Editing Pan-Slavism (section)

== First Pan-Slav Congress, Prague, 1848 ==
[[File:Flag of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.svg|thumb|right|[[Pan-Slavic colors|Slavic flag]] proposed by the Pan-Slav convention<ref name=autogenerated1>''Вилинбахов Г. В.'' [http://www.dissercat.com/content/gosudarstvennaya-geraldika-v-rossii-teoriya-i-praktika Государственная геральдика в России: Теория и практика] {{in lang|ru}}</ref> in [[Prague]] in 1848]]
The [[Prague Slavic Congress, 1848|First Pan-Slav congress]] was held in [[Prague]], [[Bohemia]], in June 1848, during the [[Revolutions of 1848|revolutionary movement of 1848]]. The Czechs had refused to send representatives to the [[Frankfurt Assembly]] feeling that Slavs had a distinct interest from the Germans. The [[Austro-Slavism|Austroslav]], [[František Palacký]], presided over the event. Most of the delegates were Czech and Slovak. Palacký called for the co-operation of the [[Habsburg]]s and had also endorsed the Habsburg monarchy as the political formation most likely to protect the peoples of [[central Europe]]. When the Germans asked him to declare himself in favour of their desire for national unity, he replied that he would not as this would weaken the Habsburg state: “Truly, if it were not that [[Austrian Empire|Austria]] had long existed, it would be necessary, in the interest of [[Europe]], in the interest of [[All humanity|humanity]] itself, to create it.”

The Pan-Slav congress met during the revolutionary turmoil of 1848. Young inhabitants of Prague had taken to the streets and in the confrontation, a stray bullet had killed the wife of [[Field Marshal]] [[Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz]], the commander of the Austrian forces in Prague. Enraged, Windischgrätz seized the city, disbanded the congress, and established [[martial law]] throughout Bohemia.

According to Slovak intellectuals [[Ján Kollár]] and [[Andrej Ľudovít Radlinský]], along with the prevailing Pan-Slavic views of the time, the Slavic nation consisted of four tribes, the Czechoslovak, the Polish, the Russian (East Slavs) and the Illyrian (Southern Slavs).