The present Czech Republic consists of the ancient kingdoms of Bohemia and Moravia, called the Czech Lands. Until recently, they were joined with Slovakia to form Czechoslovakia, but that country was not formed until 1918. Surrounded by more powerful neighbors, the Czechs have had many masters. If a man was born in Prague in 1910, he was born an Austrian; at the age of eight he became a Czechoslovak; at the age of twenty-nine a second-class German; at thirty-five regained his Czechoslovak status for a few years; at thirty-eight came under Soviet domination; and at fifty-eight briefly tasted freedom, only to come once more under Soviet control. When he was eighty, he again became a Czechoslovak. At eight-five, he finally became a citizen of the Czech Republic.
BEGINNINGS
The earliest inhabitants of these lands are known only from archaeology. During
the Early Bronze Age, people known as Unetice lived there and left many of their
artifacts for us to discover. By 400 BC the country was occupied by Celtic tribes,
the best-known one being the Boii, who in turn, were overrun in 8 BC by a Germanic
tribe, the Marcomanni. (The Latin name for the Boii, Boiohemum, became Bohemia.
The name of the river through Prague, the Vltava, or Moldau, came from the Celtic
Vlt-Va or wild water.) The Romans advanced to southern Bohemia, and Tacitus
tells us of battles with the Marcomanni, but Bohemia was never conquered by
Rome. The Germanic domination lasted less than 600 years; then in the sixth
century AD, waves of Slavic people arrived and established relationships with
the Byzantine and Frankish empires. Thus today's Czechs are a mixture of Celts,
Germans and Slavs. Although they are mainly the latter, they have always looked
to the West and have therefore been more 'European' than the other Slavic people.
Documentary history begins only in the seventh century; before this, Czech history is based on legends, one of which deals with Cech. He and his brother Lech, were Slavic chieftains who brought their people to Bohemia looking for a place where they could live in peace. They surveyed the country from the mountain of Rip, north of present-day Prague and Cech is supposed to have said, "This is a country overflowing with milk, butter and honey, this is where we shall stay". Lech continued on and settled what is now Poland. When Cech died, his successor, the Duke of Chechy, built a castle in what is now Prague, and called it Vysehrad; its ruins still exist. He left three daughters, the youngest of whom was Libuse, who had the gift of prophecy. She was chosen as the leader of the tribe, but when the elders rebelled against being ruled by a woman, Libuse agreed that she needed a husband. In a vision she saw a plowman in a field with two oxen and sent men to find him. "His name is Premysl", she told them, "and our descendants will rule forever". A white horse would lead them to the place, and when the horse neighed, that would be Premysl; he would be eating on an iron table. All happened as she foretold; the iron table was an upside-down plow. He said he was eating off iron because his descendants would rule with an iron rod; iron was used for plows in peace time and for swords during war. They all rode off to Vysehrad, where Libuse and her court come out in regal splendor to meet them. The wedding was held soon thereafter, and their descendants ruled until 1306 if not, as foretold, forever.
THE PREMYSLID DYNASTY
About the seventh century, the semi-legendary Samo united the Slavs against
the Avar tribes of Hungary. Charlemagne joined the battle against the Avars.
The state which followed is known as the Great Moravian Empire. Although details
of its history are vague, it seems to have included what is now Bohemia, Southern
Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia, Southern Poland and Northern Hungary. It fell apart
in the early tenth century and most went to Hungary. Bohemia was ruled by the
Premyslid dynasty, and Moravia became a crownland of the Kingdom of Bohemia.
It was at this time that a castle was built at Brno, but its exact location
is now unknown. The Czech prince, Oldich Bretislav I, ruled there and coins
were minted.
The Premyslids, were a particularly bloodthirsty group but they continued to prosper. One of the most famous was Prince Vaclav, the King Wenceslas of the Christmas carol. He was probably not the jolly image of that song, but an intelligent tribal chief. Vaclav was killed by supporters of his brother who succeeded him. He is the patron saint of Bohemia, and his statue, which dominates the huge square named for him in Prague, was a focal point for anti-Soviet demonstrations while Czechoslovakia was dominated by the USSR.
The city of Prague is at the crossroad of all of the trade-routes in Bohemia and was first written of in 965 as a town of "stone and line". Bohemia was rich in minerals of all kinds, and Prague soon became one of the major cities in Europe. Charlemagne visited Bohemia, but never conquered it. Officially it became a part of the Holy Roman Empire. But in 1212 the Papal Golden Bull of Sicily confirmed the Czech kings as sovereigns in their land; their only obligation to the emperor was to provide a company of riders for his coronation ceremony. For centuries thereafter, the Bohemian king was the chief of the Electors of the Empire.
THE LUXEMBOURG DYNASTY (1310-1437)
The last of the Premyslids was a woman, Eliska. When she married John of Luxembourg,
her family's dynasty ended, and her husband became the king. John was an absentee
king, never learned the language, spent most of his time at war, and allowed
the country to be ruled for a time by local barons. Nevertheless it was said,
"Nothing can be done without the help of God and the King of Bohemia". Bohemia
was one of the most important kingdoms in Europe. John's banner, with three
feathers and the motto, "Ich dien" (I serve) was that of the Bohemian
kings. When John was killed at the battle of Crécy, a scene depicted
in Shakespeare's Henry V, the banner was picked up by Edward, the Black
Prince, then Prince of Wales. That is why, ever since, it has been a part of
the crest of the current Prince of Wales.
John's son was quite a different matter, one of the best kings the Bohemians every had, and known as the 'Father of the Country'. He was King Charles I of Bohemia and, as Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV. He had been raised in France and did not speak any Czech when he came to the throne, but soon became fluent and spoke several other languages as well. With Prague as his capital, he reigned for thirty years, reorganized the government, kept the peace, and made Prague one of Europe's handsomest cities. Among other things he built St. Vitus Cathedral, and the famous Charles Bridge across the Vltava (Moldau) river. This still stands and is known for its statues which were added in the eighteenth century. The bridge has withstood the annual impact of floating ice for 600 years. Credit for this is given to the eggs which were mixed with the mortar. Since there were not enough eggs in Prague, all of the towns of Bohemia were ordered to furnish their share. One town, in a misguided effort to prevent breakage during shipment, sent hard-boiled eggs, which, of course, were useless.
Charles wrote down the legend of St. Vaclav, introduced French methods of farming -- including vineyards which are still in existence -- and drained the marshlands of southern Bohemia. Above all, he founded the University of Prague in 1348. Also known as Charles University, it was the fourth established north of the Alps, after Paris, Oxford and Cambridge. Eventually Bohemians were printing books when the people of its neighboring countries could not even read!
HUS AND DALIBOR
Jan Hus, the son of a Bohemian peasant, started life as a poor student and lived
a 'Bohemian' life. Later he earned his degree and soon became dean of the philosophy
faculty at Charles University. The same year, he was ordained as a priest and
began preaching in Prague's Bethlehem Chapel, in Czech rather than in Latin.
Like the other reformers of Western Europe, he sought to change the church,
publicly denouncing the doctrine of papal infallibility and the sale of indulgences.
In 1415, he was given a safe conduct to attend an ecclesiastical council in
Constance, but this was a sham. When he got there, he was imprisoned, condemned
as a heretic and burnt at the stake, one of the first martyrs of the Reformation.
His death united the Czechs against the nobles. Decades of unrest followed as
the Hussites fought for freedom over their oppressive masters. (In 1419, seven
members of the city council were thrown to their death from a window by a group
of Hussites, the first 'defenestration of Prague').
A semi-legendary hero was the knight, Dalibor. When he offered protection to some of the rebellious serfs of his neighbors, he was tried, imprisoned in a tower in Prague Castle, and condemned to death. That much is fact. We are also told that, while in prison, the jailor allowed him to have a violin because, "What Czech doesn't love music?" (Ktery pak Cech by hudbu nemel rad?). He taught himself to play, and people gathered to listen beneath the tower, sending food up to him in a basket. After he died, his music was sorely missed. His prison tower can still be seen and the Czech composer, Smetana, wrote an opera about him.
THE HABSBURGS
In 1526 Bohemia and Moravia passed to Austria and the Habsburgs although Moravia
at first retained as separate diet and was sometimes separated from Bohemia.
The thrones then became hereditary; until then the kings had been elected. For
example, from 1608 to 1611 Bohemia was ruled by Rudolf II and Moravia by his
brother Matthais. They remained somewhat separate until the Habsburgs were overthrown
in 1918. Prague remained the de facto capital of the Holy Roman Empire
until 1611.
During this time there was constant strife in the Czech Lands. In 1618, two members of the city council were thrown from the window of Prague Castle, the famous second 'defenestration of Prague'. Luckily this time they lived by landing in a filthy moat, and escaped, dirty but unharmed. (The third defenestration was that of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk in 1948. His body was found beneath a window, but whether he was pushed or committed suicide is unknown.) The 1618 defenestration signaled the beginning of the revolts of the nobles against their Austrian rulers and the start of the Thirty Years War. In 1620 (a date as significant to the Czechs as 1066 is to the British or 1776 to Americans) the Czech nobles were defeated at the Battle of the White Mountain and lost all power over their own destiny. Protestants and Catholics fought each other during the Thirty Years War, and the population of Bohemia was reduced from three million to nine hundred thousand. Dvorak memorialized the battle in his first choral work, The Heirs of the White Mountain).
In the following decades, as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Czechs almost disappeared as a people. They were led with an iron hand from Vienna; all were forced to become Catholics; Charles University was given to the Jesuits; German became the official language while Czech was spoken only by peasants -- it could be taught only in village elementary schools; Czech books were burned. The word for language or tongue, jazyk, became a synonym for nation. Many of the nobility and educated people went into exile, over 35,000 families in all, leaving a cultural void in the once proud Bohemia. It was the "Time of Darkness".
Later, Protestantism was legalized, the nobility became interested in the language of their ancestors, and finally, in 1791, Czech was once more allowed to be taught at the University. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there was a Czech revival with a renewed interest in the history, the music and the folk tales of Bohemia and Moravia. Because the peasants had been largely illiterate, few tales had been written down until then; now collections were made of the old stories. With the Industrial Revolution, the Czech speakers of the countryside flocked to the towns, and their language soon became the predominant one.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
In 1918, the Habsburg Empire breathed its last and Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia
were united into the Democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia, with TomasMasaryk
as its first president and Edvard Benes as foreign minister. Masaryk had an
American wife and brought U.S. style government to the newly created country.
From 1918 to 1938 it was a model of constitutional democracy. However, after
Hitler's accession in Germany, there was discord in western Czechoslovakia.
The Sudetenland, next to Germany, was mostly inhabited by ethnic Germans. In
March of 1938, Hitler invaded Austria (the Anschluss) and demanded the
Sudetenland as well. At a meeting in Munich, which the Czechs were not allowed
to attend, France and Britain caved in to the dictator. The Nazis occupied the
Sudetenland without opposition; Czechoslovakia had been betrayed by its friends.
By March 1939 the whole country was under Hitler's control, and Slovakia was
declared an independent entity. Czechoslovakia was one of the worst sufferers
from the subsequent Holocaust. By a 1930 census, there were aabout 117,550 Jews
in Bohemia and Moravia; by 1945, it is estimated there were only about 22,000.
In 1945, Czechoslovakia was 'liberated' by the Soviet army and became one of the Eastern bloc of nations, behind the Iron Curtain. But the citizens were unhappy. Czech writers, the conscience of their country were restive under the restrictions on their freedom of speech. Students became unhappy about the conditions in the universities and, as students do, staged protests. They were supported by the vast majority of Czechs who had seen their standard of living severely eroded. When Alexander Dubcek became chief of the Communist Party's Central Committee, the way was opened for the 'Prague Spring' of 1968. Major reforms took place: political prisoners were freed; limited private enterprise was allowed; journalists were free to print what they wanted, and the sale of newspapers shot up dramatically. Dubcek was often compared to Jan Hus, also a liberator. After 20 years of domination, there was a brief taste of liberty!
However, all of this freedom for one of their 'allies' made the leaders of the Soviet Union very uncomfortable. In the early hours of August 21, 1968, while most of the citizens slept, Warsaw Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia. The people woke to find tanks at their doorsteps. At first they reacted with mass demonstrations but after 20 Praguers were killed, they turned to subtler forms of sabotage. Road signs were turned the wrong way, and the countryside became a labyrinth for the invaders. They destroyed all of the phone books so the foreigners could not use the telephone. Radio frequencies were channeled into the telephone circuits so the populace could listen to forbidden programs by dialing certain numbers. When the armies shut off Old Town Square with its statue of Hus, long the rallying point for protesters, they moved to Wenceslas Square with its statue of the country's patron saint.
Another twenty years were to pass before the breakup of the Soviet Union meant liberty for Czechoslovakia once more. Vaclav Havel, a playwright, became the president. But the people of Slovakia were still unhappy; under the leadership of the much richer and more industrialized Czechs, they felt they had just replaced one master for another. What followed has been called the 'Velvet Revolution'. In the midst of the tumult all around them with which the Warsaw countries and the Soviet Union were disintegrating, the Czechs and Slovaks peacefully decided to split (January 1, 1993). As had been true 1,000 years before, the Czech Lands now belong to the Czechs.
More details may be found at http://archiv.radio.cz/history. This also has many pictures which may be enlarged and printed.
Some famous Czechs
Jan Hus, Leos Janacek, Gustav Mahler, Franz Kafka, Johann Kepler, Tomas Masaryk,
Jan Masaryk, Vaclav Havel, Martina Navratilova, Bedrich Smetana, Alexander Dubcek,
Tycho Brahe, Sigmund Freud, Edvard Benes, Gregor Mendel, Karel Capek