BALBÍN (Balbinus), BOHUSLAV. — Bohemian Jesuit scholar, born of a noble family at Hradec Králové on 3 November 1621, he entered the Society in 1636 and died in Prague on 29 November 1688. Assigned to rural missions and subsequently to the teaching of rhetoric, he was removed from it because of overly biting satirical poems and then devoted himself to the study of the national antiquities of Bohemia.
He had prepared the way with three monographs on great Marian shrines: Diva Wartensis (Prague 1655), Diva Turzanensis (Olomouc 1658), Diva Montis Sancti (Prague 1663). In addition to various historical monographs, his major works are the Epitome historica rerum Bohemicarum (2 vols., there 1673–77), and the Miscellanea Historica regni Bohemiae (10 vols., there 1678–79, left incomplete).
This immense compilation ranges from natural history and ethnography (B. thereby earned the title of «Plinius Bohemia», but this is the most outdated part of his work) to hagiography (IV, Hagiographicus seu Bohemia sancta), genealogy, etc. The following volumes (V. Paracchialis et curialis; VI, Archiepiscopalis; VIII, Epistolaris...) are editions of ancient documents, valuable, though not always produced with the requisite critical rigor. One of the parts of the Miscellanea that remained unpublished was issued by the Premonstratensian R. Ungar under the title Bohemia docta (3 vols., Prague 1776–80).
B. was also an ardent Czech patriot, and this brought him no small number of difficulties. His Dissertatio apologetica pro lingua slavonica, praecipue bohemica, published only in 1775, led to his being counted among the «awakeners» of national consciousness. His historical work and unpublished writings have been the subject of many recent studies; a good comprehensive work, however, is still lacking.