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| Etymology | |
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Main article: Name of the Czech Republic
The traditional English name "Bohemia" derives from Latin "Boiohaemum", which means "home of the Boii". The current name comes from the Czech endonym Čechy using the antiquated spelling Czechy, identical to the Polish spelling.[13]
The country has been traditionally divided into lands, namely Bohemia proper (Čechy) in the west, Moravia (Morava) in the southeast, and Czech Silesia (Slezsko; the smaller, south-eastern part of historical Silesia, most of which is located within modern Poland) in the northeast. Known officially as the "Crown of the Kingdom of Bohemia" since the 14th century, a number of other names of the country had been used, including the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Czech/Bohemian lands, Bohemian Crown, Lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas etc. When the country regained its independence after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, the new name of Czechoslovakia was coined to reflect the union of the Czech and Slovak nations within the new country.
Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word name in English. In 1993, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested the name Czechia /ˈtʃɛkiə/ (Česko Czech pronunciation: [ˈtʃɛskɔ] in Czech) as an official alternative in all situations other than formal official documents and the full names of government institutions; however, this has not become widespread in English, even though most other languages have single-word names for the country (usually their own variants of "Czechia").
[edit] Tags:Czech,Slovak,Hungarian,Polish,4th,Cz,Slovakia,/,[ˈtʃɛskɔ],Poland,Bohemia,Czechoslovakia,Austro-hungarian Empire,Boii,Bohemia Proper,Moravia,Czech Silesia,Historical Silesia,Kingdom Of Bohemia,Silesia,Bohemian Crown, | |
| Prehistory | |
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Great Moravia during the reign of Svatopluk I
Archaeologists have found evidence of prehistoric human settlements in the area, dating back to the Neolithic era. In the classical era, from the 3rd century BC Celtic migrations, the Boii and later in the 1st century, Germanic tribes of Marcomanni and Quadi settled there. During the Migration Period around the 5th century, many Germanic tribes moved westwards and southwards out of Central Europe.
Wenceslaus II. King of Bohemia and Poland Drawing by Jan Matejko
Slavic people from the Black Sea-Carpathian region settled in the area (a movement that was also stimulated by the onslaught of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns, Avars, Bulgars and Magyars). Following in the Germans' wake, they moved southwards into Bohemia, Moravia and some of present day Austria. During the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo, supporting the Slavs fighting their Avar rulers, became the ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe. The Moravian principality arose in the 8th century.
[edit] Tags:German,Central Europe,Austria,Svatopluk I,Neolithic,Classical Era,Celtic,Marcomanni,Quadi,Migration Period,Jan Matejko,Slavic People,Black Sea,Carpathian,Siberia,Huns,Avars,Bulgars,Magyars,Samo,Moravian Principality,Wenceslaus Ii, | |
| Bohemia | |
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Přemysl Ottokar II, (c. 1233–1278), King of Bohemia and ruler of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola
The Bohemian or Czech state emerged in the late 9th century, when it was unified by the Přemyslid dynasty. The Kingdom of Bohemia was, as the only kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, a significant regional power during the Middle Ages. It was part of the Empire from 1002 till 1806, with the exception of years 1440–1526.
In 1212, King Přemysl Otakar I, bearing the title "king" since 1198, extracted a Golden Bull of Sicily (a formal edict) from the emperor, confirming the royal title for Otakar and his descendants. Large-scale German immigration occurred in the 13th century. The Germans populated towns and mining districts on the Bohemian periphery and, in some cases, formed German colonies in the interior of the Czech lands. In 1235, the mighty Mongol army launched an invasion of Europe. After the Battle of Legnica, the Mongols carried their devastating raid into Moravia, but they were beaten by the Czech royal army in a battle of Olomouc and continued into Hungarian lands.[14]
King Přemysl Otakar II earned the nickname "Iron and Golden King" because of his military power and wealth. He acquired Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, thus spreading the Bohemian territory to the Adriatic Sea. He met his death at the Battle on the Marchfeld in 1278 in a war with his rival, King Rudolph I of Germany.[15] Ottokar's son Wenceslaus II acquired the Polish crown in 1300 for himself and the Hungarian crown for his son. He built a great empire stretching from the Danube river to the Baltic Sea. In 1306, the last king of Přemyslid line was murdered in mysterious circumstances in Olomouc while he was resting. After a series of dynastic wars, the House of Luxembourg gained the Bohemian throne.[16]
Charles IV, 1316–78, eleventh king of Bohemia, elected as the Největší Čech (Greatest Czech) of all time.[17]
The 14th century, particularly the reign of Czech King Charles IV, who became also King of Italy, King of the Romans and Holy Roman Emperor, is considered the Golden Age of Czech history. Of particular significance was the founding of Charles University in Prague in 1348, Charles Bridge, Charles Square and were completed much of the Prague Castle and cathedral of Saint Vitus. The Black Death, which had raged in Europe from 1347 to 1352, decimated the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1380,[18] killing about 10% of the population.[19]
In the 15th century, the religious and social reformer Jan Hus formed a movement later named after him. Although Hus was named a heretic and burnt in Constanz in 1415, his followers seceded from the Catholic Church and in the Hussite Wars (1419–1434) defeated five crusades organized against them by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. Petr Chelčický continued with Czech Hussite Reformation movement. During the next two centuries, 90% of the inhabitants became adherents of the Hussite Christian movement.
After 1526 Bohemia came increasingly under Habsburg control as the Habsburgs became first the elected and then the hereditary[when?] rulers of Bohemia. The Defenestration of Prague and subsequent revolt against the Habsburgs in 1618 marked the start of the Thirty Years' War, which quickly spread throughout Central Europe. In 1620, the rebellion in Bohemia was crushed at the Battle of White Mountain, and the ties between Bohemia and Habsburgs' hereditary lands in Austria were strengthened. The war had a devastating effect on the local population; the people were given the choice either to convert to Catholicism or leave the country.
The following period, from 1620 to the late 18th century, has been often called the "Dark Age". The population of the Czech lands declined by a third through war, disease, famine and the expulsion of the Protestant Czechs.[20] The Habsburgs banned all religions other than Catholicism.[21] Ottoman Turks and Tatars invaded Moravia in 1663.[22] In 1679–1680 the Czech lands faced a devastating plague and an uprising of serfs.[23]
The reigns of Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and co-regent from 1765, were characterized by enlightened absolutism. In 1742, most of Silesia, then the possession of the Bohemian crown, was seized by King Frederick II of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession. The Great Famine, which lasted from 1770 until 1771, killed about one tenth of the Czech population, or 250,000 inhabitants, and radicalized countrysides leading to peasant uprisings.[24]
After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia became part of the Austrian Empire and later of Austria–Hungary. Serfdom was not completely abolished until 1848. After the Revolutions of 1848, Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria instituted an absolute monarchy in an effort to balance competing ethnic interests in the empire.
Czechoslovak troops in Vladivostok, Siberia (1918).
[edit] Tags:Czechs,Germany,Prague,Hussite Wars,Přemysl Ottokar Ii,Styria,Carinthia,Carniola,Bohemian Or Czech State,Přemyslid Dynasty,Holy Roman Empire,Middle Ages,Přemysl Otakar I,Golden Bull Of Sicily,Mongol,Invasion Of Europe,Battle Of Legnica,Přemysl Otakar Ii,Adriatic Sea,Battle On The Marchfeld,Rudolph I Of Germany,Danube River,Baltic Sea,House Of Luxembourg,Charles Iv,Největší Čech,Czech King,King Of Italy,King Of The Romans, | |
| Czechoslovakia | |
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Main article: History of Czechoslovakia
An estimated 1.4 million Czech soldiers fought in World War I, of them some 150,000 died. More than 90,000 Czech volunteers formed the Czechoslovak Legions in France, Italy and Russia, where they fought against the Central Powers and later against Bolshevik troops.[25] Following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, the independent republic of Czechoslovakia was created in 1918. This new country incorporated the Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia) and parts of the Kingdom of Hungary (Slovakia and the Carpathian Ruthenia) with significant German, Hungarian, Polish and Ruthenian speaking minorities.[26]
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, first president of Czechoslovakia.
Although Czechoslovakia was a unitary state, it provided what were at the time rather extensive rights to its minorities and remained the only democracy in this part of Europe in the interwar period. The effects of the Great Depression including high unemployment and massive propaganda from Nazi Germany, however, resulted in discontent and strong support among ethnic Germans for a break from Czechoslovakia. Adolf Hitler took advantage of this opportunity and, using Konrad Henlein's separatist Sudeten German Party, gained the largely German speaking Sudetenland (and its substantial Maginot Line like border fortifications) through the 1938 Munich Agreement (signed by Nazi Germany, France, Britain and Italy), despite the mobilization of 1.2 million-strong Czechoslovak army and the Franco-Czech military alliance. Poland annexed the Zaolzie area around Český Těšín. Hungary gained parts of Slovakia and the Subcarpathian Rus as a result of the First Vienna Award in November 1938.
The remainders of Slovakia and the Subcarpathian Rus gained greater autonomy, with the state renamed to "Czecho-Slovakia". After Nazi Germany threatened to annex part of Slovakia, allowing the remaining regions to be partitioned by Hungary and Poland, Slovakia chose to maintain its national and territorial integrity, seceding from Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939, and allying itself, as demanded by Germany, with Hitler's coalition.[27]
The remaining Czech territory was occupied by Germany, which transformed it into the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The protectorate was proclaimed part of the Third Reich, and the president and prime minister were subordinate to the Nazi Germany's Reichsprotektor ("imperial protector"). Subcarpathian Rus declared independence as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine on 15 March 1939 but was invaded by Hungary the same day and formally annexed the next day. Approximately 345,000 Czechoslovak citizens, including 277,000 Jews, were killed or executed while hundreds of thousands of others were sent to prisons and concentration camps or used as forced labour. Perhaps two–thirds of the Czech nation was destined either for extermination or removal.[28] A Nazi German concentration camp existed at Terezín, north of Prague.
A memorial to 82 Lidice children murdered by the Nazi Germans in Chelmno.
There was Czech resistance to Nazi occupation, both at home and abroad, most notably with the assassination of Nazi German leader Reinhard Heydrich in a Prague suburb on 27 May 1942. The Czechoslovak government-in-exile and its army fighting against the Germans were acknowledged by the Allies; Czech/Czechoslovak troops fought from the very beginning of the war in Poland, France, the UK, North Africa, the Middle East and the Soviet Union. The German occupation ended on 9 May 1945, with the arrival of the Soviet and American armies and the Prague uprising. An estimated 140,000 Soviet soldiers died in conquering Czechoslovakia from German rule.[29]
In 1945–1946, almost the entire German minority in Czechoslovakia, about 3 million people, were expelled to Germany and Austria. During this time, thousands of Germans were held in prisons and detention camps or used as forced labour. In the summer of 1945, there were several massacres. The only Germans not expelled were some 250,000 who had been active in the resistance against the Nazi Germans or were considered economically important, though many of these emigrated later. Following a Soviet-organised referendum, the Subcarpathian Rus never returned under Czechoslovak rule but became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, as the Zakarpattia Oblast in 1946.
Czechoslovakia uneasily tried to play the role of a "bridge" between the West and East. However, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia rapidly increased in popularity, with a general disillusionment with the West, because of the pre-war Munich Agreement, and a favourable popular attitude towards the Soviet Union, because of the Soviets' role in l Tags:Ukrainian,Kingdom Of Hungary,World War I,Munich Agreement,Communist Party Of Czechoslovakia, | |
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