Franti�ek Palack� (14. 6. 1798 - 26. 5. 1876) - Czech writer and historian, a leading figure of national revival. For his deep interest in Czech history, patriotic activities and contribution within history research is called Father of the Nation .

Franti�ek Palack� was born into a Protestant family in the Moravian village of Hodslavice. Basic education gave him father, preacher and teacher at the local school. Then Palacky went to a German school in Kunvald (today Kunin) and evangelical schools in Trencin and Pressburg (now Bratislava). On the Slovak became friends with Pavol Jozef Safarik and Jan Koll�r. In 1823 he came to Prague to continue in the study of national history. He met with Josef Jungmann and other patriotically oriented intellectuals. On the recommendation of Josefa Dobrovsk�ho, which was also his teacher, he began working as an archivist noble family �ternberks. Now various archives, both at home and abroad, for it represented an inexhaustible source of information on which then further built as a historian, journalist and writer. In 1831 he founded, together with Jungmann publishers Nut Czech and began work on the history of the nation. Yet researched in libraries and archives throughout Europe. The first version was first published under the German name Geschichte von B�hmen in 1836. comprehensively conceived Czech version then was called History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia . This work brought Palacky universal recognition and fame that has crossed the borders of the kingdom.

Palacky shy away from social and cultural life, which was an enthusiastic organizer and from which was only a short walk to politics. Initially featured as a supporter of the so-called Austroslavism, who advocated a federation of equal states within the Austrian monarchy. His ideas about the arrangement monarchy captured in the work of Idea of ??the Austrian State . Habsburg Monarchy, which initially perceived as a bulwark of German expansionism, however, later found unreformable. The change in his attitude reflects a sentence: "We were ahead of Austria, and afterwards we will."

Palack� left behind an extensive work, is considered the founder of modern Czech historiography. Its authority is evidenced by the fact that he was asked to lay the foundation stone in the construction of the National Theatre (1868).