Czechoslovakia

"Czechoslovak" redirects here. For other uses, see Czechoslovak (disambiguation).
Czechoslovakia
Československo
Česko‑Slovensko[lower-alpha 1]
1918–1992
1939–1945: Government-in-exile
Flag from 1920 Coat of arms (1960–1990)
Motto
"Pravda vítězí / Pravda víťazí" (Czech / Slovak, 1918–1990)
"Veritas vincit" (Latin, 1990–1992)
"Truth prevails"
Anthem
Location and extent of Czechoslovakia in Europe
before and after World War II.
Capital Prague (Praha)
Languages Czech · Slovak · German · Yiddish · Ruthenian
Demonym Czechoslovak
Government Republic
President
 •  1918–1935 (first) Tomáš G. Masaryk
 • 1935–1938 · 1945–1948 Edvard Beneš
 • 1938–1939 Emil Hácha
 • 1989–1992 (last) Václav Havel
Prime Minister
 • 1918–1919 (first) Karel Kramář
 • 1992 (last) Jan Stráský
Historical era 20th century
 •  Independence 28 October 1918
 • German occupation 1939
 • Liberation 9 May 1945
 • Coup d'etat 25 February 1948
 • Velvet Revolution Nov–Dec 1989
 •  Dissolution 31 December 1992
Area
 •  1921 140,446 km² (54,227 sq mi)
 •  1992 127,900 km² (49,382 sq mi)
Population
 •  1921 est. 13,607,385 
     Density 96.9 /km²  (250.9 /sq mi)
 •  1992 est. 15,600,000 
     Density 122 /km²  (315.9 /sq mi)
Currency Czechoslovak koruna
Internet TLD .cs
Calling code +42
Preceded by 		Succeeded by
Austria-Hungary
Kingdom of Bohemia
Zakarpattia Oblast
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Today part of  Czech Republic
 Slovakia
 Ukraine
Calling code +42 was retired in the winter of 1997. The number range was subdivided and re-allocated amongst the Czech Republic (+420) and Slovakia (+421)
Current ISO 3166-3 code is "CSHH".

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia[1] /ˌtʃɛkoʊsloʊˈvækiə, -kə-, -slə-, -ˈvɑː-/[2][3] (Czech and Slovak: Československo, Česko-Slovensko)[4][5] was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.

From 1939 to 1945, following its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, the state did not de facto exist but its government-in-exile continued to operate.

From 1948 to 1990, Czechoslovakia was part of the Soviet bloc with a command economy. Its economic status was formalized in membership of Comecon from 1949, and its defence status in the Warsaw Pact of May 1955. A period of political liberalization in 1968, known as the Prague Spring, was forcibly ended when the Soviet Union, assisted by several other Warsaw Pact countries invaded. In 1989, as Marxist–Leninist governments and communism were ending all over Europe, Czechoslovaks peacefully deposed their government in the Velvet Revolution; state price controls were removed after a period of preparation. In 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the two sovereign states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Characteristics

Small coat of arms in 1918–1960
Small coat of arms in 1990–1992
Form of state
Neighbours
Topography

The country was of generally irregular terrain. The western area was part of the north-central European uplands. The eastern region was composed of the northern reaches of the Carpathian Mountains and lands of the Danube River basin.

Climate

The weather is mild winters and mild summers. Influenced by the Atlantic ocean from the west, Baltic Sea from the north, and Mediterranean Sea from the south. There is no continental weather.

Official names

See also: Hyphen War

History

Origins

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, founder and first president
Czechoslovak troops in Vladivostok (1918)
Czechoslovak declaration of independence rally in Prague on Wenceslas Square, 28 October 1918

The area was long a part of the Austro Hungarian Empire until the Empire collapsed at the end of World War I. The new state was founded by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk[7] (1850–1937), who served as its first president from 14 November 1918 to 14 December 1935. He was succeeded by his close ally, Edvard Beneš (1884–1948).

The roots of Czech nationalism go back to the 19th century, when philologists and educators, influenced by Romanticism, promoted the Czech language and pride in the Czech people. Nationalism became a mass movement in the last half of the 19th century. Taking advantage of the opportunities for limited participation in political life available under the Austrian rule, Czech leaders such as historian František Palacký (1798–1876) founded many patriotic, self-help organizations which provided a chance for many of their compatriots to participate in communal life prior to independence. Palacký supported Austroslavism and worked for a reorganized and federal Austrian Empire, which would protect the Slavic speaking peoples of Central Europe against Russian and German threats.

An advocate of democratic reform and Czech autonomy within Austria-Hungary, Masaryk was elected twice to Reichsrat (Austrian Parliament), the first time being from 1891 to 1893 in the Young Czech Party and again from 1907 to 1914 in the Czech Realist Party, which he founded in 1889 with Karel Kramář and Josef Kaizl.

During World War I small numbers of Czechs, the Czechoslovak Legions, fought with the Allies in France and Italy, while large numbers deserted to Russia in exchange for its support for the independence of Czechoslovakia from the Austrian Empire. With the outbreak of World War I, Masaryk began working for Czech independence in a union with Slovakia. With Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Masaryk visited several Western countries and won support from influential publicists.[8]

Bohemia and Moravia, under Austrian rule, were Czech-speaking industrial centres, while Slovakia, which was part of Hungary, was an undeveloped agrarian region. Conditions were much better for the development of a mass national movement in the Czech lands than in Slovakia. Nevertheless, the two regions united and created a new nation.

First Czechoslovak Republic

Formation

Czechoslovakia in 1928.

The Bohemian Kingdom ceased to exist in 1918 when it was incorporated into Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was founded in October 1918, as one of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I and as part of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It consisted of the present day territories of Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia. Its territory included some of the most industrialized regions of the former Austria-Hungary.

Ethnicity

Linguistic map of Czechoslovakia in 1930

The new country was a multi-ethnic state. The population consisted of Czechs (51%), Slovaks (16%), Germans (22%), Hungarians (5%) and Rusyns (4%).[9] Many of the Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians and Poles[10] and some Slovaks, felt oppressed because the political elite did not generally allow political autonomy for minority ethnic groups. This policy, combined with increasing Nazi propaganda especially in the industrialized German-speaking Sudetenland, led to unrest among the non-Czech population.

The state proclaimed the official ideology that there are no Czechs and Slovaks, but only one nation of Czechoslovaks (see Czechoslovakism), to the disagreement of Slovaks and other ethnic groups. Once a unified Czechoslovakia was restored after World War II (after the country had been divided during the war), the conflict between the Czechs and the Slovaks surfaced again. The governments of Czechoslovakia and other eastern European nations deported ethnic Germans to the West, reducing the presence of minorities in the nation. Most of the Jews had been killed during the war by the Nazis and their allies.

Ethnicities of Czechoslovakia in 1921[11]

Czechoslovaks 8,759,701 64.37%
Germans 3,123,305 22.95%
Hungarians 744,621 5.47%
Ruthenians 461,449 3.39%
Jews 180,534 1.33%
Poles 75,852 0.56%
Others 23,139 0.17%
Foreigners 238,784 1.75%
Total population 13,607,385

Ethnicities of Czechoslovakia in 1930[12]

Czechoslovaks 10,066,000 68.35%
Germans 3,229,000 21.93%
Ruthenians 745,000 5.06%
Hungarians 653,000 4.43%
Jews* 354,000 2.40%
Poles 76,000 0.52%
Romanians 14,000 0.10%
Foreigners 239,000 1.62%
Total population 14,726,158

*Jews proclaimed themselves even as Germans or Hungarians (and Jews only by religion not ethnicity), the sum is, therefore, more than 100%.

Interwar period

During the period between the two world wars, democracy thrived in Czechoslovakia. Of all the new states established in central Europe after 1918, only Czechoslovakia preserved a democratic government until the war broke out. The persistence of democracy suggests that Czechoslovakia was better prepared to maintain democracy than were other countries in the region. Thus, despite regional disparities, its level of development was much higher than that of neighboring states. The population was generally literate, and contained fewer alienated groups. The influence of these conditions was augmented by the political values of Czechoslovakia's leaders and the policies they adopted. Under Tomas Masaryk, Czech and Slovak politicians promoted progressive social and economic conditions that served to defuse discontent.

Foreign minister Beneš became the prime architect of the Czechoslovak-Romanian-Yugoslav alliance (the "Little Entente", 1921–38) directed against Hungarian attempts to reclaim lost areas. Beneš worked closely with France. Far more dangerous was the German element, which after 1933 became allied with the Nazis in Germany. The increasing feeling of inferiority among the Slovaks, who were hostile to the more numerous Czechs, weakened the country in the late 1930s. Many Slovaks supported an extreme nationalist movement and welcomed the puppet Slovak state set up under Hitler's control in 1939.

After 1933, Czechoslovakia remained the only democracy in central and eastern Europe.

The partition of Czechoslovakia after Munich Agreement

Munich Agreement and German occupation

The car in which Reinhard Heydrich was killed
Territory of the Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–1939)

In 1938, Adolf Hitler demanded control of the Sudetenland. Britain and France ceded control in the Appeasement at the Munich Conference, ignoring the military alliance Czechoslovakia had with France. First, in October 1938, Nazi Germany occupied and annexed the Sudetenland border region. In March 1939, the remainder ("rump") of Czechoslovakia was invaded and divided into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the puppet Slovak State. Much of Slovakia and all of Carpathian Ruthenia were annexed by Hungary. Poland occupied Zaolzie, an area whose population was majority Polish, in October 1938.

The eventual goal of the German state under Nazi leadership was to eradicate Czech nationality through assimilation, deportation, and extermination of the Czech intelligentsia; the intellectual elites and middle class made up a considerable number of the 200,000 people who passed through concentration camps and the 250,000 who died during German occupation.[13] Under Generalplan Ost, it was assumed that around 50% Czechs would be fit for Germanization. The Czech intellectual elites were to be removed not only from Czech territories but from Europe completely. The authors of Generalplan Ost believed it would be best if they emigrated overseas, as even in Siberia they were considered a threat to German rule. Just like Jews, Poles, Serbs, and several other nations, Czechs were considered to be untermenschen by the Nazi state.[14] In 1940, in a secret Nazi plan for the Germanization of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia it was declared that those considered to be of racially Mongoloid origin and the Czech intelligentsia were not to be Germanized and about half of the Czech population were suitable for Germanization.[15]

The deportation of Jews to concentration camps was organized under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich, and the fortress town of Terezín was made into a ghetto way station for Jewish families. On 4 June 1942 Heydrich died after being wounded by an assassin in Operation Anthropoid. Heydrich's successor, Colonel General Kurt Daluege, ordered mass arrests and executions and the destruction of the villages of Lidice and Ležáky. In 1943 the German war effort was accelerated. Under the authority of Karl Hermann Frank, German minister of state for Bohemia and Moravia, some 350,000 Czech labourers were dispatched to the Reich. Within the protectorate, all non-war-related industry was prohibited. Most of the Czech population obeyed quiescently up until the final months preceding the end of the war, while thousands were involved in the resistance movement.

For the Czechs of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, German occupation was a period of brutal oppression. Czech losses resulting from political persecution and deaths in concentration camps totaled between 36,000 and 55,000. The Jewish population of Bohemia and Moravia (118,000 according to the 1930 census) was virtually annihilated. Many Jews emigrated after 1939; more than 70,000 were killed; 8,000 survived at Terezín. Several thousand Jews managed to live in freedom or in hiding throughout the occupation.

Despite the estimated 136,000 deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime, the population in the Reichsprotektorate saw a net increase during the war years of approximately 250,000 in line with an increased birth rate.[16]

On 3 May 1945, the third US Army of General Patton entered Pilsen from the south west. On 9 May 1945, Soviet Red Army troops entered Prague.

Communist Czechoslovakia

Spartakiad in 1960

After World War II, pre-war Czechoslovakia was re-established, with the exception of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, which was annexed by the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Beneš decrees were promulgated concerning ethnic Germans (see Potsdam Agreement) and ethnic Hungarians. Under the decrees, citizenship was abrogated for people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin, who had accepted German or Hungarian citizenship during the occupations. In 1948, this provision was cancelled for the Hungarians, but only partially for the Germans. The government then confiscated the property of the Germans and expelled about 90% of the ethnic German population, over 2 million people. Those who remained were collectively accused of supporting the Nazis after the Munich Agreement, as 97.32% of Sudeten Germans voted for the NSDAP in the December 1938 elections. Almost every decree explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to antifascists. Some 250,000 Germans, many married to Czechs, some antifascists, and also those required for the post-war reconstruction of the country, remained in Czechoslovakia. The Beneš Decrees still causes controversy among nationalist groups in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Hungary.[17]

Carpathian Ruthenia (Podkarpatská Rus) was occupied by (and in June 1945 formally ceded to) the Soviet Union. In the 1946 parliamentary election, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was the winner in the Czech lands, and the Democratic Party won in Slovakia. In February 1948 the Communists seized power. Although they would maintain the fiction of political pluralism through the existence of the National Front, except for a short period in the late 1960s (the Prague Spring) the country was characterized by the absence of liberal democracy. Since citizens lacked significant electoral methods of registering protest against government policies, periodically there were street protests that became violent. Such was the case in the town of Plzeň, where riots occurred in 1953, reflecting economic discontent. Police and army units put down the rebellion, and hundreds were injured but no one was killed. While its economy remained more advanced than those of its neighbours in Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia grew increasingly economically weak relative to Western Europe.

Czechoslovakia after 1969

In 1968, when the reformer Alexander Dubček was appointed to the key post of First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, there was a brief period of liberalization known as the Prague Spring. In response, after failing to persuade the Czechoslovak leaders to change course, five other Eastern Bloc members of the Warsaw Pact invaded. Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia on the night of 20–21 August 1968.[18] The General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev viewed this intervention as vital to the preservation of the Soviet, socialist system and vowed to intervene in any state that sought to replace Marxism-Leninism with capitalism.[19] In the week after the invasion there was a spontaneous campaign of civil resistance against the occupation. This resistance involved a wide range of acts of non-cooperation and defiance: this was followed by a period in which the Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership, having been forced in Moscow to make concessions to the Soviet Union, gradually put the brakes on their earlier liberal policies.[20] In April 1969 Dubček was finally dismissed from the First Secretaryship of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Meanwhile, one plank of the reform programme had been carried out: in 1968-9, Czechoslovakia was turned into a federation of the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovak Socialist Republic. The theory was that under the federation, social and economic inequities between the Czech and Slovak halves of the state would be largely eliminated. A number of ministries, such as education, now became two formally equal bodies in the two formally equal republics. However, the centralised political control by the Czechoslovak Communist Party severely limited the effects of federalisation.

The 1970s saw the rise of the dissident movement in Czechoslovakia, represented among others by Václav Havel. The movement sought greater political participation and expression in the face of official disapproval, manifested in limitations on work activities, which went as far as a ban on professional employment, the refusal of higher education for the dissidents' children, police harassment and prison.

After 1989

The Visegrád Group signing ceremony in February 1991

In 1989, the Velvet Revolution restored democracy. This occurred at around the same time as the fall of communism in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland. Within three years communist rule was extirpated from Europe.

Unlike Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the end of communism in this country did not automatically mean the end of the "communist" name: the word "socialist" was removed from the name on 29 March 1990 and replaced by "federal".

In 1992, because of growing nationalist tensions in the government, Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved by parliament. On 1 January 1993 it formally separated into two independent countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Heads of state and government

Foreign policy

International agreements and membership

In the 1930s, the nation formed a military alliance with France and Great Britain, which collapsed in the Munich Agreement of 1938. After World War II, active participant in Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), Warsaw Pact, United Nations and its specialized agencies; signatory of conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.[21]

Administrative divisions

Population and ethnic groups

Politics

After World War II, a political monopoly was held by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). Gustáv Husák was elected first secretary of the KSČ in 1969 (changed to general secretary in 1971) and president of Czechoslovakia in 1975. Other parties and organizations existed but functioned in subordinate roles to the KSČ. All political parties, as well as numerous mass organizations, were grouped under umbrella of the National Front. Human rights activists and religious activists were severely repressed.

Constitutional development

Czechoslovakia had the following constitutions during its history (1918–1992):

Economy

Before World War II, the economy was about the fourth in industrial states in Europe. The state was based on strong economy, manufacturing cars (Škoda, Tatra), streetcars (trolleys), aeroplanes, ships, ship engines (Škoda), canons, shoes (Baťa), turbines. It was the industrial workshop for Austro-Hungarian empire. The Slovak lands were more in agriculture.

After World War II, the economy was centrally planned, with command links controlled by the communist party, similarly to the Soviet Union. The large metallurgical industry was dependent on imports of iron and non-ferrous ores.

Resource base

After World War II, the country was short of energy, relying on imported crude oil and natural gas from Soviet Union, domestic brown coal, and nuclear and hydroelectric energy. Energy constraints were a major factor in the 1980s.

Transport and communications

Society

Education

Education was free at all levels and compulsory from age 6 to 15. The vast majority of the population was literate. There was a highly developed system of apprenticeship training and vocational schools supplemented general secondary schools and institutions of higher education.

Religion

In 1991: Roman Catholics 46%, Evangelical Lutheran 5.3%, Atheist 30%, n/a 17%, but there were huge differences in religious practices between the two constituent republics; see Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Health, social welfare and housing

After World War II, free health care was available to all citizens. National health planning emphasised preventive medicine; factory and local health care centres supplemented hospitals and other inpatient institutions. There was substantial improvement in rural health care during the 1960s and 1970s.

Mass media

During Communist rule, the mass media in Czechoslovakia were controlled by the Communist Party. Private ownership of any publication or agency of the mass media was generally forbidden, although churches and other organizations published small periodicals and newspapers. Even with this information monopoly in the hands of organizations under KSČ control, all publications were reviewed by the government's Office for Press and Information.

Sports

The Czechoslovakia national football team was a consistent performer on the international scene, with eight appearances in the FIFA World Cup Finals, finishing in second place in 1934 and 1962. The team also won the European Football Championship in 1976, came in third in 1980 and won the Olympic gold in 1980.

The International Olympic Committee code for Czechoslovakia is TCH, which is still used in historical listings of results.

The Czechoslovak national ice hockey team won many medals from the world championships and Olympic Games. Peter Šťastný, Jaromír Jágr, Dominik Hašek, Peter Bondra, Petr Klíma, Marián Gáborík, and Pavol Demitra all come from Czechoslovakia.

Emil Zátopek, winner of four Olympic gold medals in athletics, is considered one of the top athletes in history.

Věra Čáslavská was an Olympic gold medallist in gymnastics, winning seven gold medals and four silver medals. She represented Czechoslovakia in three consecutive Olympics.

The famous tennis players Ivan Lendl, Miloslav Mečíř, Hana Mandlíková, Martina Hingis, Martina Navratilova and Daniela Hantuchová were born in Czechoslovakia.

Culture

Postage stamps

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In other recognized languages of Czechoslovakia:
    *Template:Lang-ide
    *Yiddish: טשעכאסלאוואקיי Tshekhaslavakey‎

References

  1. ↑ "THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.".
  2. ↑ Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0
  3. ↑ Roach, Peter (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-15253-2
  4. ↑ "Ján Kačala: Máme nový názov federatívnej republiky (The New Name of the Federal Republic), In: Kultúra Slova (official publication of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Ľudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics) 6/1990 pp. 192–197" (PDF).
  5. ↑ Czech pronunciation: [ˈtʃɛskoslovɛnsko], Slovak pronunciation: [ˈtʃeskosloʋensko].
  6. ↑ Votruba, Martin. "Czecho-Slovakia or Czechoslovakia". Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Archived from the original on 15 October 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
  7. ↑ Czechs Celebrate Republic's Birth, 1933/11/06 (1933). Universal Newsreel. 1933. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
  8. ↑ Z. A. B. Zeman, The Masaryks: The Making of Czechoslovakia (1976)
  9. ↑ "The War of the World", Niall Ferguson Allen Lane 2006.
  10. ↑ Playing the blame game at the Wayback Machine (archived 30 June 2008), Prague Post, 6 July 2005
  11. ↑ Škorpila F. B.; Zeměpisný atlas pro měšťanské školy; Státní Nakladatelství; second edition; 1930; Czechoslovakia
  12. ↑ http://rozhledy2010.blogspot.sk/2011/04/ceskoslovensko-1930-scitani2.html
  13. ↑ Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800–1945), Walter Rüegg Cambridge University Press (28 October 2004), page 353
  14. ↑ "HITLER'S PLANS FOR EASTERN EUROPE Selections from Janusz Gumkowski and Kazimierz Leszczynski POLAND UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION". Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  15. ↑ "Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression Volume I Chapter XIII Germanization & Spoliation Czechoslovakia".
  16. ↑ "Vaclav Havel – A Political Tragedy in 6 Acts" by John Keane, published 2000, page 54
  17. ↑ East European Constitutional Review Archived 15 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  18. ↑ "Russia Invades Czechoslovakia: 1968 Year in Review, UPI.com" Archived 31 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  19. ↑ John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: The Penguin Press), 150.
  20. ↑ Philip WIndsor and Adam Roberts, Czechoslovakia 1968: Reform, Repression and Resistance (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969), pp. 97–143.
  21. ↑ Ladislav Cabada and Sarka Waisova, Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in World Politics (Lexington Books; 2012)

Sources

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Czechoslovakia.
Wikisource has the text of the 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article Czechoslovakia.

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