František Cyril Kampelík

F. L. Kampelík ranks among the significant personalities of  Czech social and economic life in the first half of the 19th century. He entered the nation's history as a an awakener of the country and an initiator of the "people's" banking, and due to it the Czech language was enriched with a new word "kampelička" (cooperative agricultural bank).

He was born on 28 June 1805 in Siřenov by Lomnice nad Popelkou. He studied medicine in Vienna, where he, in 1843, got a medical degree. After a short work experience in Vienna, Litomyšl and Mšeno, he moved to Prague in 1846. By that time he was already known as a whole-hearted and dedicated patriot, although partially racy. Apart from other things, he wrote a textbook of Czech. Nevertheless, by proposing an anachronistic reform of the Czech language he got into  conflict with the leading personalities of  cultural life. He actively joined the revolutionary events in 1848. As a member of the society Repeal he attended the meeting in Svatováclavské spa. As an authorised representative of the Svatováclavský committee he negotiated with the rebelling printing-trade workers. He published a pamphlet "The Spirit of the Constitution or What is the Main Aim of the Constitution" and wrote various manifestos and political pamphlets. In June 1848 he even brought seventy armed volunteers from Příbram to Prague, however they did not to be part in the fight because shortly before their arrival Prague surrendered. After the Prague rebellion was defeated, a warrant for Kampelík's arrest was issued, and, therefore, he emigrated for several months. Shortly after returning to Bohemia, he had to retire from public life and move to the country, and until the fall of the Bach regime he was under superintendence of the authorities. In 1860 Kampelík tried to stand for the national assembly. It was his last attempt to establish his career on the political scene. Also his most important political paper "The State of Affairs in Austria and Its Future," which follows the thoughts of Austroslavism, comes from this time. After being disappointed because of his political failure, Kampelík finally settled down in the area of Hradec Králové, where he worked as a doctor and an educator. At that time he also started to work hard on solving various practical economic issues. In particular, Kampelík's writings from 1856 on building cooperative banking institutions, that were not published until 1861, are of historical significance. His proposal for establishing of financial institutions in Bohemia were not implemented because later they were established according to the proposals of Raiffeisen, who published his project many years after Kampelík. Only in Kampelík's memory these institutions were called kampeličky (it is derivated from the name Kampelík).

Kampelík was not in fact a journalist, who quickly reacted to topical problems that he faced in his work. Although he was not an economist, he was a practical person, a self-learner and was able to think out his economic proposals and to justify them theoretically as well.

Mgr. Vladimír Seidl

On this page there can be found the following from the works of F. C. Kampelík: