Old Czechs

(Staročeši), the common name for the Czech National Party (Ceská národní strana, also Staročeská), a Czech conservative bourgeois party that existed from 1860 to 1918. The party received the name Old Czechs in 1874, after the Young Czechs seceded from it. The party’s ideologists and leaders included F. Palacký, F. L. Rieger, and K. Mattuš.

The Old Czechs supported the preservation of the Hapsburg monarchy and the implementation of the Czech State Law, that is, autonomy for Czech crown lands within the Hapsburg empire. They opposed bourgeois democratic reforms. Until 1879, the Old Czechs maintained a policy of passive obstruction of the Austrian Reichsrat; they later joined the Reichsrat and assumed extreme rightist positions. The Old Czechs lost their political influence after their defeat in the elections of 1891. In 1918 they joined the Party of Czech State Law Democracy (called the National Democratic Party of Czechoslovakia from 1919 to 1934).