Josef Jireček

Josef Jireček (9 October 1825, in Vysoké Mýto – 25 November 1888, in Prague) was a Czech scholar.

He entered the Prague Bureau of Education in 1850 and became department minister in the Hohenwart cabinet in 1871.

His efforts to secure equal educational privileges for the Slav nationalities in the Austrian dominions brought him into disfavour with the German element.

His merits as a scholar were recognized in 1875 by his election as president of the Royal Czech Society of Sciences.

[1] In 1862, he and his brother Hermenegild Jireček strove to defend the genuineness of the Königinhof Manuscript discovered by Václav Hanka.