 History |
The arrival of the Slavs in the 5th and 6th
centuries saw the beginning of the Czech history.
Its tribes adopted Christianity and united in the
short-lived Great Moravian Empire (830-906), which
came to include western Slovakia, Bohemia, Silesia,
and parts of eastern Germany, south-eastern Poland
and northern Hungary. Towards the end of the 9th
century, the Czechs seceded to form the independent
state of Bohemia.
The Prague Castle was founded in the 870s by Prince
Borivoj as the main seat of the Premysl dynasty,
though the Premysls failed to unite the squabbling
Czech tribes until 993. In 950, the German King
Otto I conquered Bohemia and incorporated it into
his Holy Roman Empire. In 1212, the pope granted
the Premsyl prince Otakar I the right to rule as
king. His son and successor Otakar II tried to claim
the title of Holy Roman Emperor as well as king
of the Czechs, but the imperial crown went to Rudolph
Hapsburg. Strong rule under the Hapsburgs brought
with it Bohemia's Golden Age. Prague grew into one
of Europe's largest and most important cities, and
was ornamented with fine Gothic landmarks.
The late 14th and early 15th centuries witnessed
an influential Church-reform movement, the Hussite
Revolution, led by the Czech Jan Zizka who was inspired
by the teachings of Jan Hus. The spread of Hussitism
had threatened the Catholic status quo all over
Europe. In 1420 combined Hussite forces successfully
defended Prague against the first of a series of
anti-Hussite crusades, which had been launched by
authority of the pope. Though they were up against
larger and better-equipped forces, the Hussites
repeatedly went on the offensive and raided deep
into Germany, Poland and Austria.
In 1526 the Czech kingdom again came under control
of the Catholic Habsburgs. On 23 May 1618, the Bohemian
Estates, protesting against both the Habsburgs'
failure to deliver on promises of religious tolerance
and the loss of their own privileges, ejected two
Habsburg councilors from an upper window of Prague
Castle (they survived with minor injuries). This
famous 'defenestration' sparked off the Thirty Years'
War. The Czechs lost their rights and property,
and almost their national identity, through forced
Catholicization and Germanisation, and their fate
was sealed for the next three centuries.
In the 19th century, Bohemia and Moravia were swept
by nationalistic sentiments. The Czech lands joined
in the 1848 revolutions sweeping Europe, and Prague
was the first city in the Austrian Empire to rise
in favor of reform. The dream of an independent
state began to be realized during WW I. Eventually
Czechs and Slovaks agreed to form a single federal
state of two equal republics. The First Republic
initially experienced an industrial boom; however,
slow development, the Great Depression, an influx
of Czech bureaucrats and the breaking of a promise
of a Slovak federal state, generated calls for Slovak
autonomy.
During World War II, Czechoslovakia was not left
to solve its problems in peace. Most of Bohemia's
three million German speakers fell for the dream
of a greater Germany, Hitler demanded (and got)
the Sudetenland in the infamous Munich agreement
of 1938 and the Czechs prepared for war. Although
Bohemia and Moravia suffered little material damage
in the war, many from the Czech intelligentsia were
killed and the Germans managed to wipe out most
of the Czech underground. Tens of thousands of Czech
and Slovak Jews perished in concentration camps.
On 5 May 1945, the population of Prague rose against
the German forces as the Red Army approached from
the east. The Germans, granted free passage out
of the city by the victorious Czech resistance,
began pulling out on 8 May. Most of Prague was thus
liberated before Soviet forces arrived the following
day. |
Czechoslovakia was re-established
as an independent state. Attempts to consolidate
its cultural identity - and punish its oppressors
- included large-scale deportations of German and
Hungarian inhabitants. In the 1946 elections, the
Communists became the largest party, with 36% of
the popular vote. The 1950s was an era of harsh
repression and decline as the Communist economic
policies nearly bankrupted the country. Many people
were imprisoned, and hundreds were executed or died
in labor camps, often for little more than a belief
in democracy. In the 1960s, Czechoslovakia enjoyed
a gradual liberalization. A new president, the former
Slovak party leader Alexander Dubcek, represented
a popular desire for full democracy and an end to
censorship - 'socialism with a human face'. Soviet
leaders, unable to face the thought of a democratic
society within the Soviet bloc, crushed the short-lived
'Prague Spring' of 1968 with an invasion of Warsaw
Pact troops on the night of 20-21 August. By the
end of the next day, 58 people had died. In 1969,
Dubcek was replaced and exiled to the Slovak forestry
department. Around 14,000 party functionaries and
500,000 members who refused to renounce their belief
in 'socialism with a human face' were expelled from
the Party and lost their jobs. Totalitarian rule
was re-established and dissidents were routinely
imprisoned.
The Communist regime remained in control after the
fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989. But on 17
November things changed. Prague's Communist youth
movement organized a demonstration in memory of
nine students executed by Nazis in 1939. A peaceful
crowd of 50,000 was cornered; some 500 were beaten
by the police and about 100 arrested. The following
days saw constant demonstrations, and leading dissidents,
with Václav Havel at the forefront, formed
an anti-Communist coalition, which negotiated the
government's resignation on the 3rd of December.
The 'Government of National Understanding' was formed,
with the Communists as minority members. Havel was
elected president of the republic on 29 December
and Dubcek was elected speaker of the national assembly.
The days after the 17th of November demonstration
have been known as the 'Velvet Revolution' because
there were no casualties. (In September 1992 Dubcek
was seriously injured in a car accident near Prague,
dying of injuries on 7 November. Conspiracy theorists
have been busy ever since.)
Voices for autonomy in Slovakia were getting stronger,
and a vocal minority was demanding independence.
Finally, it was decided by prime ministers of both
republics and other leading politicians that splitting
the country was the best solution. Many people,
including President Havel, called for a referendum,
but even a petition signed by a million Czechoslovaks
was not enough for the federal parliament to agree
on how to arrange it. In the end Havel resigned
from his post, as after repeated attempts by the
new parliament he was not re-elected as president.
Thus, on 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia ceased to
exist for the second time this century. Prague became
the capital of the new Czech Republic, and Havel
was promptly elected its first president.
Today, thanks to stringent economic policies, booming
tourism and a solid industrial base, the Czech Republic
is seeing
a strong recovery. Unemployment is negligible, shops
are full and many cities are getting facelifts.
The picture is not all rosy, however: there is an
acute shortage of affordable housing, steeply rising
crime, severe pollution and a deteriorating health
system. But the newly founded democracy and its
radical economic transformation seem to be working.
|
