Hussites. It proved, and this is significant, **that motivated commoners using improvised tactics could defeat armoured knights.** It also marked the practical birth of the wagenburg defensive system that would define Hussite warfare. The victory greatly boosted morale and encouraged more people to join the movement.

However there was not much time to celebrate as soon the Hussites would have to face the First Anti-Hussite Crusade

In July of 1419, a curious event in Prague helped to fan the flames of the Hussite Wars. A large crowd of Hussites, led by the radical preacher Jan Zelivsky were on procession near the New Town Hall. Tensions were high after Catholic authorities continued to suppress Hussite preachers despite agreements for religious tolerance.

According to contemporary accounts, after a confrontation (and possibly after a stone was thrown at Zelivsky from the building), the crowd stormed the town hall. They threw the Catholic mayor, judges, and several councillors out of the windows, straight onto the pikes and pitchforks of the crowd below, those who survived the fall were finished off with anything that was available.

The defenestration would go on to have far reaching consequences. King Wenceslaus IV, already ill, reportedly died of shock shortly after hearing the news. His death created a dangerous power vacuum, especially as the unpopular Sigismund of Luxembourg (the same one I mentioned in my previous post) tried to claim the Bohemian throne. Within months, much of Bohemia rose in support of the Hussite cause thus setting the stage for the first papal crusade in 1420.

The defenestration became a powerful symbol of Hussite resistance, so much so that a second defenestration occurred in Prague in 1618, helping to trigger the Thirty Years War. Interestingly enough, Prague wasn't the first city to throw her officials out of windows, a year earlier in Vratislav (Wrocław today) a similar event occurred where disgruntled craftsmen tossed the city's officials out of the windows of city hall, though the circumstances were not religious but economical.

Polymath and polyglot, consummate statesman and politician, despot and lawgiver, inspired naturalist, mathematician, architect, poet and musician. All in all, he was one of the greatest and most powerful figures of the European Middle Ages, and probably the most brilliant singular person to ever wear a crown. He seemed to rival Da Vinci in his intellectual versatility and application. Called the ‘forerunner of the Antichrist’ by his enemies in the medieval Church, and Stupor Mundi et Immutator Mirabilis (the Wonder of the World and its Marvelous Transformer) by his admirers. Excommunicated several times, he remained the most preeminent European ruler of his day and died under the Church’s ban, still essentially undefeated, defiant and the most powerful man in Europe. Terrified or transfixed, contemptuous or laudatory, his contemporaries views him in existential, near-cosmic hues as the very embodiment of ‘Romanity’ and imperial universalism as the last true Caesar of the West.

By his twenties, Frederick II spoke at least six languages (Latin, Sicilian Italian, Middle High German, Old French Provençal, Arabic, and Greek; according to some counts his count might have increased to nine by his death). Throughout his life, he showed himself to be profoundly intellectually endowed: he was an incisive naturalist ahead of his time who authored a treatise on falconry which audaciously corrected Aristotle and bore hints of the rationalism of the Scientific Revolution; he was a mathematician and architect who befriended Fibonacci and exchanged equations with Islamic scholars; he was learned philosopher who discoursed on par with public intellectuals like his friends Michael Scotus and Theodore of Antioch; he was a poet and musician whom Dante himself credited as the father of the Italian language and who might have even written some of the first sonnets with Giacomo Da Lentini; he was something of a scientist who conducted his own rudimentary experiments (however brutal they may have been, and they’ve likely been highly overplayed by slander) and studied astronomy with Guido Bonatti; as a legalist and historian, he seems to have clearly been able to hold his own with some of the more notable legal scholars of his day like Roffredo da Bevenento, several which were beside the emperor as he refashioned the Sicilian kingdom as highly centralized (relative to the period) absolutist state that looked a good deal like what would come to continental Europe during the Early Modern period.

It is not difficult to see why he has continued to fascinate historians and writers ever since. Dante placed him in Hell in The Inferno among the unbelievers and epicures, yet still considered him the greatest emperor and the imperial quintessence. Boccaccio held him up as a high comparison in the Decameron by which he judged contemporaneous Italian princes. Writing in during the atmosphere of imperial reform in the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa looked to the last Hohenstaufen emperor as the model imperial ruler and a progenitor of change. Jacob Burckhardt called him (with more than a hint of anachronism) “the first modern man on the throne” who presaged the Renaissance, the rationalism of the 17th century and the very conception of the modern state—all of which for good and ill. The notable Italian historian Michelangelo Schipa in the Cambridge Medieval History said Frederick II was the “greatest singular human force of the Middle Ages” who had no equal between the ages of Charlemagne and Napoleon. For Friedrich Nietzsche, the last great Hohenstaufen emperor was “the first European” and an archetypal übermensch. Frederick was the subject of the most famous medieval biography of the 20th century by Ernst Kantorowicz who, in longing and brilliant prose, extolled the emperor as a Wagnerian figure of incandescence and destiny who was a template for the model ‘law-given soul’ (and a lodestar for German nationalism). More recent historians like the late David Abulafia and Wolfgang Stürner, or others like Hubert Houben have tended to revise this hagiographic and dramatic judgment, stressing Frederick’s ‘medieval-ness’, conservatism and pragmatism, dispelling much of the mythology around the emperor. Recent Italian historiography, like that of Fulvio Delle Donne, has sought to bridge this divide, portraying the emperor as both a pragmatic conservative and product of his time but also a bold visionary in many ways and an extraordinary figure. Ever-controversial and complex, Frederick’s reputation and legacy as a remarkable ruler of immense consequence and many-sided ruler of perspicacity, talent and dynamism remains basically intact in popular memory, nowhere more so than in his much-beloved Apulia and southern Italy.

The Hussite Wars did not begin on the battlefield, with the (illegal) burning of a single preacher in 1415 in Konstanz.

Jan Hus, a popular Czech preacher and university master in Prague, had been openly criticizing corruption in the Catholic Church. He called for reform, emphasized the authority of the Bible over Church traditions, and preached in the Czech language so ordinary people could understand. His ideas gained massive support in Bohemia. It is worth noting here that much like Martin Luther, Jan Hus was never intent on breaking away from the church, he only clamoured for much needed reform.

In 1414, Hus was invited to the Council of Constance (Konstanz) under an official imperial guarantee of safe conduct (known as an Iron Letter) made by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund himself to discuss and defend his views. Instead, he was arrested in arrival in Sigismund's orders, tried for heresy, and burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. The news of his death caused understandable outrage across Bohemia. Many saw it not only as an attack on a righteous man trying to preach his (popular) views on the church but also many people throughout the entirety of the Holy Roman Empire saw Sigismund's actions as u derhanded and unbecoming of an Emperor.

When King Wenceslaus IV died in 1419 and the new king of Bohemia Sigismund (the same Emperor that had approved Hus’s execution) tried to take the throne, tensions exploded. Hussite supporters in Prague threw Catholic officials from windows in the First Defenestration of Prague, marking the start of open revolt.

What began as a religious protest rapidly turned into a national and military conflict. The Hussites united around the demand that the Church must reform, and that they would defend their beliefs by force if necessary. This led to nearly fifteen years of warfare against five papal crusades.

According to legend, Hus' last words were ones of prophecy: "You are now going to burn a goose but in a century you will have a swan which you can neither roast nor boil." The prophecy lies in that "Hus" means "goose" in the Czech language, and in that just over 100 years later, in 1517, Martin Luther, often symbolized by a swan, posted his Ninety-Five Theses, thus launching the Protestant Reformation.

May 16, 2026 marked the 60th anniversary of China’s Cultural Revolution(文革）. On this day in 1966, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the “May 16 Notification” (五一六通知) nationwide, and Mao Zedong (毛泽东) announced the launch of the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (无产阶级文化大革命). During the following ten years, violent political campaigns and armed factional struggles broke out across China. Millions died unnatural deaths, even more people suffered public denunciation and persecution, large amounts of cultural relics were destroyed, schools were closed, production stagnated, and social order fell into chaos. It was not until 1976, when Mao Zedong died and the “Gang of Four” (四人帮) was arrested, that the Cultural Revolution came to an end.

After Reform and Opening Up, the authorities officially defined the Cultural Revolution as a “serious mistake,” rehabilitated many victims of the Cultural Revolution, and implemented policies to rectify past mistakes and restore order. Subsequent generations of Communist Party leadership continued this official assessment. However, regarding the detailed history of the Cultural Revolution — such as its causes, process, and specific victims — the authorities maintained a long-term low-profile approach, with little reflection or commemoration, disproportionate to the event’s significance and enormous impact.

Especially during the past decade, the authorities have almost entirely avoided mentioning the Cultural Revolution and have also suppressed civil commemorations of it. For example, in 2016, the only Cultural Revolution museum in China, located in Shantou, was closed. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, official Chinese public opinion channels and major domestic media carried no related reports, reflection, or commemoration.

Among the public, however, there are two sharply contrasting attitudes toward the Cultural Revolution. One, represented by liberal intellectuals, views the Cultural Revolution as an extremely disastrous national catastrophe, blaming it and its initiators for causing immense suffering and severe damage to many individuals and to the entire nation and society. They also connect many contemporary social problems with the Cultural Revolution and warn against another “Cultural Revolution” occurring. People within the system and vested-interest groups likewise do not wish to see the Cultural Revolution reappear, lest their own privileged status and interests suffer.

Another perspective comes from the far-left supporters and worshippers of Mao Zedong (Maoists), as well as some other frustrated and strongly dissatisfied individuals. Such people often praise the Cultural Revolution, regarding it as a means to oppose bureaucrats, overthrow bad people, and realize “mass democracy.” These people are also dissatisfied with today’s reality. Rather than placing their hopes on achieving democracy and improving the rule of law, they instead hope for another “Cultural Revolution” to “sweep away all ‘monsters and demons’” (a political label for enemies).

In addition, some foreign leftists also hold romanticized fantasies about the Cultural Revolution, believing that it was a great revolution against oppression and for liberation. This is far removed from historical reality. On the contrary, the Cultural Revolution intensified the persecution of vulnerable groups, strengthened the constraints imposed on the oppressed, and did not eliminate privilege. Some foreigners who visited China at the time, such as Italian director Antonio Antonioni (安东尼奥尼), witnessed aspects of its darker reality. Yet even today, some foreigners still do not understand the true nature of the Cultural Revolution.

The authorities’ low-profile approach toward the Cultural Revolution, the mixed praise and criticism among the public, and differing views held by different people all arise from their respective positions, perceptions, and purposes. They also reflect today’s social contradictions and China’s complex reality.

Simply put, the ruling Communist Party of China cares deeply about maintaining political legitimacy and institutional continuity as well as current social stability. It wishes both to defend Reform and Opening Up and to avoid excessively emphasizing the errors and tragedies of the Mao era, thereby preventing further dissatisfaction and instability. Intellectual elites and liberals, especially Cultural Revolution victims and their descendants, strongly detest the Cultural Revolution because of traumatic experiences and value systems.

Some marginalized people at the bottom of society, however, envy the Cultural Revolution’s destruction of existing order and hope for another political movement through which they could “rebel” and rise up and overturn their status. Many ordinary people also know little about the Cultural Revolution or remain indifferent, and may be influenced by the above narratives,
developing only a partial understanding and wavering attitudes.

First of all, the Cultural Revolution was indeed a disaster. At that time, China was engulfed in political violence and turmoil. Law and order disappeared, many innocent people were publicly denounced and imprisoned, and large numbers of innocent people were killed or driven to suicide. This included former Nationalist Party members, intellectuals, industrialists and merchants, those labeled as “landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists,” Communist Party cadres, and ordinary people from all walks of life. Among those persecuted to death were Communist Party leaders Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇) and Peng Dehuai (彭德怀), former Nationalist generals who had surrendered such as Huang Shaohong (黄绍竑) and Chen Changjie (陈长捷), scholars Chen Yinke (陈寅恪) and Lao She (老舍), and scientists Yao Tongbin (姚桐斌) and Zhao Jiuzhang (赵九章).

Under the turmoil and the principle of “taking class struggle as the key link” during the Cultural Revolution, national economic and technological development was also severely disrupted, causing China to fall behind most countries in the world. At that time, China’s per capita GDP was not only far lower than that of Europe, the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union, but was also below that of most developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Most people, especially peasants, lived in extreme poverty, and even basic food and clothing needs remained unresolved. Informing and reporting on others were encouraged during the Cultural Revolution, with relatives and friends reporting one another and everyone living in fear. Anti-intellectualism, personality cults, and extremism also flourished, leaving deep scars on people, casting shadows over society, and continuing to cause harm today.

If the causes and consequences of the Cultural Revolution disaster cannot be honestly confronted, discussed, and reflected upon, it would not only fail those who suffered at the time, but would also plant the seeds for the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution to reappear in various forms. For example, several years ago during COVID-19, various extreme “Zero-COVID(清零)” measures caused livelihood crises — especially restrictions on travel, shopping, and medical treatment, nucleic-acid testing for goods, and large-scale compulsory quarantine. Such epidemic-control measures, which violated scientific principles and infringed upon citizens’ rights, bear similarities in both motivation and consequences to the anti-intellectual policies under the principle of “politics in command” during the Cultural Revolution.

Another tragedy of the Cultural Revolution lay in personality cults and a system where one voice dominates all decisions, the absence of democracy and the rule of law, and the inability to constrain power. The accumulation of social problems and the difficulty of protecting civil rights in today’s China are similarly related to insufficient democracy and rule of law.

At the same time, those who praise the Cultural Revolution and even hope for its return should also be understood with sympathy. This too is a necessary requirement for honestly confronting history and reality. The causes of the Cultural Revolution were complex. It was not simply the result of Mao Zedong’s temporary impulse, but was also related to severe social contradictions, rigid bureaucratic systems, and estrangement and conflict between elites and the masses.

According to the views of Peking University scholar Qian Liqun (钱理群) and others, antagonism between officials and the public before the Cultural Revolution was already very serious. The masses were dissatisfied with the Party and government, and society resembled a pressure cooker. Mao’s issuance of the “May 16 Notification” merely lit the fuse that ignited these contradictions.

China in recent years has become politically rigid and conservative, with widening wealth gaps and increasing social stratification, while vested-interest groups monopolize resources. At the same time, reform has stagnated and public discourse has tightened. Coupled with economic decline, social contradictions have intensified significantly. Many lower- and middle-class people, educated but unemployed individuals, and marginalized groups live in poverty, see no hope, and lack proper channels for expression. Driven by resentment and their limited understanding of the Cultural Revolution, they long for another violent political movement that would overthrow those they hate and enable themselves to become masters of their own fate.

For example, many university students and young teachers resent the monopolization of resources and exploitation by academic oligarchs and hope to use methods like the “copper-buckled belt” (铜头皮带), a tool used for beating people during the Cultural Revolution, to publicly denounce teachers and academic oligarchs;

Workers exploited by sweatshops hope to overthrow capitalists and redistribute wealth equally;

Citizens who believe they have suffered unjust imprisonment, facing the power and indifference of Party and government institutions — especially the police, procuratorate, and courts — find considerable resonance in the Cultural Revolution slogan “Smash the Public Security, Procuratorate, and Courts” (砸烂公检法);

The poor struggling at the bottom of society wish to smash the existing order and vent their frustrations like the “rebel factions” (造反派) during the Cultural Revolution…

Such psychological paths and motivations can be understood and sympathized with. However, whether viewed from the perspective of society as a whole or most individuals, political movements like the Cultural Revolution are disastrous. To some extent, they did attack certain problems in ordinary society and damage some bad actors, but they simultaneously brought even greater consequences. Under social disorder, human-rights violations became more widespread and severe, and many innocent people lost their families and lives. The Cultural Revolution also destroyed trust between people and damaged social morality, worsening interpersonal relationships and social conditions. Even political opportunists who benefited temporarily often ended up suffering consequences themselves.

Nor was the Cultural Revolution truly equal. Cadres, workers, and rebel factions possessed privileges, whereas peasants and those categorized among the “Five Black Categories” (黑五类) were treated as social inferiors in both status and rights.

Although the early-stage “rebellion” of the Cultural Revolution did indeed challenge privileged cadres, its targets gradually shifted toward vulnerable groups such as the “Five Black Categories” while radical rebels and anti-privilege activists among the masses were also suppressed. Those who openly opposed Mao Zedong and criticized the Communist Party, such as Lin Zhao (林昭), Zhang Zhixin (张志新), Yu Luoke (遇罗克), and Huang Lizhong (黄立众), faced severe repression and were executed. Meanwhile, some senior Communist Party leaders were overthrown primarily due to the needs of power struggles rather than anti-privilege objectives, and this did not fundamentally change the unfair and unjust ruling system or social structure.

However, some disillusioned Chinese people embrace a mentality resembling, “If these days must perish, let you and me perish together,” seeking mutual destruction. Even knowing that the Cultural Revolution was destructive, they still attempt to overthrow the current order through radical means and vent dissatisfaction.
The rise of global populism in recent years has likewise been driven by public dissatisfaction with existing systems and hatred toward elite vested interests. The Cultural Revolution itself was also China’s manifestation of the global wave of left-wing populism several decades ago.

Although today’s China appears relatively calm on the streets under strict political control, it cannot remain untouched amid rising global populism and has accumulated even greater dissatisfaction and hidden dangers. Frequently occurring incidents involving class, ethnicity, gender, and other tensions are manifestations of populism bubbling beneath a political pressure cooker. Frequent tragedies involving indiscriminate attacks causing casualties, along with large amounts of extreme online rhetoric praising the Cultural Revolution and fascism, are also signs of worsening social contradictions and warnings of national crisis.

Most people do not understand the full picture of the Cultural Revolution and its historical background. Instead, they often possess selective understandings resembling the blind men and the elephant phenomenon, projecting their own circumstances and intentions onto the era of the Cultural Revolution, and then using people and events from that period to reflect and influence today’s realities.

Therefore, many people’s views of the Cultural Revolution are one-sided. Official suppression of commemoration and reflection prevents a more complex and realistic picture of the Cultural Revolution from being shown. Its cruelty has not been sufficiently exposed, resulting in even greater misunderstanding and distortion. Whether people praise or oppose the Cultural Revolution, they ultimately struggle to truly learn lessons from it and prevent the return of tragedy.

Therefore, whether regarding the history of the Cultural Revolution or China’s realities today, one cannot avoid them through a self-deceptive approach of “covering one’s ears while stealing a bell,” but instead must confront and sincerely understand their origins and development. Those in power and those at higher levels should also listen to the people’s demands and understand public difficulties, rather than remaining arrogant and indifferent or simply blaming the public’s ignorance and enemy manipulation.

Only by reforming institutions and distribution systems, promoting democracy and the rule of law, relaxing controls on public discourse, and allowing controversies to be openly debated can social contradictions be alleviated, harmony increased, and hostility reduced. Building an inclusive order, maintaining social fairness and justice, and eliminating motivations for social destruction are the fundamental ways to prevent another Cultural Revolution from reoccurring.

(The author of this article is Wang Qingmin(王庆民）, a Chinese writer living in Europe and a researcher of international politics.)

I had an interesting thought recently.

Imagine, if you will, that you're a regular farmer or townsman in XV century Bohemia or Silesia. Word comes down that a big army is marching your way, probably to pillage, burn, and kill. Historically, it was usually a straightforward affair, what with foreign banners, a different language, sometimes even a different religion or straight up pagans all with their own religious symbolism and whatnot. All of this amounted to a pretty clear "us vs them" dynamic.

Then the Hussites show up.

These guys are marching under crosses, flying banners with saints and religious icons, and carrying monstrances (those fancy gold things with the Eucharist) like they're on a holy procession. They're singing hymns, chanting prayers to the same God you pray to, and claiming they're the true defenders of Christianity against a corrupt Church. That Rome is the seat of the anti-christ and the pope is the devil himself.

And it wasn't some invading horde from afar too, it was your neighbors/countrymen, fellow Bohemians (and sympathizers), who spoke your language, worshipped in mostly the same tradition, but now they're rolling up in war wagons blasting handgonnes and bashing skulls with modified farming flails all the while equipped with the most Catholic looking gear imaginable. So now, not only are you confused as to whose the enemy, you're also starting to question whether what you and your family believe is even the right thing.

For the average person it had to be so confusing. As in: "Wait, are these the good guys or the bad guys? They're heretics but they're carrying the body of Christ into battle? They're singing the same songs as us while burning the bishop's lands?"

It blurred the usual lines of holy war in a way that earlier crusades against Muslims or pagans never did. No exotic enemy, just fellow Christians who decided the Church had gone off the rails and were ready to fight the Emperor and multiple popes over it.

Kinda sheds some light on why the whole conflict was so brutal and messy. When the "enemy" looks, sounds, and prays like you, it's bound to get convoluted fast.

Anyone else find the psychological/cultural side of the Hussite Wars fascinating?