10. Playing a foundational role in the independence of Bohemia from the Germanic empires of Europe, the Young Czechs never reaped the rewards of their decades of work
Following the 1848 Revolutions, the Austrian government was compelled to cede the right to hold elections for a parliament to the Bohemian national assembly. However, never actually taking place due to disagreements, in June František Palacký instead demanded at the Prague Slavic Congress withdrawal from the German Confederation. Triggering mass uprisings, including in Vienna, although suppressed following the creation of an Imperial Council in 1860 separatist sentiment organized once more. Splitting into two ideologically separate groups, in September 1874, seven elected Young Czechs took their seats in the Diet in defiance of the Old Czech policy of abstention in protest of the February Patent.
Relinquishing their boycott on the German Reichsrat in 1880, by the turn of the century they had successfully won one-fifth of the seats and overturned the German majority in the parliament. Nevertheless, the group faced severe repression at the hands of the governing authorities and remained unable to achieve legislative goals due to a united opposition to Bohemian independence. Gradually losing ground to the Social Democrats, the Young Czechs had declined into obscurity by the time secession was achieved in 1918, whereupon the state of Czechoslovakia was founded.