The University of Nebraska was one of the first universities in the United States to offer Czech language instruction.  The Czech language and culture program was inaugurated in 1907, thanks to major political maneuvering, and has continued up until now except for a short interruption in the 1920s.  

The program has been headed by a number of outstanding and dedicated professors, such as Šárka Hrbková, Orin Štepánek and Vladimír Kucera. Half of the Czech instructors taught for the meager salary of a lecturer, as Dr. Kucera did, and some, for example, Dr. Orin Štepánek, for free, or in overload. No professor in the Czech program has ever received tenure.  Dr. Štepánek, according to his wife, professor Olga Štepánek, received his while in the English program, and Míla Šašková-Pierce in the Russian program. 

Since 1907 the Czech program has been under constant threat of discontinuation, either because of cultural scorn, or the political program of enforced xenophobia as in the 1920s, or a periodic lack of students since the 1970s (thirty per year).   In 1993 the program was transferred from the regular day program to the Division of Continuing Education evening program (where it was in the 1950s), and is self-supporting, thanks to volunteer instruction provided by the author of this article, and the dedication of the team of Jim and Katya Koubek, lecturers, since 1996.

Yet the program has been a very successful one, thanks to its instructors and a number of outstanding students who have also been engaged in the programs of the Czech Komenský Club. The history of Czech language instruction in Nebraska is closely tied to the history of the club (named for Jan Amos Komenský, or Comenius, the pioneer educator, b. 3-28-1592 and d. 11-15-1670) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the  involvement of its members. 

Conceived in December 1903, and officially established in 1904, it became a nursery for influential personalities in Nebraska political and cultural life, for example state and U.S. politicians Roman Hruška, Otto Kotouc, Joseph Vosoba, and Rudy Vrtiska; poets Ferdinand Musil, Jeffrey Hrbek, and Hrbek's sister the writer, politician, and educator, Dr. Šárka Hrbková.  According to the club constitution, its aim was to form a bond among Czech-Americans and to provide a model of cultural association to other university settings, where students could study Czech language, history and literature first informally, and later formally, in regular courses. 

The Komenský Club cultural program was quickly espoused by students and intellectuals in other towns and universities and resulted in the foundation of 28 other groups throughout the North American continent by the end of the WW I.  Initially the club was founded to offer university and college students of Czech origin a chance to cultivate Czech culture.  To meet this goal the club organized poetry readings, musical performances, and other activities for university students and the Czech community in Lincoln. The Komenský Club activities became a model for other academic groups in other states. The resulting clubs joined in the Komenský Educational Clubs Association that was founded by Prof. Bohumil Šimek of the State University of Iowa, F.J. Pípal, a student of the Nebraska University, who later became a professor at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. 

By 1909, the club members started to publish the monthly Komenský.  In it they announced the news of theirs and other Komenský Clubs that continued to be founded in Nebraska (Lincoln, Omaha, Crete, and later other places) and in other states. 

Very quickly, however, the members realized that there was a need not only to cultivate their mother tongue, but also to educate the Anglo-Saxon community about the achievements of Czechs in the USA as well as in Europe. This was done in programs for the English speaking community, such as public concerts and lectures in English. Ultimately the Komenský Clubs became nursery for cultural and political personalities in many of the states of the Union.

From the beginning of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Komenský Club’s existence, there was a plan to have Czech language and culture offered as a subject at the University in Lincoln and at Omaha Creighton University. The establishment of Czech language study, as legitimate course work, became a rallying cause for several reasons.

First of all, there was a genuine need for the children of the Czech settlers to study the literary form of the Czech language, if the new generation was to take over the cultural work of their parents, the first and second generation of settlers. There were Czech newspapers and journals, the Rosický Publishing House in Omaha, and several amateur theatrical groups in the state of Nebraska. There were theater halls in the Western Fraternal Association or Sokol Halls in many small towns that would either host one of the traveling theater troupes, or perform periodically with local talents.  There were schools with Czech children who had a poor knowledge of English, if any, when they started instruction, and who needed Czech-speaking teachers. Churches were in need of priests and ministers who could perform services in Czech.  All these institutions, in order to maintain their professional level and their cultural role, called for new educated and devoted Czech youth, with a good knowledge of the Czech language. 

The second reason was a political one. An admission of Czech language as a subject of study at the university constituted de facto a recognition of Czech culture at the university pantheon as being on a par with English and French. It is sufficient to read Anglo-American authors, or the English language press from the beginning of the twentieth century to see that the Czechs, or Bohemians, like other new immigrants, were not perceived as the most "cultured" part of the citizenry. There was a palpable scorn for the "Bohemians" in the state, and for this reason it was hard to convince the state government and university officials that the Czech language and culture were a valid subject for university study. No doubt in order to give the idea of Czech Culture Studies greater weight, the Komenský Club youth and the Nebraska Czech politicians called for the foundation of a Slavic Department of which Czech would be a part.

In 1907 John Rosický, the owner and chief editor of the Omaha weekly Pokrok Západu, the so-called Czech University of the Great Plains, politician Václav Bureš and a representative of Lancaster County, Frank Rejcha, requested from the regents of the University of Nebraska that a new Czech program be established. Chancellor Andrews struck with the Czech politicians a deal, following which the legislature would pass a school levy in support of the state universities in exchange for the Czech program. Thanks to adroit maneuvering by Frank Rejcha, who had secretly obtained ten votes, the levy bill passed by 56 votes, opposed by 55. Reluctantly, and only after an initial refusal, did the chancellor establish the Slavonic program of which the Czech program became a part. 

In the fall of l907 the translator, poet, and scholar, Jeffrey Doležal Hrbek, became professor of the new department. Unfortunately he died from typhoid fever on December 4, l907. His sister, Dr. Šárka Hrbková, succeeded him. She was totally devoted to the Czech program and the Komenský Club, often single-handedly publishing the issues of the Komenský monthly. During the First World War, when instruction of most of the foreign languages within the whole state of Nebraska was discontinued, the Department of Slavonic languages was abolished. Professor Šárka Hrbková left Nebraska, and in l9l9 she become director of the Foreign Language Information Service in New York.

In 1920, professor Orin Štepánek was offered the position of professor of Czech and Russian. In the 1920s he added English, which he taught until his death in 1956. 

In the 1950s the journalist and politician Dr. Vladimír Kucera from Brno arrived in Nebraska. From the very beginning he decided that it was time to reawaken the Czech ethnic life in the state. Czech cultural life in Nebraska was a low ebb, because Czechoslovakia, after the Communist takeover in 1948, was in the coldest time of Stalinist repression. Contacts between Nebraska Czech community and the Old World relatives became disrupted. It was incomprehensible to Nebraska Czechs why many Czechs and Slovaks in the ancestral country had been seduced by Communist propaganda. Czechoslovakia became a member of the Warsaw Pact in 1955, and it became psychologically difficult to teach one's children the language of the official enemy. Immigration from Czechoslovakia ceased and there was a lack of young educated Czechs who could help to renew the cultural life in the Czech associations which had started to age as there was very little enthusiasm, or opportunity for the younger generation to learn their ancestral language.

Dr. Vladimír Kucera had a talent for organizing the Czech ethnic life in the state. He started instruction of the Czech language in several locations in Nebraska, and after the death of professor Štepánek, at the University of Nebraska evening program, where Czech was transferred. He appealed to the parents and grandparents to send him new students. He helped to organize a number of Czech festivals in the state, notably Czech Days in Wilber. By the time he became sick with Alzheimer's in the late 1970s, he left behind many ethnic
programs, such as a dozen festivals in Nebraska, museums, and publications dealing with the history of Czechs in Nebraska. 

After Dr. Kucera's retirement, the teaching of Czech was continued by a new immigrant, Vera Stromšíková-Petrácková. She revived the Komenský Club activities and taught in other institutions, such as the Community Colleges. She restarted a successful student exchange program with Czechoslovakia. During her tenure at UNL, there was an attempt to discontinue the instruction of Czech. The program survived thanks to the vocal opposition of the Czech community. 

After Vera Stromšíková-Petrácková accepted a position in the Defense Language Institute in California, Dr. Míla Šašková-Pierce was hired in 1989 to rebuild the Czech program. Despite the fact that the enrollments increased by 140%, the program was first slated for discontinuation, and only because of protests by the Czech community, it was transferred once again to the Division of Continuing Education. Since 1993 it has been administered jointly by the Department of Modern Languages and the Division of Continuing Studies. Due to this shared administration, there have been recurring problems. For example the program has to deal with arbitrary limits of the number of students permitted to enroll that have to be constantly re-negotiated with the Division of Continuing Studies; if there is an enrollment lower than fifteen per class there is a need for external financial support from the Czech community, or the class has to be taught in overload. There is a lack of permanent qualified teaching staff. All these problems make the existence of the Czech program precarious. 

To give the program permanency, the Czech Community has been conducting a drive to collect money for a Chair of Czech language.  At the forefront of this effort is the Czech Language Foundation under the leadership of Glenn Riensche, a graduate of the UNL Czech program.  Others figuring prominently are Tom Zumpfe, Dorothy Stepan, and others.  Also providing important assistance is the Lincoln Czechs, a cultural organization that has supported the language program for the past twenty years. All these efforts have been successful. At present the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Czech Program offers three years of undergraduate instruction, and a minor in the Czech Language. It also offers several exchange programs in the Czech Republic. 

The future of the Czech language in Nebraska will depend on several factors. On the one hand it will depend on the interest of Nebraskans in the Czech ethnic life in the state, which in turn will create a need for an infusion of young people into the associations whose mean age is presently over forty. These young people will then be interested in learning the Czech language and culture. The development of a commercial and cultural exchange with the Czech Republic will also create a demand for the knowledge of the Czech language. To perpetuate the two conditions mentioned above there is a need to develop a dynamism among the cultural leadership, such as that of the late Dr. Kucera.

In conclusion, the University of Nebraska Czech program has gone through difficult times. From a big and successful program that was one among several in Nebraska it became the sole program in the whole state that teaches the language that draws students from other Nebraska institutions, and indeed from all the states in the U.S. The UNL Czech program still enrolls more students than other institutions in the United States, even such as Harvard, and UCLA. Depending on the year, between ten to thirty students enroll in its three years of instruction. The program attracts a very motivated student population and its students, when they transfer to other universities, have consistently better knowledge of the language than the local similar level students. And University of Nebraska-Lincoln students of Czech have been professionally successful in their use of their language skills. The program plays another very important role:  upon the return to their communities of origin, the graduates organize new, or take over the existing cultural activities, that make life in Nebraska more interesting for many of its citizens.  An example is the Nemec family in Prague, Nebraska whose children, University of Nebraska Czech program graduates, single-handedly restarted the Prague Czech festival.  Another example is the digitalization of the Czech memorabilia and building of the Czech Heritage Site Project, oral history recording and artistic exhibits done by students of Czech. All this make the Czech Language Program a valuable part of Nebraska cultural life.

September 2002