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:	post by deadlikemurf at 2008-03-09 18:19:05

The first inhabitants of the Czech lands were prehistoric fish. That's because the country, at the time, was covered by a prehistoric ocean - thanks to which it is possible to find some very nice fossils of trilobytes in the Czech Republic today.

Today's Czech Republic was later populated by dinosaurs of all sorts, and later by neanderthals and even by mammoths. The prehistoric settlement of the present-day Czech Republic by people culminated in the fourth century B.C. with the arrival of the Celts, the first modern human inhabitants of this territory that we know of. In fact, the Latin name for the Czech lands, "Boiohaemum" (Bohemia), is derived from the name of the Boii Celtic tribe; and the Czech name for the Moldau River (which flows through the capital city of Prague) is Vltava - which is said to come from the Celtic "Vlt" meaning wild, and "Va" meaning water.

The Czech Celts were in part chased out of the region and in part assimilated by the next peoples to inhabit the area: the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi tribes from the west and the Romans from the south. (The Romans didn't actually occupy Czech territory - they only got as far north as the Danube River, which flows from Germany - through Austria along its border with Slovakia - and then over to Hungary before continuing on to Yugoslavia, and so just misses the Czech lands.) During the Migration of Peoples - roughly from the 3d to the 7th centuries AD - Slav colonization spread westward from the Steppes of the East (probably from Panonia) all the way to the territory of the present-day Czech Republic and up to Poland and down again to Yugoslavia. From probably the sixth century AD on, the Slavic peoples settled, in several waves of migration, into the regions which had been conveniently abandoned by the Germanic tribes.

This is the way that it all came to be - according to popular Czech legend: Once upon a time there were three brothers: Czech, Lech and Rus. One day, they decided to find a new place to live, and so they and their tribes set out on a journey. They got as far as the Dnieper River when Rus said, "This is the place for me and my tribe!" and there the Russians stayed. Czech (who is known as "Praotec Cech," or Ancestor Czech in these parts) and Lech continued. Soon, they came upon a rich land overflowing with milk and honey and Czech climbed to the top of Rip hill in Bohemia and decided that this was the place for him and for his tribe. Lech and his people continued their journey and settled in present-day Poland. Other versions of the legend have 7 brothers in all, with the addition of other Slav nations like the Croats (who have a similar legend about 7 wandering brothers) and some others whose names are not remembered anymore. One modern interpretation of the story has the Czechs spending some time in Greece before finally heading north and settling, and this would actually conveniently explain the similarities between certain Czech legends (like that of Bruncvik's odyssey or of Sarka and her band of women warriors) with Greek ones.

Czech legend goes on to say that Cech's people were happy in the Czech lands, and after a few generations and some time had passed, the Slavs of Bohemia had a new leader - a guy by the name of Krok, who lived at Vysehrad (which means "high castle" and is today the site of the Czech National Cemetery). Probably the most important thing about Krok were his three very beautiful daughters, who were named Kazi, Teta and Libuse. The last of these, Libuse, had special powers which allowed her to see the future (Kazi, the oldest, was a healer who knew the secrets of the plants and herbs, while Teta was high priestess).
Libuse's talent came in particularly handy when it came time for her to marry. According to legend, she inherited rule over the Czech tribes from her father, Krok. As ruler of the lands, she was also the highest 'court of appeal' for disputes among the people. It is said that a guy who did not like one of her decisions as judge started a stink about the fact that the Czechs were ruled by a woman. And so Libuse had a vision - and sent her white horse, accompanied by a group of her subjects - to go out and find a guy ploughing in his field. After a journey of some days, the horse and the humans did indeed come upon just such a man (and nobody seemed surprised at all at this - neither the humans nor the horse nor even the man himself) and Przemysl Ploughman (Premysl Orac in Czech) came to Vysehrad and married Libuse and took over the job of ruling the unruly Czechs and he and Libuse together started the Przemyslid Dynasty, which ruled over the Czech lands till the 14th century.

One day, not long after the wedding, Libuse had a vision in which she foretold of the glory of the Czech capital. Standing atop Vysehrad hill, she went into a trance and told her vision to the people even as the gods sent it to her. She said that on the seven hills of Prague a fair city would grow, the fame of which would rise to the very stars. And all that she saw and all of which she foretold really came true. Of course!

Now, while Cech and Libuse are the stuff of imaginative Czech legend, it is believed that Samo - who may or may not have ruled this part of the world in the first half of the seventh century AD - was probably a real person. It's hard to tell, though, since nobody is sure of minor details like where Samo was from, where Samo lived, or where Samo ruled - if, that is, he existed at all. If he did, he is thought to have been a Frankish merchant who placed himself on the side of the Slavs against the wicked Avar tribes of Hungary. He is mentioned in early chronicles, where his address is given as Wogastisburg Fortress. Nobody today knows where this Wogastisburg Fortress was - but it's believed by Czechs to have stood on Rubin hill in Bohemia.

Wherever Samo's home base really was, his rule seems to represent the first successful attempt at uniting the Slavic tribes - and since the Slavs are not exactly known for their brotherly love for one another (then again, who in Europe is?), this was quite a feat. The reason for this unification under Samo was, predictably, quite pragmatic. The Slavic tribes cooperated in order to withstand attacks by the Avars, a powerful Asian tribe whose home was on the plains of Hungary.

At some point, Charlemagne joined in the battle against the Avars in this part of the world, cooperating either with Samo or with the state structure that came after him - the Great Moravian Empire.

Again, reports on the Great Moravian Empire are fuzzy. According to period chronicles, the people living along the Morava River at the time were already known as "Moravians," and their short-lived empire existed "somewhere" between today's Slovakia and Germany, and Poland and Austria (that is, somewhere in today's Czech Republic) in the 8th and/or 9th century. Just like Wogastisburg Fortress, it's claimed to have stood in different places by all the people who live in those different places.

At some time during the ninth century, Greater Moravia was ruled by the Moravian prince Svatopluk and had grown to include today's South Moravia, the southernmost bits of present-day Poland and Silesia, the western part of Hungary and, for a short time, the whole of Bohemia. Perhaps the most important thing about the Great Moravians is that theirs was the first legal sort of state structure in the area to accept Christianity, and the cultural development of the Greater Moravian Empire is inseparably linked to the spread of the eastern Byzantine liturgy of Sts Cyril and Methodius, who came to these parts in 863. They were invited by the Moravians - who were interested in Christianity but couldn't understand the language in which it was preached at the time. Cyril and Methodius were chosen for the mission because they understood and were able to speak in the Slavic tongue (again lending weight to the theory that the Slavs of these parts had not long before been spending some time in Greece).

Some buildings from around about this time still stand - mostly Romanesque basilicas like the one on Rip Hill (the very hill that Great-Granddad Czech liked so much!), at Vysehrad, in Prague's Old Town, and at other places. It was Cyril and Methodius, too, who brought the written word to the region (the Cyrillic alphabet is named for Cyril even though his real name was not Cyril but Constantine). The beginning of a written Slavic language was to be of enormous importance to Slavic nations in the Middle Ages. On the downside, the introduction of Christianity to this territory was so overwhelmingly successful that we know very little today about the pre-Christian religion of the pagan Slavs.

The Greater Moravian Empire disintegrated thanks to the Hungarian invasion of 903 or 904 and political intrigue in the early days of the Holy Roman Empire. After that, the Slavic mission in Moravia - which had been established by the missionaries Cyril and Methodius - collapsed, and the population reverted to tribal conditions. The Christian heritage of the Greater Moravian Empire, however, was to be preserved with the ascent of the Przemyslid dynasty to the throne of Bohemia.

The rise and fall of the Przemyslid Dynasty
With the Great Moravian Empire out of the way, the Przemyslid family succeeded in laying the foundations of a Czech state somewhere around the the end of the ninth century. They did this mostly by ridding themselves of all of the things that were standing in their way, like the Vrsovic and Slavnik clans - which the Przemyslids murdered in a particularly bloody manner. The only Vrsovec to escape the massacre of his family was Adalbert, but it didn't do him much good. Adalbert was so thankful for his salvation that he became a Christian missionary and headed northwest (to the area of today's northeast Germany) to spread the Word. No sooner did he arrive at his destination than he was brutally roasted and eaten by the inhabitants. Adalbert (or Vojtech, as he is known in Czech) is another of the Czech nation's patron saints today.

But Vojtech was not the only early Czech guy to be made a saint thanks to the Przemyslid's bloodthirstiness. On the contrary - the Przemyslid rulers were rather a mixed bag, and when they ran out of rival clans to murder, they started murdering each other - resulting in some more early saints for the Czechs.

Wenceslas I, the fourth Przemyslid Czech ruler, was made a saint soon after his murder in 929 or 935. This Wenceslas (in Czech, Vaclav) is the Good King Wenceslas of the Christmas carol, and it was during his reign that the Czech lands entered into an alliance with Saxony, thereby laying the foundations for closer relations with the restored Roman Empire.

This mischievous affability on Wenceslas' part towards the Czechs' western neighbors is a main reason that he was killed by his brother, who wasn't very good (in fact he is known as "Boleslav the Cruel.") Another reason might be that Boleslav was a pagan, and he felt that Wenceslas was frittering away too much time with this new Christian fashion he'd picked up -- though lust for power probably also played a role in Boleslav's motive for the murder, which took place at the very door of the church in Stara Boleslav, where Wenceslas was trying to seek refuge.

Incidentally, Boleslav and Wenceslas' Grandmother (on their father's side) was also murdered, and also made a saint. It is said that she was either smothered to death with a pillow or choked to death - this time, the killer was her daughter-in-law (Boleslav and Wenceslas' mother), and the motive was, again, power (Drahomira wanted to place Wenceslas on the throne.)

Things didn't get much better within the Przemyslid family, it is suspected that . Interestingly enough, the Przemyslids are remembered rather fondly in the Czech Republic today, as it seems that most people are blissfully unaware of the family's murderous streak.

Maybe that is because the Przemyslids occasionally took time off from their favorite sport to increase Bohemia's power and prestige. In typical early feudal fashion, this meant that they went out killing people in other countries instead, expanding their empire to Moravia and Silesia, as well as the upper reaches of the river Vistula and parts of western Slovakia. In Moravia, they set up a system of dukedoms, with the office of "Margrave" (ruler of Moravia) sometimes being held by the Bohemian Dauphin, sometimes by a rival for the Bohemian throne. In this way the Przemyslide dynastic killings were stayed, and both Bohemia and Moravia came to be regarded as hereditary lands of the Przemyslid dynasty. All the while, the expansion of the Przemyslid Dynasty's power went hand in hand with the spread of Christianity in the region.

This growing Przemyslide state maintained its sovereignty, though it formally recognized the feudal supremacy of the Roman-German Empire. The Czech lands ranked among the most advanced of the European feudal states, being at the forefront of economic power and cultural achievement at the time. In keeping with this growing importance, the territory was officially recognized through the granting of a royal crown to the Przemyslid Dynasty in the eleventh century (it was made hereditary in 1212 by the Golden Sicilian Bull) and the granting of the title of 'emperor' for Czech rulers.

The 1100s and 1200s were a very busy time in this part of Europe, and colonization, trade and cultural activity were steadily on the increase. Prague, which lay smack dab in the middle of several continental trade routes, flourished. Prague's Old Town was founded in 1234 as the first of Prague's five towns, and the Lesser Quarter was founded in 1257. Border forests were settled and towns and fortresses were founded and fortified. These sweeping changes literally transformed the country, and in keeping with these physical changes, the social structure of the territory also evolved. From about this time, aristocrats, burghers, and serfs were to be spotted in the Czech lands - as were German settlers, who were invited to colonize previously uninhabited (mostly border) regions of Bohemia and Moravia. The German settlers, whether burghers or peasants, did not form a homogeneous or politically separate group, and they soon became part of the local community, identifying with Czech statehood and sharing in the development of the Czech and Moravian lands as fully enfranchised members of the population, but mostly but keeping their native language (in addition to learning Czech.) Many, many, many, many centuries later, the places that they settled would come to be known as the "Sudetenland."

From the thirteenth century, the Czech kingdom was one of the most robust states in all of Europe, with a growing population and a vigorous economy. This, in turn, made the Czech nobility and rulers all the more rich and powerful, and enabled king Przemysl Otakar II to expand his territory rather extensively (if briefly). Otakar II was quite well-known in his time, and he even makes an appearance in Dante's Divine Comedy. Otokar II, also known as the "King of Gold and Iron" (because of his considerable wealth and his considerable military might) defeated the armies of the Hungarian king in 1256 and again in 1260. This military victory allowed him to annex the Alpine countries (today's Austria and beyond) - extending his territories all the way to the Adriatic Sea. Some people claim that this brief period - in which Bohemia controlled territory bordering on the sea - is the basis for Shakespeare's infamous 'Bohemian seacoast' from his play, "The Tempest."

Well, while the Czech lands were gaining power, prestige, oceanfront property and other things, a powerful rival appeared in Germany in the person of the newly-elected ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Rudolf Habsburg - a member of a previously unimportant family from the Rhineland. This Rudolf formed an alliance of German princes and - after the Czech King Przemysl Otakar II was killed in battle in Moravia against the combined Roman and Hungarian forces on August 26, 1278 - Rudolf took possession of the abovementioned Alpine lands, which later became the basis of the Habsburgs' power - ie Austria.

The late Czech King Przemysl Otakar II was succeeded by his son, Wenceslas II (1278-1305). Under his reign, the mining of Czech silver at Kutna Hora and the minting of the Czech silver groschen - one of the hardest European currencies of the time - flourished. Wenceslas II also created a confederation between Bohemia and Poland. For a short time, Hungary - under the rule of Matthias Czak Trenciansky, who held absolute rule over most of Slovakia as well - also joined this confederation.

The Polish-Czech union was strengthened under the brief rule of Wenceslas III. Had it survived, it might have contributed to the creation of a more advanced region in Europe as the earlier Czech- Austrian union had. However, this was precluded by the death of young Wenceslas III (in 1306, when he was just 17 years old). Wenceslas III was the last male member of the Przemyslids line, and after his death the Czech-Polish union fell apart.

The Luxembourg Dynasty and
King Charles IV

With the demise of Wenceslas III, the last of the Przemyslid rulers of the Czech lands, the difficult question of who should rule next had to be answered. And answered it was - by 14-year-old John of Luxembourg, the first of the Luxembourgs to occupy the Czech throne (1310-1437). John of Luxembourg gained this position with the support of the Czech nobility by marrying 18-year-old Eliska Przemyslova, the sister of the late Wenceslas III.

Under John of Luxembourg's rule, more territories - including the regions of Cheb, Lusatia and Silesia - were joined to Bohemia. All of these regions together, under the rule of John of Luxembourg, came to be known as the "Lands of the Czech Crown." So you see, there never was an easy "one-word" way (like 'Czechia') to describe this part of the world, not even in way back in the 14th century.

John of Luxembourg was a good king, but he had a fatal weakness for chivalry, knighthood, honour - and especially, for battles. He loved to fight. When there weren't any battles in his immediate neighborhood, he went abroad to help his friends fight their battles. And so it happened that he fell at the battle of Crecy in 1346, fighting on the side of his French friend and distant relative Charles, against the Black Prince. And so he was succeeded by his young son, Charles IV.

Charles IV was just as noble - but much more practical than his caravanting father had been, and he took a keen interest in all aspects of rule over the Czech lands. Charles IV was not really named Charles. He was named Wenceslas IV - but he had been reared at the French court, and everyone there called him Charles, and so the name stuck. (His son, who succeeded him on the Czech throne, was also named Wenceslas IV, and this sometimes leads to some confusion.) When Charles IV came to power, he was still very young. Since he'd been raised in France, he didn't speak Czech. Wicked advisors surrounded the young king, and attempted to usurp the real rule of Bohemia while leaving young Charles IV in place as a figurehead.

Charles IV may have been young, but he was no dummy. He spoke 5 languages fluently (at a time when many crowned heads could not even read and write), and he was a masterful diplomat. He also had friends in high places - Pope Klement, who was elected during Charles IV's reign, had been the Czech sovereign's tutor at the court in Paris.

Young Charles IV saw through the transparent plans of the wicked advisors who surrounded him. He quickly learned Czech, and took over rule of his own land himself.

Charles IV was very clever, very devout, and very savvy. He was also a lover of art and a collector of holy relics (which he kept under lock and key all year long except for Easter, when he paraded them through the country like a travelling circus).

The medieval Czech state reached the zenith of its power and importance Charles IV. He was the King of Bohemia, later also Holy Roman Emperor, and today he is known as the Father of the Czech Nation.

Charles was a very good king, and he paid attention to detail. It was he who made sure that the status of the "Lands of the Czech Crown" - the territories his father had gathered together under his rule - was legally fixed (this task was made all the easier since he was Holy Roman Emperor). He initiated a number of building projects in his reign, especially in Prague. It was at his behest that Charles Bridge and St. Vitus' Cathedral were built, and the "Hunger Wall" that he commissioned (remnants of which still stand today on Petrin Hill in Prague) is thought to be the first works-project in the world, as he had it built to create employment for the poor and hungry masses (hence the name). Charles IV personally planned Prague's "New Town" district, where Charles Square - which is also named for him - lies. Karlstejn Castle and Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) are also named for Charles IV.

Many of the building projects initiated by Charles IV still stand, and most are perfect examples of the Gothic style of architecture, which is characterized by clean simple lines and solid structure - like the Charles Bridge and its towers, the Carolinum, or the Old-New Synagogue.

Charles IV also founded Charles University, the first center of higher education in all of Central Europe. During his reign, Prague was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire (a gilded sign on the Old Town Hall still proclaims "Praga Caput Regni" today), and he successfully lobbied to have the Prague bishopric made an archbishopric (this task was actually quite easy, as the privelege was granted him by his former tutor, now the Pope.)

It was Charles IV, too, who brought the cultivation of the grape and the wine industry to the beer-drinking Czech lands. That isn't to say that he neglected the beer industry - under his reign, stiff prison sentences were meted out to those caught exporting cuttings of prize Czech hops - essential to the brewing of great Czech beer - abroad.

Charles IV had no fewer than four wives, and any number of progeny, both legitimate and il. Of these, his oldest legitimate son, Vaclav IV, was naturally chosen as his successor.

The Hussite Era
Wenceslas IV (1378-1419), son of Charles IV and heir to the Czech and Roman crowns, was a weak and ineffective ruler. He was also mean, a drunk, and wildly unpopular. He was imprisoned twice during his reign. Had times been different, this may not have mattered much. As luck would have it, however, he became king during a particularly turbulent time in Czech history.

Unfortunately, Wenceslas IV was much more interested in drinking than in ruling. He was terribly spoiled, and even as an adult he would throw fits when people didn't do exactly as he wished them to. He is remembered by history today in two ways: sometimes as a wishy- washy, good-for-nothing drunkard, and sometimes as a benefactor of the common man. The way in which this latter reputation was earned is usually explained in this way: Wenceslas IV used to go around Prague dressed as a commoner. He would go to pubs and shops this way, and whenever he found a merchant giving the public short measures, he would punish them by having them thrown off Charles Bridge into the river to drown. If this legend is based on fact, then it is probably likely that Wenceslas IV pursued this hobby not so much to help the common man, but rather from the pleasure he derived from having people thrown into the river.

Probably the most famous person Wenceslas IV had thrown into the river was an insignificant court clerk by name of John of Pomuk. During the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church recovered the story of John of Pomuk's death and entirely overhauled it - making John's name John of Nepomuk, making his job the confessor to the Queen (instead of an office clerk), and making the reason for his execution the "fact" that John refused to divulge the Queen's secrets - told in Confession - to the king. John of Nepumuk was eventually made a saint on the basis of this story, but the Vatican rescinded the decision in 1961, explaining that testimony of his miracles and other evidence of his deeds was "fishy."

It's hard to say what the common people of the time really thought of Wenceslas IV, as common people don't usually have much of a say in the writing of history. It is known that he was wildly unpopular with the nobility, who had him imprisoned not once but several times during his reign.

He wasn't exactly revered by his brother, Sigismund, either. Even as the careless blood of his grandfather, John of Luxembourg, coursed through Vaclav IV's veins - so did the power-hungry blood of the early Przemyslide rulers flow freely through the arteries of Sigismund. In short, he wanted to be king, and it was he who was behind at least one of the conspiracies to imprison King Vaclav IV.

While this court intrigue was going on, things couldn't really have been all that good for the common man, else he'd not have been spending much of his leisure time listening to the rabble-rousing preachers who started travelling around the country at this time, full of criticism for the excesses of the Catholic Church.

One such religious reformer was to play a pivotal (though posthumous) role in deciding the country's fate for the next several hundred years.

Jan Hus had been greatly influenced by the writings of John Wycliffe, and he began conducting his sermons at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague in Czech rather than in Latin, so that the common man could understand them. He also advocated the giving of communion in both species, and was critical of the church for its excessive policies - of amassing wealth, selling indulgences, and allowing the rich to tithe their way out of even mortal sins.

Even as these ideas were gaining popularity in the Czech lands, they were becoming most wildly unpopular in other areas of the Holy Roman Empire (especially the Vatican.) This led to the burning of Master Jan Hus at the stake at the Council at Constance on July 6, 1415 when he refused to recant his words and despite that he had letter of safe conduct from Wenceslas IV's brother, Sigismund).

The brutal killing of Jan Hus only served to incense and unite his followers, who came to be known as the Hussites.

The Hussites were highly critical of the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, and, in the Four Articles of Prague, they demanded that 1) all believers be permitted to receive Communion in both species; 2) all mortal and public sins be punished equally, regardless of the sinner's status 3) the Word of God be freely preached; and 4) the clergy give up their worldly wealth.

This situation culminated in 1419 with the First Defenestration of Prague, in which Hussites threw 7 members of the Czech Town Council out of Prague's New Town Hall window -- and to their deaths on the points of Hussite-weilded pikes below. To make the situation more interesting, King Wenceslas IV had an apopleptic fit and died of a heart attack upon learning of the defenestration.

But even after the death of his brother, Wenceslas IV, King Sigismund of Luxembourg, who also inherited the title of Holy Roman Emperor never really got to be king of Bohemia. The situation with the Hussites had gone too far, and he spent the rest of his life fighting them in the hopes of taking control of the throne he'd inherited from his brother. When his initial attempts to do this met with failure, he beseeched the Pope to send help.

The mighty Hussites, led by the one-eyed military genius, Jan Zizka, defeated five waves of crusaders in a row: in 1420, 1421, 1422, 1427, and in 1437.

Actually, the fifth army of crusaders sent to battle the Hussites turned tail and fled before even catching sight of the famed warriors - because they were so terrified at hearing the refrain of the terrible Hussite battle song, "Ye Warriors of God." It was either that, or maybe just that the warriors didn't sing very well.

Well, in addition to fear-inspiring songs and the other tricks the Hussites had up their sleeves, they also had the thing that matters most - conviction that their cause was the Just one. Their symbol was the chalice and their motto, "Truth Prevails." (this motto was later used by the first President of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, as well as by a later President of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel - during the Velvet Revolution).

Well, despite this and despite their brilliant military successes, all was not well within the Hussite movement itself. From the very start, the Hussite movement had been divided into factions - the most prominent division was along economic lines.

A number of peasant Hussites were nothing more than hooligans at best - terrorists at worst - who joined the cause only so that they could have a good excuse to go around robbing churches and setting them aflame with Catholics inside. These practices were considered to be rather in poor taste by the aristocratic Hussites. Over time, the movement splintered even more - even spawning an early nudist sect, the Adamites. The history books usually divide the Hussites into radical "Taborites" - named for the town of Tabor, a city the Hussites founded for the occasion of the Second Coming, which many considered imminent - and the moderate "Utraquists" - derived from the Latin "sub utraque specie" for their belief that communion should be given "in both kinds" - made up mostly of the nobility. In reality, though, the situation on the ground just was not that simple.

This infighting came to a head at the Battle of Lipany on May 30, 1434, at which the Czech Hussite factions fought among themselves. This battle is considered by some to be the single most tragic event in all of Czech history.

Well, the victory at the Battle of Lipany went to the moderates, and this paved the way for an agreement to be reached between the "Utraquist Hussites" of Bohemia and the Roman Catholic Church.

The Basel Compact, ceremoniously announced in 1436, permitted the "Utraquist Hussites" to take Communion in both kinds, to have their church services conducted in the Czech language, and absolved them of having to pay dues to Rome. The Pope later refused to recognize the agreement, but not before it had served to bring an end to the costly Hussite wars.

The extremist "Taborite Hussites" were not a party to this agreement, and refused to accept it. While the moderates stayed in the Catholic Church, the extremists went underground, forming their own church, ordaining their own bishops, pioneering public education, sending out missionaries (even to the 13 original American colonies) and secretly printing Czech-language copies of the "Kralice Bible" - named for the town of Kralice in which it was printed. This translation is still in use in the Czech lands today, despite that it is often hard for modern speakers of the language to understand.

George of Podebrady

Slovakia all this while was known simply as "Upper Hungary." Though the Czechs and the Slovaks had been next-door neighbors since the time that Ancestor Cech and his brothers had come to the area, they have historically had very little in common (until 1918). Similarly, neither country has historically ever had much to do with Poland, which borders both to the north. It is at this point in history - beginning in the 14th century, however, closer cultural contacts between Slovakia and Bohemia were formed. Especially during the turbulent Hussite period of the 15th century, many Hussite followers found refuge and support in the Slovak lands, and some of the Slovak nobility fought on the side of the Hussites.

After the Compact of Basel forced King Sigismund of Luxembourg to concede to the Hussites' demands, the position of the regional nobility and of the towns (a grouping known as the "Estates") was strengthened, to the detriment of the centralized royal authority. For some time after Sigismund's death in 1437, anarchy reigned in Bohemia.

Then, after the very brief rule of Ladislav the Posthumous (1453-7) - so named because he was born after his father had died - the Bohemian throne was occupied by the "heretic" King George of Podebrady (1458-71). George, also known as the "Hussite" King, was the first freely-elected Czech ruler. He was chosen as Czech King from among the country's nobility without regard to any previous agreements, hereditary claim to the throne, family connections or dynastic origin. George of Podebrady won recognition throughout the Lands of the Czech Crown through his skillful diplomacy, and gained the respect of all of Central Europe. He also, in the 15th century, authored an ambitious "Peace Plan" for all of Europe, sort of a medeival equivalent to a NATO-like organization.

But few people then, as now, were interested in peace, and nobody subscribed to his plan. On the contrary - the Hungarian monarch at this time, Matthias Corvinus - with the support of the disgruntled Czech Catholic opposition, who didn't like the idea of a Protestant on the throne - declared war against George of Podebrady, who happened to be Matthias' father-in-law. The Hungarian campaigns against Bohemia ceased only after the death of the beloved Hussite King, George of Podebrady, and the ascent of Vladislav Jagellon to the throne.

Czech-Slovak relations were strengthened at this time with the forming of the Czech-Hungarian union under the Jagellons after the death of Matthias Corvinus in 1490; and after the Kralice Bible began to be used by the Slovak Evangelical Church.

In spite of conflicts both foreign and domestic, and even under the rule of the Jagellon dynasty's two Catholic kings, Vladislav and Ludwig, religious pluralism and freedom of religion were maintained in the Czech lands, with Protestants and Catholics living together in harmony. All during this time of weak royal leadership, the power of the nobility and towns (the Estates) continued to increase - even as central authority diminished.

The Habsburgs and Rudolf II

With the death of Ludwig Jagellon (he drowned in a swamp running away from the Turks at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526), the short-lived Czech-Hungarian Union fell to pieces, leaving both the Bohemian and the Hungarian thrones unoccupied.

What a window of opportunity for the Austrian Habsburgs! That Ferdinand I of Habsburg, also happened to be the late Ludwig Jagellon's brother-in-law helped his claim to the Bohemain and Hungarian thrones. In Bohemia, the weakened central authority did, too. At first, Ferdinand made concessions to the ever-powerful Estates. Soon, however, he began systematically to weaken the authority of the regional nobility and towns. His attempts to increase the central power of the Crown naturally met with the opposition of the Estates, and the whole situation culminated in an unsuccesful rebellion of the Estates in 1547.

The Estates' failure was Ferdinand's gain. He used this victory to increase royal authority and to weaken the position of the Estates and the towns even more. He also invited the Jesuits to come to the Czech lands, though they never held any inquisitions here and generally did not meddle in public affairs. Ostensibly fighting to maintain freedom of religion in the Czech lands against the resolutely Catholic policies of Ferdinand, the Estates struggled to regain their former power and influence.

These conflicts simmered under the surface of things as the Renaissance swept through the Czech lands.

Ferdinand was succeeded by Maxmilian II, who was succeeded by Rudolf II. After assuming the Austrian throne, the Habsburg ruler and patron of the arts and sciences, Rudolf II (1576-1611) moved his court from Vienna to Prague - making him the last crowned King of Bohemia to live at Prague Castle. Rudolf II was a real character. He had a pet lion, he collected great art - including works by Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Rafael - he supported scientists such as Tycho de Brahe, Johannes Kepler as well as artists like Spranger and Von Aachen, and he was a personal friend of the legendary Prague Jewish leader, Rabbi Loew. It is said that he also financed the work of any number of quack alchemists (on his invitation John Dee and Edward Kelley spent time in Prague), and that he was a little soft in the head. It's possible that the Legend of Faust (who lived in Prague) originated at this time of scientific exploration.

The architectural style of the time was Baroque, which - like Rudolf II himself - was round and robust, flamboyant and a little gaudy. Baroque buildings like the Loreto and St Nicholas Church in Lesser Town Square are massive and grand. The statues that top them appear so heavy that they seem likely to fall and crush innocent passers-by.

Rudolf II, who suffered periods of dementia because of his acute case of syphilis, was forced by his family to resign in 1611. He had been forced during his reign to concede religious freedom to the Czech Protestants, and when his brother and successor, Matthias, tried to rescind them, mounting political tensions led the Czech Estates to rebel against the Habsburgs once again.

They began their rebellion in grand Czech style, with the Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618. In this second defenestration, two vice- regents of the Austrian monarch and some governors of the Czech lands were thrown out of a tower window at Prague Castle. They were not killed, however, as they fell onto a pile of garbage (mostly straw) which had accumulated in the castle moat. So it can be said that they (at least the non-Austrian of the throwees) were the world's first bouncing Czechs. To add insult to injury (or perhaps insult to insult?) the Bohemian diet of the Estates then elected Frederick V of the Palatinate (also known as Frederick Faltz or as "the Winter King") as their ruler, thinking that his father-in-law - the English King James I - would come to their aid. They could not have been more wrong.

This rebellion of the Czech Estates was particularly unsuccessful. It culminated in the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, in which the Estates were incontrovertibly defeated by the Habsburgs. They had been successful only in sparking the Thirty Years' War, which was to devastate much of Europe. Incidentally, the then-mercenary, later-philosopher Rene Descartes fought at the Battle of the White Mountain on the side of the Habsburgs.

Well, the Habsburgs, quite understandably, did not appreciate these disturbances which were emanating from the northern reaches of their empire. But the methods that they used to subdue the protestant Estates after the Battle of the White Mountain were extraordinarily harsh.

First, they executed 27 nobles - leaders of the Estates who had fought on the losing side against the Habsburgs at the Battle of the White Mountain - in Prague's Old Town Square in May 1621. Some of the heads of the decapitated leaders of the rebellion were then hung strategically around Prague - for instance, on the Old Town bridge tower of the Charles Bridge - to serve as an ominous reminder to the people of Who was Boss. (It is said that every year, at the exact hour and on the exact day that they were killed, the ghosts of the 27 wrongly-executed nobles can be seen haunting the spot where they lost their heads. The place today is marked by 27 crosses in the cobblestones of Old Town Square, next to the Astronomical Clock.) The heads hung there for 11 long and lonely years, before finally being taken down and given a proper burial by the Saxons, who occupied Prague in 1632 in the course of the Thirty Years' War.

The Thirty Years' War, which had begun in Prague, ended there, too. In 1648, the Swedes had succeeded in capturing the Lesser Quarter and plundering it and Prague Castle (carrying off many valuable artworks which decorate Swedish castles and palaces to this day). They were defeated by a ragtag force of Czech university students and residents of Prague's Jewish town on the Charles Bridge in the last battle of the Thirty Years' War. It is said that the Swedes were beseeched to come by the exiled Protestant leader, Comenius (Jan Amos Komensky) - he had wanted them to come to the aid of the by-now utterly defeated Protestant forces, but by the end of the war it was already too late.

As a result of all this tumult, the Czech lands lost the power to elect their own rulers, and the Czech crown was made hereditary for Habsburg rulers. The Habsburgs banned all religions other than Catholicism. The property of Protestant members of the nobility was confiscated and handed out to loyal Catholics.

Those Czech Protestants who weren't already in exile were forced to convert to Catholocism. Only a very few had the courage to continue to practice their religion in secret.

The population of the country had been halved by the sundry aftermath of the Battle of the White Mountain, and as fewer people also means fewer people paying tax, taxes were raised.

Things were pretty bad all around. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the economy went into a deep recession. Luckily, it was high time for the Enlightenment to make an entrance. The administrative reforms of Maria Theresa and her son, Joseph II, did much to alleviate the situation.

These two rulers reduced the privileges of the now all-Catholic nobility (who are also - perhaps to confuse us all - known as the Estates, as the formerly Protestant nobility had also been called). They expelled the Jesuits in 1773, and they attempted to end social oppression by abolishing serfdom in 1781. In the same year, they issued the Edict of Tolerance, which permitted the free exercise of religion and the secularization of education, science and art. Prague's Jewish town is called "Josefov" to this day in honor of Josef II.

Of the Industrial and Other Revolutions

The Industrial Revolution, as most revolutions do, started off small at the end of the 18th century, and then really picked up steam - so to speak - in the 19th century. It was to have a monumental impact on the Czech lands.

The first factories in the Austrian Empire were built in the mountainous border regions of the Czech lands, where there was no shortage of water power from rushing streams and rivers to run them. While it did not take long for steam power to be harnessed, the industrial boundaries had been drawn, and these regions remain predominantly industrial to this day.

Railway lines were laid (in the Czech lands, by Jan Perner - who met his death when he hit his head against a pole while leaning out of the window of a moving train - an activity which has been forbidden in this country since the Czech railway pioneer's tragic accident.) Trams (mostly constructed by the "Czech Thomas Edison," Frantisek Krizik) began to carry people around on their errands in and between major towns (in those days, tram lines connected the cities of Bratislava, Budapest and Vienna to each other - about a one-hour ride). It was at this time, too, that Gregor Mendel was conducting his famous experiments on hereditary with peas in a monastery in Moravia, and that Jan Evangelista Purkyne peered into his microscope one day to discover a cell looking back at him (he was the first person to recognize it as such).

The major architectural styles of the time were Classicist and Empire, both of which used classical Greek and Roman motifs in a balanced and simple design. Two buildings which are closely associated with Mozart's stay in Prague in the late 18th century are excellent examples of these styles: the Estates Theatre, in which Mozart conducted the premier of Don Giovanni, is Classicist and the Bertramka villa, where he stayed with the Dusek family, is one of the purest examples of Empire that exists in the Czech Republic. But we digress.

Industrialization was not the only big change taking place in the Austrian Empire at this time. The Czech nation, like most of the others under Austrian rule, was also going through political and cultural changes, leading to demands for greater autonomy and self- determination for the different nations under Austrian rule.

In this country, the push for autonomy was known as the Czech National Revival movement (Narodni obrozeni). The dominant political leaders of the movement - Frantisek Palacky, Frantisek Ladislav Rieger and Karel Havlicek Borovsky - were "liberals." This meant that they wanted reforms within the Austrian monarchy, but did not want independence for the Czech lands. This brought them into conflict with the "democrats," who were republican and fiercely anti-Monarchy.

But the Czech National Revival movement almost had more to do with culture than with politics. Frantisek Palacky and Karel Havlicek Borovsky, who are mentioned above for their political efforts, were both writers. Czech Literature enjoyed a Golden Age during the Czech National Revival, as the Czech language - which had all but died out under Habsburg rule - was rediscovered. Other notable writers of the time include Bozena Nemcova, Karel Hynek Macha (who published the epic lyrical poem "Maj," then died of pneumonia he caught while fighting a fire one month before he was to be married), and Josef Jungmann - who put together the first modern Czech dictionary.

Many popular books retelling the old Czech legends of Libuse and Sarka and Bivoj and Bruncvik were published at this time, and some of the leaders of the Czech National Revival even falsified "ancient 13th century texts" of these legends, which they claimed to have found in a cave somewhere. Perhaps the only authority in the movement who publicly denied the authenticity of the texts was a young university professor by name of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, and he was passionately detested by the other leaders for doing so.

But we digress yet again. France had its infamous revolution in 1848. In the same year in the Czech lands, the feudal system was abolished, leading to waves of emigration, much of it to the New World - particularly to the United States. In June 1848, a Pan-Slavic Congress convened in Prague to consider possible ways of convincing the Habsburgs to transform their empire into a federative state of equal nations (something like a 'United States of Austria'). Suddenly, the discussions were interrupted by an aimless rebellion inspired by the French Revolution and including dramatic baracades in the streets, which was led by bored students and the most radical of the radical democrats.

The rebellion was effortlessly put down by the local Austrian leader, Prince Windischgratz - who declared martial law and, on June 16, 1848 even bombarded Prague from Petrin Hill. In this way both the revolt and the Pan-Slavic congress both came to a premature end, leaving the question of the future shape of the Austrian Empire utterly unresolved. In a strange aside to this episode, Prince Windischgratz's wife lost her life in all this commotion - shot through a window while she was in her apartment. To this day, nobody knows who did the shooting or why.

Scared by both the French Revolution and the summer rebellion in Prague, Austria introduced something akin to martial law in the whole of the Empire to discourage republican efforts at independence. Autonomy movements throughout the Austrian Empire were suppressed. But as revolutionary movements have a tendency of doing, this one did not die down; it just sat around simmering below the ostensibly calm surface of things. Tensions did not decrease. On the contrary.

The Austrian Empire of the time was massive, and contained the territories of many modern-day countries. Most of these nationalities were clamoring for autonomy.

In the 1860s, this pressure led the Habsburgs to transform the Austrian Empire into the dualist Austro-Hungarian constitutional monarchy. This was just hunkey-dorey by the Hungarians, but was not exactly appreciated by most of the other ethnic nations within what was now the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Czechs were united in their opposition to the new dual system, but they were divided among themselves as to what they wanted to do about it. These divisions grew deeper as the 19th century progressed.

There were a number of rival political factions: the Czech National Party (split into two camps: the conservative Old Czechs and the liberal Young Czechs); the Czech Social Democratic Party (founded in 1878); the progressives (who favored the policies of Tomas Masaryk); the Agrarian party; the Christian Socialists; the National Socialists; and the Radical Progressives.

The majority of the Czech political parties supported a program calling for the restoration of the Czech state in its historical borders - but within the framework of the Austrian Empire. Again, each party had a different idea of exactly how this goal should be accomplished.

The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was characterized by growing economic and political freedom for the Czechs and by outstanding acheivements on the part of Czechs in culture, medicine, and science. Architectural trends at the end of the century were romantic copies of past styles, like Neo-Gothic. These romantic enthusiasts sometimes did more harm than good, as in the case of the reconstruction of Karlstejn Castle (It is because of this ill-fated reconstruction that Karlstejn does not qualify for the UNESCO World Heritage list today.) In other cases, they just did silly things like build fake "ancient" ruins in Prague parks (perhaps to go along with their "ancient" legend texts). The Czech writers and artists Jan Neruda, Alois Jirasek, Mikulas Ales, Bedrich Smetana, Antonin Dvorak Alfons Mucha and Frantisek Bilek all lived and worked at this time. The National Theater, National Museum and Rudolfinum were built at the turn of the century, and the first films in the Czech Republic were made in 1898.

The battle for "universal" suffrage within the Austro-Hungarian state was won in 1907. (All men in the Czech lands, regardless of economic status, could vote -- women in the Czech lands did not get the vote until 1919). But most of the rest of the political advances made by the Czechs came into being in a sort of fuzzy grey area. The constitutional status of the Czech lands within the framework of the Monarchy remained an open and - in Prague, at least - a much-debated question.

Well, while Czech nationalists were busy sitting in pubs drinking beer and debating how best to effect the changes they wanted to see implemented in the Austro-Hungarian government, members of other nations within the Empire were also pressing for reforms and for independence. It was these pressures that led Serbian nationalist Gavrillo Princip to assassinate the Archduke Francis Ferdinand (the heir to the Austrian throne) on June 28, 1914, precipitating World War I. Princip was locked up for this deed, and spent the rest of his days at the prison in Terezin Fortress in the Czech lands.

World War I and Czechoslovak Independence

During the course of World War I, the Czechs became unified in their opposition to Austrian rule.

Most especially, Austria-Hungary's alignment with Germany and the restriction of democratic rights in the Czech lands led to growing opposition to the monarchy here. An organized resistance began to develop, both at home and abroad.

The Czech university professor, philosopher and politician, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (the same one who doubted the authenticity of the faked manuscripts and the one who was later to become Czechoslovakia's first president) had been an advocate of more independence for the Czech lands long before the war had even started. In December of 1914, he went abroad, where he continued to fight for Czechoslovak independence throughout the war. He worked closely with Czech lawyer Edvard Benes and Slovak astronomer Milan Rastislav Stefanik, who were also in exile in the United States throughout the conflict. It was in the United States at this time that Masaryk met his wife, American Charlotte Garrigue.

It was there, too, that Masaryk, Benes, and Stefanik founded the Czech National Council in 1916. Over time, this organization was renamed the Czechoslovak National Council and was recognized as the valid voice of Czechoslovakia by Allied leaders. Their position as the leaders of "free Czechoslovakia" was further strengthened with the formation of Czechoslovak military units known as the Czechoslovak Legions, which fought alongside the Allies. The Czechoslovak Legions earned particular distinction on the Italian, French, and Russian fronts - and on the last of these, they actually became involved in the Russian Revolution, fighting against the Bolsheviks and, for a time during that revolution, controlled about half of the territory of Czarist Russia.

Resistance at home grew only gradually. At first, it was limited to small spy groups who had contact with Masaryk (who was considered an enemy of Austria on account of his subversive activities). Active resistance to the monarchy was severely punished, and as a result many prominent Czech cultural and political personalities spent most of the war behind bars, convicted of treason. While the sentence for treason at that time was actually death, the Austrians were too busy to carry out the sentences. Thus, the executions were never carried out, and these Czech leaders simply languished in jail for the duration.

By 1917, when things were quite apparantly not in Austria-Hungary's favor, Czech opposition to the war became much more active. People began organizing strikes, demonstrations, and even violent protests - which had to be put down by the army. Anybody who is particularly interested in this period of Czech history should definitely read "The Good Soldier Schwiek" by Jaroslav Hasek. It not only offers a great deal of insight into the kind of passive resistance the Czechs favor, but also offers many more insights into the Czech psyche.

In May 1918, the representatives of the resistance movement abroad had signed the Pittsburgh Convention, which approved the formation of a joint state composed of Slovakia and the Czech lands. Later - much later (very recently in fact) - Slovak politicians seeking autonomy for Slovakia would refer to a provision in this agreement mentioning Slovakia's own "administration, parliament and courts of law."

While the resistance leaders abroad were planning a new state, the various and sundry political forces in the Czech lands still could not agree on whether they wanted to radically reconstruct or completely abolish the political structure of Austria-Hungary. In July 1918, the Czech National Committee, a grouping of the leaders of the chief political parties (which wasn't much cooperating with Masaryk's efforts in exile), was reorganized and began preparing to assume power once the Central Powers were defeated.

In October 1918, Masaryk, Benes and Stefanik obtained recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council as the interim government of the Czechoslovak Republic from the Allied Powers. But while they were in Switzerland with delegates from the Prague National Committee discussing details of setting up this new state, a hastily-organized third grouping, the National Committee (headed by Antonin Svehla, Alois Rasin, Jiri Stribrny, Frantisek Soukup and Vavro Srobar) proclaimed Czechoslovakia an independent Republic on October 28, 1918 and began to assume the transfer of power from Austrian officials.

Adding to this disparity and completely independent of events in Prague, Slovak political representatives issued the Martin Declaration in favor of a joint Czechoslovak state on October 30, 1918.

The First Republic

On November 14, 1918, the interim Parliament declared that the new Czechoslovak state would be a republic, and named Tomas Garrigue Masaryk as the first President.

The Czechoslovak Republic (CSR) was composed of the historical Czech lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia as well as Slovakia and Ruthenia (Sub-Carpathian Russia).

Czechoslovakia's relations with its neighboring states - Germany, Hungary, and Poland - were complicated from the very start.

In security matters, Czechoslovakia alligned itself with France and her partners in the Little Entente. As Germany grew more threatening in the course of the 1930's, Czechoslovakia also signed a pact with the Soviet Union, which promised to help Czechoslovakia in the case of need - but provided that France fulfilled her obligations to help the nation first.

The Czechs and the Slovaks - who had used nationalistic arguments to justify their drive for independence from Austria-Hungary - now found themselves at the other end of the bargaining table. While these two nations were officially considered the two partners in the Czechoslovak union, together they comprised less than 65 percent of the total population. More than 3 million Germans - some 23 percent of the population - lived mostly in the Czech border regions (the territories which were to become known as the "Sudetenland") Meanwhile, the Tesin region in the north was inhabited by a Polish minority of 75,000; South Slovakia and Ruthenia had a large Hungarian minority of about 745,000; and most of the population of Ruthenia (something less than half a million people) were, quite naturally, Ruthenians.

After World War I, ethnic Germans in the border regions made a half-hearted attempt to secede from Czechoslovakia, which was put down by the Czechoslovak army in 1918. Over the course of the next 20 years, the two largest German political parties - the Agrarians and the Christian Socialists - were won over by the Czechoslovak government and agreed to cooperate with the Czechoslovak state.

Czechoslovakia was one of the few states in Europe between the two World Wars with a genuine parliamentary democracy (guaranteed by the Constitution of February 1920). Even the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (which had been established in 1921) was allowed to legally exist - which was very unusual for the time. The Communists even had a few members in parliament - and they were allowed to remain there even when they started to openly denounce democracy as such - and especially the democratic system in Czechoslovakia.

After dealing with post-war chaos, and putting down a few radical Bolshevist uprisings, the domestic political and economic situation in Czechoslovakia was basically stabilized by the beginning of the 1920s.

In the 20 years between the two World Wars, Czechoslovakia was one of the world's most advanced industrial-agrarian countries. In fact, it was among the 10 richest nations in the world at that time, as it had inherited virtually all of Austria's industrial base. This early stability paved the way for a flowering of Czech literature and culture. Proud of their new independence, Czechoslovaks were anxious to put their new country on the map - sometimes in the craziest ways. This led Czech Radio, for instance, to start broadcasting in 1923 - despite that they didn't have a transmitter or even a microphone. They simply borrowed the former (as well as a tent to protect them from the elements) from the Czechoslovak Boy Scouts, and manufactured the latter from a telephone receiver. Why the rush? They were anxious to be the first country in Central Europe to begin regular radio broadcaste. Of course, a Czech - by name of Frantisek Behounek - took part in the 1928 multinational attempt to reach the North Pole in a zeppelin - and was one of the survivors to be rescued after the good airship "Italia" crashed discouragingly far from its destination.

Experiments with architecture in interwar Czechoslovakia resulted in Prague today having the only Cubist buildings in the world, like The House at the Black Madonna (which houses a museum of Czech cubist art today) and a number of houses along the embankment under Vysehrad on Rasinovo nabrezi and on Neklanova Street. Franz Kafka, Josef Capek and his brother Karel (the two coined the word "robot" together), Jaroslav Hasek, Emil Filla, Max Svabinsky, Otto Gutfreund, Vaclav Spala all lived and worked at this time.

At the end of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties, the Czechoslovak economy was hit hard by the world economic crisis with disastrous social and political consequences: 1.3 million people were unemployed. Hardest hit were the soon-to-be-known-as-Sudeten border regions, where German inhabitants predominated.

The economic crisis and the growing influence of the Nazi movement in Germany served to politicize the ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia. On Hitler's orders, they called first for autonomy, then for secession from the Czechoslovak state. In the 1935 elections, both of the traditional German parties (the Agrarians and the Christian Socialists) experienced a monumental decline in voter support in favor of the Sudeten German Party. The Sudeten German Party, with 15.2 percent of the vote, became the largest German-interest political party in the Republic.

Tomas Garrigue Masaryk resigned from office in 1935 due to illness, and was succeeded by Edvard Benes. Benes, a National Socialist, had the misfortune to be a weak and ineffectual ruler during a particular turbulent time in the nation's history - much as the king Wenceslas IV had been in the Hussite period centuries before.

A P.E. teacher named Konrad Henlein was the leader of the Sudeten German Party, and he gradually became the mouthpiece of Nazi Germany in Czechoslovakia. His was a separatist platform aimed at joining the Czech border lands to Germany.

Nothing less than Czechoslovakia's sovereignty was at stake. But this did not interest many people outside of the small Czechoslovak state.

France and Britain favored a policy of appeasement in response to Hitler's aggressive policy towards Czechoslovakia, and so Konrad Heinlein's wish came true in September, 1938 - when the four great powers of the time (Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy) decided, at a meeting in Munich, that extensive areas of the Czech border regions were to be ceded to Germany.

Shortly after the Munich Pact was signed, the Czech border regions were indeed joined with Germany. Seizing this window of opportunity, Poland snapped up the Tesin region in the north, and Hungary annexed the southern part of Slovakia while Hungary captured Ruthenia. Overnight, Czechoslovakia lost about a third of its territory.

World War II

After six months of the "Second Republic" - as the old Czechoslovakia, minus its border regions, was known - Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by the Nazis. Slovakia had ceded from Czechoslovakia the day before - on March 14, 1939 - to form an "independent" Nazi state, and thus very short work indeed was made of the former Czechoslovakia.

Overnight, everyone had to start driving on the right side of the road (they had previously driven on the left, as the British still do).

The Czechoslovak President, Edvard Benes, and other government politicians had already fled abroad - mostly to France and to Britain. (Those that were in France went to Britain when France was occupied). These leaders' political campaign to represent Czechoslovakia's interests was an uphill battle at first, as western European powers still favored the policy of appeasement at that time.

By July 1940, however, Britain recognized President Benes as the leader of the provisional "free Czechoslovak government in exile." In addition to the London center of the provisional government, the Moscow Communist center - where politicians who favored the Soviet political system had fled - also played an important role in the Czechoslovak resistance movement during the war. Unfortunately, many of the Czechs and Slovaks who had chosen to go to Moscow spent at least part of the war years in Russian Gulags as suspected spies. Czechoslovak pilots in England's RAF were particularly distinguished fighters (even if they were initially segregated from regular troops for the same reason) and they would play a fundamental role in the Battle of Britain - but we are getting ahead of ourselves yet again. Czechoslovak army units were also formed in France and in North Africa.

On October 28, 1939 - which would have been the 21st anniversary of the Czechoslovak Declaration of Independence had Czechoslovakia not ceased to exist - popular celebrations turned into massive demonstrations of protest against the German occupation. A young medical student, Jan Opletal, was fatally wounded in the incident. His funeral, on November 17, 1939 turned into yet another spontaneous demonstration. (Fifty years later, on November 17, 1989, a march by students to commemorate this event helped bring about the fall of Communism). In 1939, the Nazis reacted to the student demonstration by sentencing nine student leaders to death, by closing the Czech universities, and by sending some 1,200 university students to concentration and labor camps.

The Nazi regime was very cruel and strict, and active resistance was harshly punished. Not surprisingly, then, the Czech and Slovak resistance movements were small. Yet they were very dedicated, very determined, and often surprisingly successful, especially in the field of sabotage.

During the war, Czechoslovak army units fighting abroad often parachuted foreign-trained Czech and Slovak soldiers into occupied Czech territory to perform special assignments. The most significant of these special assignments was the assassination, in 1942, of Reinhard Heidrich - the German Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia and one of the architects of the "Final Solution."

His assassination by two Czechoslovak parachutists on May 27, 1942 set off a reign of terror throughout the Czech lands. Martial law was declared and the Nazis conducted house-to-house searches looking for the parachutists and the members of the Czech resistance movement who had helped them. More than 1,600 people were executed and more were sent to concentration camps in the period immediately following the assassination. The terror reached its height with the annihilation of the village of Lidice, where 339 men were executed and the women and children of the village were sent to concentration camps. A few weeks later, the village of Lezaky, where the Nazis killed 54 men, women and children, was also razed to the ground. By the time this terror - known as the "Heydrichiada" - was over, the Nazis had damaged the resistance movement so much that it was only able to resume its activities at the very end of the war.

The resistance movements in Czechoslovakia culminated in the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 - which was brutally put down - and in the Prague Uprising in the Czech lands in May of 1945 - which started just a few days before foreign armies arrived to officially liberate the city.

The Iron Curtain Falls

Prague and most of the rest of Czechoslovakia were liberated by the Soviet Red Army in May, 1945. That this would happen had been decided by Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at the Yalta Conference. It was at this same conference that it was decided that Czechoslovakia would come under the Soviet "sphere of influence" after World War II.

But the westernmost part of the country - from the beer-brewing town of Pilsen to the spa town of Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary) were liberated by the Americans, led by General Patton.

It was in 1945, too, that the USSR officially annexed Ruthenia.

On May 7, 1945, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Forces, but the last shots on Czech territory were fired on May 11.

During the war, most of the members of the domestic resistance movement had gradually become ever more leftist in their ideology, since they were so vehemently opposed to the extreme right ideals that were ruling it at the time. Czechoslovakia's first post-war government was constructed exclusively from the political parties of the leftist "National Front." These included the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Democratic Party, the People's Party and the Slovak Democratic Party. Pre-war right-wing parties were not allowed to renew their activities, because of their real and/or alleged collaboration with the Nazis.

Left-wing Social Democrat, Zdenek Fierlinger, well-known for his affiliation with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC), was appointed Prime Minister. The remaining six government posts were filled with Czech and Slovak Communists - Klement Gottwald, Viliam Siroky, Vaclav Kopecky, Julius Duris and Jozef Soltesz. In addition, the Communists were able to place their loyal supporter, Ludvik Svoboda (later Czechoslovak President), in the key post of defense minister. Thus, the extreme left gained a strong political position in the newly-liberated country as early as 1945.

Democratic life in Czechoslovakia never fully recovered. The most apparent demonstration of this were the 1945 Presidential Decrees (today called the "Benes Decrees"), especially those of October 24, 1945 on the nationalization of coal mines, heavy industry, food production, banks and private insurance companies. More than 3,000 companies - representing about two-thirds of the overall industrial capacity of the country at that time - were nationalized.

Other presidential decrees were issued "on the punishment of Nazi criminals, traitors and their supporters, and on extraordinary people's courts" (the Large Retribution Decree of June 19, 1945); and "on the punishment of some offenses against the national pride" (the Small Retribution Decree of October 10, 1945). On the basis of these decrees, not only the real collaborators - but also those who were only accused of collaboration - were punished harshly and without regular trials.

Before World War II, some 30 percent of the population in the Czech lands had been Germans; in Slovakia, 17 percent had been Hungarians.

In 1945, 700,000 Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia under an agreement which was sanctioned by the Allies and had been reached at the Potsdam Conference. This expulsion was, in some cases, accompanied by brutality against the Germans, which brought about protests by the Allied Powers. In the second and more organized wave of deportation in 1946, 1.3 million Germans were deported to the American zone (in what would become West Germany) and 800,000 to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany). Another 200,000 Germans had fled voluntarily before the end of the war to the American zone, and around 200,000 escaped to Austria.

According to the Presidential Decrees, property which had belonged to many of these people was confiscated and put under "national supervision," and the people themselves were deprived of their Czechoslovak citizenship.

Only about half a million Germans remained on the territory of Czechoslovakia after the deportations, and just 165,000 of these claimed German nationality in the first post-war census. In 1950, according to the official statistics, Germans accounted for just 1.8 percent of the population in the Czech lands, compared with a pre- war count of 23 percent.

The Potsdam Conference, which had approved the expulsion of Germans from the Czech lands, had vetoed the deportation of the Hungarian minority from Slovakia, after the Allies saw what had happened in the first deportations. Nonetheless, anti- Hungarian sentiment was so strong that a significant number of Hungarians did not claim Hungarian nationality in the 1950 census. Official statistics from that census show a significant drop in the number of people claiming Hungarian nationality in Slovakia, from around 17 percent before the war to only about 10 percent after the war.

Czechoslovakia's first post-war Parliament, the provisional National Assembly, began its activities on October 28, 1945. Its composition had been determined by an agreement among the political parties and social organizations within the "National Front."

The first test of the new political environment came with the Parliamentary elections of May 1946. The results corresponded to the expectations of the Communists, who won 40.17 percent of the vote, making them the most powerful party in Parliament by quite a large margin. The next strongest parties were the National Socialists with 23.66 percent, the People's Party with 20.24 percent and the Social Democrats with 15.28 percent. In Slovakia, the Communists obtained only 30.37 percent of the vote, while the Democratic Party took 62 percent. Two newly-registered Slovak parties, the Freedom Party and the Labor Party, together received just 3.73 percent of the vote.

In terms of the country as a whole, it was a landslide election victory for the Communists. In the new Parliament, the Constituent National Assembly, they won 114 seats, while the National Socialists held 55, the People's Party 46, the Democrats 43, the Social Democrats united with the Slovak Labor Party 39, and the Freedom Party had just three seats.

Based on the results of the May elections, a new government headed by the Communist leader Klement Gottwald was appointed on July 6, 1946. Gottwald formed a cabinet consisting of seven Czech Communists; two Slovak Communists; four Ministers from the National Socialists, the Democrats, and representatives of the People's Party; and three Social Democrats. Thus, the communists had a strong grip on power well in advance of the "coup" which would take place nearly two years later. Only two government ministers were not then members of any political party. (They were Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk (the son of Czechoslovakia's first president, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk) would soon meet his death under mysterious circumstances - and War Hero Ludvik Svoboda, who would later join the Communist Party and later still would become Czechoslovak President in 1968.)

On June 5, 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall delivered a speech in which he offered assistance (which came to be known as the Marshall Plan) from the United States to all the countries of Europe for the reconstruction of their economies damaged during the war.

The Soviet Union had already refused to participate in the plan as early as June 1946. And in fact, of the future Soviet bloc countries, only Czechoslovakia considered taking part in the Marshall Plan. After consultations with Stalin, however, Czechoslovakia, too, refused the aid. For the next four decades, Czechoslovakia would continue to follow Soviet orders.

The "Socialization" of Czechoslovakia

At the start of 1948, the Communist Minister of the Interior sacked eight non-Communist police officers. This move was protested by the democratic ministers in the government, but to no avail. As a stronger protest, they tendered their resignations - expecting that this would lead to the resignation and subsequent reorganization of the entire government. However, and much to their chagrin, this was not to be.

Instead, President Edvard Benes accepted their resignations, and their positions were filled by Communist Party members or sympathizers. Thus, from February 1948, all political power in the country was in the hands of the Communist leaders. In Communist propaganda, these events came to be known as "Victorious February" (Vitezny unor) today they are referred to as the "Communist Coup."

Almost immediately - with the parliamentary elections of May 1948 - the Communists became more openly hostile to normal democratic mechanisms. Non-Communists who attempted to campaign in the elections were persecuted by the police, and voters were only offered a list of candidates from the National Front - no opposition politicians were on the voting list. Yet even using these extreme measures, the Communists did not feel secure that their election victory was guaranteed. So, to make absolutely sure that things went as they wanted them to go, the Communists also falsified the election results. Thus the parties of the National Front were credited with winning an amazing 89.2 percent of the vote -- which is still rather a modest majority when compared with later Communist election "victories," which would see the National Front win 99.9 percent of the "vote."

On May 9, 1948, parliament had passed a new constitution guaranteeing a "leading role" for the Communist Party in political life. President Edvard Benes refused to sign the new legislation, and so he was forced to resign on June 7, 1948. On June 14, the National Assembly elected Klement Gottwald Czechoslovakia's new (and first 'working-class') president; and on June 15, Czechoslovakia's fifth post-war government was appointed with Antonin Zapotocky at its head.

In April 1948, the Czechoslovak Parliament had passed legislation nationalizing most companies that had more than 50 employees. In actuality, though, even much smaller companies were nationalized as a result of these laws. By the end of 1948, some 95 percent of the industrial workforce in Czechoslovakia were employees of the state. The next private sector to be eliminated were small tradesmen and shopkeepers.

In 1949, the law on Standard Farming Cooperatives was approved, launching the forced collectivization of agriculture. Industry was reorganized to favor heavy machinery and military production, and foreign trade was shifted away from western markets in favor of the Soviet Union and its satellites.

To better coordinate the individual economies within the Soviet bloc, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) was established in 1949, with Czechoslovakia as one of its founding members.

The first Soviet "advisors" arrived in Czechoslovakia in September 1949, to show the locals how best to search for class enemies. Not surprisingly, their first victims were Communists - and powerful ones. The high point of the Communist Party's purges at this time was the "trial" against the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Rudolf Slansky - allegedly the ringleader of a group of treasonous, counter-revolutionary conspirators. Many historians today say that this purge was just so much thinly-veiled, Soviet-style anti-semitism - as Slansky and most of the other accused were Jewish.

The repression and show trials of 1948-53 did much to populate the forced labor camps - the most notorious of which was at the Jachymov uranium mines - and to decimate the anti-Communist opposition. Subsequent acts of resistance to the regime remained isolated and unorganized.

It was during this dark and oppressive time that the writers and artists Jaroslav Seifert, Vitezslav Nezval, Josef Sudek, Leos Janacek, Bohuslav Martinu and Jan Zrzavy lived and worked. People caught listening to rock and roll and other foreign music or listening to foreign radio stations like Radio Netherlands were considered subversives and thrown in jail.

It was at this time, too, that the authorities - for reasons which remain unexplained to this day - started to claim that the Americans did not liberate the westernmost part of Czechoslovakia after World War II. To those people who insisted they had seen them with their own eyes, the authorities explained that those people they had seen were really Russian soldiers dressed up in American uniforms.

Czechoslovakia's first "worker president," Klement Gottwald, died in 1953, just 10 days after attending Stalin's funeral. Some say he died of a broken heart; others claim he was the victim of a virus that he caught while visiting Moscow, still others are of the opinion that he drank himself to death.

In a little-known chapter in Czech history, 1953 also saw active protests against the Communist regime, especially in Plzen and Ostrava, because of worsening economic conditions. These rebellions had to be put down by force, and the fact that they had taken place at all was supressed by the Communist regime. The ringleaders were sent to hard labor camps like the one at Jachymov.

In addition to Comecon, the Soviet Union and its satellites were united by the military Warsaw Pact, which was founded on May 14, 1955. This "Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance" was signed by the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Albania. The Pact was concluded for 20 years and then prolonged every 10 years after that; in 1985, just a handful of years before it was to become defunct, it was renewed for 30 years. It was formally dissolved by a protocol which was signed in 1991.

After the death of President Antonin Zapotocky, Antonin Novotny - the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia - was elected President. For the first time, the top posts of both the state and the Party were in the hands of just one man. Later, it was learned that Novotny had been a spy for the Gestapo during the war. During his presidency, Novotny had a fish pond stocked with carp installed in the very formal Royal Gardens of Prague Castle so that he wouldn't have far to go when he felt like going fishing.

Well, time passed and in 1960, the Communists adopted a new constitution which officially changed the name of the country to "The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR)" because, as they said, a socialist society - the first step on the road to true communism - had already been achieved in the country.

But even this spiffy new name did not help to slow the country's rapid and alarming economic decline.

The Prague Spring

Fear diminished and political and artistic freedoms increased in Czechoslovakia in the 1960's. Changes took place in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia as well.

The post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was taken away from Antonin Novotny and given to Alexander Dubcek, a Slovak Communist who was not very well known at that time (much like Mikhail Gorbacev, who was also relatively unknown when named to the top Soviet post decades later).

Key officials connected with the Novotny government were gradually replaced and Novotny himself resigned on March 28, 1968. Ludvik Svoboda (the post-war Defense Minister) became the Czechoslovak president, and on April 8 a new government, headed by Oldrich Cernik, was appointed.

A bit like Gorbacev would do decades later in the Soviet Union, Dubcek set out to reform all aspects of life in the country. In effect, he was doing little more than giving a legal stamp of approval to the grassroots changes that were already taking place. The government platform, approved by the Communist Party Central Committee in April, criticized the policies of the past - especially those that had done such damage to the economy. For the first time since 1948, the government proclaimed the legitimacy of basic human rights and liberties in Czechoslovakia, and objected to the persecution of people for their political convictions.

Around this time, the public was greatly influenced by a text called "2,000 Words," which was written by Ludvik Vaculik and published in the literary weekly Literarni noviny, and in the dailies Prace and Zemedelske noviny. The piece called on the people to struggle against everything they considered to be bad, and appealed to them to take control of their own lives.

The people listened, and it wasn't long before jazz music, rock clubs, pop culture, miniskirts and other symbols of Western imperialism were to be spotted all over the place, but most especially in Prague. Bohumil Hrabal, Josef Koudelka, Ivan Klima, Josef Skoverecky, Milan Kundera, Arnost Lustig, Milos Forman, Jiri Menzl and many other writers and artists were all living and working at this time. Culture thrived, and the Czechs are especially well known for the films they produced at this time. They also invented a percursor to the modern-day music video, which they called "television songs," and experimented with multimedia, and Laterna Magika and other forms of Black Light Theater date from this time.

The reforms that enabled this growing freedom were - in the words of Alexandr Dubcek - an attempt to create "Socialism with a human face," and came to be known as the "Prague Spring." They were also considered to be terribly threatening by those in power in the Soviet Union, as they compromised the uniformity of the Soviet bloc.

The Soviet Union and its satellites began to more vocally criticize the renegade Czechoslovak Republic. This political pressure from around the bloc peaked in the summer of 1968. The Czechoslovaks didn't listen.

Over the night of August 20-21 1968, Warsaw Pact forces (with the exception of Romania, which refused to participate) invaded Czechoslovakia, beginning a 20-year period of occupation and "normalization." The Soviets insisted they had been invited to invade the country, as loyal Czechoslovak Communists had told them that they urgently required "fraternal assistance against the counter-revolution." (After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, a letter of invitation was, indeed, discovered to exist). Alexandr Dubcek and the other Prague Spring leaders were whisked off to Moscow.

Ludvik Svoboda, the President of the Republic, left for Moscow on August 23. The results of his talks there, which were not concluded until August 28, were summed up in a defeatist Moscow memorandum in which Czech and Slovak signatories agreed with the temporary presence of Soviet troops on the territory of the CSSR. Only one member of the delegation, Frantisek Kriegel, refused to sign the memorandum.

After the failure of the Prague Spring, Czechoslovak reformists tried to preserve at least some of the achievements of their reform efforts. One of these was the constitutional issue, which gave more autonomy to Slovakia. On October 28, 1968, the Czechoslovak National Assembly approved a new constitutional law on the creation of a Czechoslovak Federation. It was signed into law by President Svoboda at Bratislava Castle on October 30, and it decreed that Czechoslovakia be divided internally into two separate Czech and Slovak Republics. The federal setup took effect on January 1, 1969.

But just two months later, the Federal Assembly adopted three more new constitutional laws curtailing and in fact undermining the previous amendment, meaning that the new federation existed in name only. State administration was again strictly centralized.

About 150,000 Czechs and Slovaks fled to the west as a result of all this hubbub. Many of those who stayed continued to protest the invasion. In the most famous of the individual acts of protest, a young philosophy student, Jan Palach, self-immolated himself on Wenceslas Square in January, 1969. In the political purges of late 1969 and early 1970, thousands of people were removed from their jobs (and, since it was illegal to be unemployed, most of the country's intellectual elite spent the next 20 years washing windows or floors, stoking coal furnaces or selling vegetables or newspapers) and half a million people were expelled from the Communist Party.

The easygoing leaders of the 1960's were banned (Dubcek spent the next 20 years in the Slovak forestry service), and replaced by hardnosed hardliners. The new communist government was one of the most repressive in all of the East Bloc - surpassed only by East Germany and Albania. The ensuing period of "normalization" during the 1970's and about half of the 1980's - like the Counter-Reformation - was a bleak and unhappy time for the nation. The architecture of the time reflects this: most of the construction during this period was focused on building largescale "pre-fabricated housing" districts on the outskirts of cities. These neighborhoods today are still grey and depressing, with block after block of identical cement housing (the Czechs call them "rabbit hutches") and little or no greenery.

Ludvik Svoboda was still the President of Czechoslovakia, but by this time he was already rather old and becoming forgetful. He used to walk around Prague Castle asking where Dubcek was. This grew to be rather embarrasing, and Svoboda was forced to resign due to "illness." Gustav Husak, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, was elected as President in his place - thus holding down both top functions in the country. (The last change in Party power before the fall of Communism took place with the 1987 election of Milos Jakes as Secretary General of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.)

Active opposition to the policies of normalization had begun to form during the initial Warsaw Pact occupation of August, 1968. They grew into underground movements during the bleak 1970's.

In 1976, the members of the underground rock band called "The Plastic People of the Universe" were arrested and charged with crimes against the state for holding a rock concert. This was one of the catalysts for the creation of the well-known "Charter 77" movement, which was formed to monitor and to internationally report human rights abuses within the country. Its first spokesmen were Vaclav Havel, Jan Patocka and Jiri Hajek. They and many other groups actively resisted the Communist regime, and many of them endured long jail terms for their efforts.

The "Velvet Revolution"

During the second half of the 1980s, the general situation in Czechoslovakia became more easygoing, especially after the introduction of Perestroika reforms in the then-Soviet Union. But the Czechoslovak leadership - still headed by Gustav Husak, who had assumed power after the Soviet Invasion of 1968 - was leery of movements intended to "reform communism from within" and continued to toe a hard line in Czechoslovakia, much to the chagrin of Mikhail Gorbacev. But by 1988 there were organized demonstrations demanding change - and just about one month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, communism in Czechoslovakia became a casualty as well.

The six-week period between November 17 and December 29, 1989, also known as the "Velvet Revolution" brought about the bloodless overthrow of the Czechoslovak communist regime. Almost immediately, rumors (which have never been proved) began to circulate that the impetus for the Velvet Revolution had come from a KGB provocateur sent by Gorbacev, who wanted reform rather than hardline communists in power. The theory goes that the popular demonstrations went farther than Gorbacev and the KGB had intended. In part because of this, the Czechs do not like the term "Velvet Revolution," preferring to call what happened "the November Events" (Listopadove udalosti) or - sometimes - just "November" (Listopad). But we digress.

It all started on November 17, 1989 - fifty years to the day that Czech students had held a demonstration to protest the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. On this anniversary, students in the capital city of Prague were again protesting an oppressive regime.

The protest began as a legal rally to commemorate the death of Jan Opletal, but turned instead into a demonstration demanding democratic reforms. Riot police stopped the students (who were making their way from the Czech National Cemetery at Vysehrad to Wenceslas Square) halfway in their march, in Narodni trida. After a stand-off in which the students offered flowers to the riot police and showed no resistance, the police bagan beating the young demonstrators with night sticks. In all, at least 167 people were injured. One student was reportedly beaten to death, and - although this was later proved false - this rumor served to crystallize support for the students and their demands among the general public. In a severe blow to the communists' morale, a number of workers' unions immediately joined the students' cause.

From Saturday, November 18, until the general strike of November 27, mass demonstrations took place in Prague, Bratislava, and elsewhere - and public discussions instead of performances were held in Czechoslovakia' theaters. During one of these discussions, at the Cinoherni Klub theater on Sunday, November 19, the Civic Forum (OF) was established as the official "spokesgroup" for "the segment of the Czechoslovak public which is ever more critical of the policy of the present Czechoslovak leadership."

The Civic Forum, led by the then-dissident Vaclav Havel, demanded the resignation of the Communist government, the release of prisoners of conscience, and investigations into the November 17 police action. A similar initiative - the Public Against Violence (VPN) - was born in Slovakia on November 20, 1989. Both of them were joined en masse by Czechoslovak citizens - from university students and staff to workers in factories and employees of other institutions. It took about 2 weeks for the nation's media to begin broadcasting reports of what was really going on in Prague, and in the interim students travelled to cities and villages in the countryside to rally support outside the capital.

The leaders of the Communist regime were totally unprepared to deal with the popular unrest, even though communist regimes throughout the region had been wobbling and toppling around them for some time.

As the mass demonstrations continued - and more and more Czechoslovaks supported the general strikes that were called - an extraordinary session of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee was called. The Presidium of the Communist Party resigned, and a relatively unknown Party member, Karel Urbanek, was elected as the new Communist Party leader. The public rejected these cosmetic changes, which were intended to give the impression that the Communist Party was being reformed from within as it had been in 1968. The people's dissatisfaction increased.

Massive demonstrations of almost 750,000 people at Letna Park in Prague on November 25 and 26, and the general strike on the 27th were devastating for the communist regime. Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec was forced to hold talks with the Civic Forum, which was led by still- dissident (soon to be President) Vaclav Havel. The Civic Forum presented a list of political demands at their second meeting with Adamec, who agreed to form a new coalition government, and to delete three articles - guaranteeing a leading role in political life for the Czechoslovak Communist Party and for the National Front, and mandating Marxist-Leninist education - from the Constitution. These amendments were unanimously approved by the communist parliament the next day, on November 29, 1989.

Well, the old saying that 'if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile' held true, and the communist capitulation led to increased demands on the part of the demonstrators. A new government was formed by Marian Calfa; it included just nine members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (several of whom actively cooperated with the Civic Forum); two members of the Czechoslovak Socialist Party; two members of the Czechoslovak People's Party; and seven ministers with no party affiliation - all of latter were Civic Forum or Public Against Violence activists.

This new government was named by Czechoslovak President Gustav Husak on December 10. The same evening, he went on television to announce his resignation, and the Civic Forum cancelled a general strike which had been scheduled for the next day.

At the 19th joint session of the two houses of the Federal Assembly, Alexandr Dubcek - who had led the ill-fated Prague Spring movement in the 1960's - was elected Speaker of the Federal Assembly. One day later, the parliament elected the Civic Forum's leader, Vaclav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia.

Despite their many shortcomings - not the least of which were political inexperience and serious time pressures - the new government and parliament were able to fill in many of the most gaping gaps in the Czechoslovak legal framework - concentrating in particular on the areas of human rights and freedoms, private ownership, and business law. They were also able to lay the framework for the first free elections to be held in Czechoslovakia in more than 40 years.

The results of the 1990 local and parliamentary elections in Czechoslovakia, which were likened at the time to a referendum which posed the question "Communism, yes or no?" showed a sweeping victory for the soon to be extinct Civic Forum (OF) in the Czech Republic, and for the Public Against Violence (VPN) in Slovakia. In other words, "Communism, no thanks."

The turnout for the local elections was more than 73 percent, and for Parliamentary elections more than 96 percent of the population went to the polls!

Czech Petr Pithart of the Civic Forum was elected as Czech Premier, Slovaks Vladimir Meciar and Marian Calfa, both of the Public Against Violence (VPN), were elected Slovak and Federal Premier, respectively. Vaclav Havel was re-elected as the Czechoslovak President on July 5, 1990.

The Czech Republic Today
The Czechoslovak government, after recovering its breath after the heady days and months which followed the Velvet Revolution (or "November"), set about dismantling old frameworks. The totally new situation after the fall of Communism led to an almost immediate about-face in international relations for Czechoslovakia. The Warsaw Pact and Comecon were out, and NATO and the European Union are currently in - the Czech Republic is set to join both, and already participates in NATO's "Partnership for Peace" program and is associate member of the European Union and a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

As early as 1990, the country military cooperated closely with the US military while participating in the UN-sanctioned Gulf War. Since then, the country's army has played a continuous role in UN peace- keeping missions in the former Yugoslavia.

In the early 1990's many countries in the Central and Eastern European region fell apart: Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia have all ceased to exist. For Czechoslovakia, the transition to separate Czech and Slovak Republics was entirely peaceful.

That Czechoslovakia would become defunct was basically decided at the polls with the nationwide general elections of 1992, when the Czechs voted overwhelmingly for the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) led by then-Federal Finance Minister, Vaclav Klaus - a strict Monetarist of the Milton Friedman school, a fan of Margaret Thatcher, and one of the fathers (along with Tomas Jezek and Dusan Triska) of the Czech economic reform and privitization processes. Meanwhile, the Slovaks voted in the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) led by the staunch nationalist Vladimir Meciar, whose platform basically consisted of two planks: more autonomy for the eastern half of the former Czechoslovakia and the slowing down of the privitization process and economic reforms.

Voter preference in the two halves of Czechoslovakia reflected such divergent public opinion on how the future of the country should progress - with the Czechs choosing fast-paced reforms and the Slovaks choosing a time-out in the reform process - that the election winners in the two halves of Czechoslovakia soon decided that a shared future for the two nations was essentially impossible.

The next six months were spent dividing the common property that the two partners in the Czechoslovak Federation shared. Like all "divorces," the breakup of Czechoslovakia was painful and a little bit messy. But it was as amicable as it could be under the circumstances. Czechoslovakia peacefully ceased to exist on December 31, 1992.

In the Czech Republic, coupon privitization, restitution, and the selling off of formerly state-owned companies (in two stages - known as the "Small Privitization" and the "Large Privitization") continued apace. Huge state monopolies like those in the Telecommunications and Tobacco industries were privatized - but banks were not. A complex debt structure that the largest formerly state companies retained from communist times (when it was impossible for a factory to stop manufacturing goods for ie a "business partner" in the Soviet Union even if he did not pay) led to an even more complex system of mutual insolvency (in which company A owed money to company B which owed money to company C which owed money to company X which owed money to our original company A). This situation was, unfortunately, never resolved. The state-run banks were unwilling to foreclose on companies A-C and X, fearing a rise in unemployment. Banks tended to loan very little money at very high interest rates, and when mismanagement and embezzlement caused a number of Czech banks to fold in the first half of the 1990s, the government bailed them out instead of allowing them to fail - essentially making the same mistake the banks had done in not letting any large enterprises fail on account of their unmanageable debts.

Medium and small businesses did not receive government support - nor did Czech-made goods - even though the private sector desperately needed a shot in the arm after 40 years of communism. Taxes for both individuals and business were - as is usual in Europe - rather high. In 1996, restrictions on trading of the Czech crown were lifted, making it the first convertible currency in the former Soviet Bloc.

In mid 1997, foreign market speculation with the newly convertible Czech currency caused a monetary crisis which brought all the deficiencies in the Czech privitazation process and economic transformation glaringly into the forefront of political life in this country. As this text was being prepared for Radio Prague's "History Online" exhibit, it seemed possible (even likely) that the government would soon face a no-confidence vote in the parliament, and President Vaclav Havel (who remarried in early 1997) may well call early elections in the not-too-distant future. (If he does not, the next regular elections are scheduled to take place in 2000.)

This is not as bad as it sounds, as early elections have been expected ever since the parliamentary elections of mid-1996 (the first for the independent Czech Republic) returned an unclear mandate to the government. On the one hand, voters returned the same parties which have ruled in coalition since the 1996 elections to power - confirming their agreement with economic reforms and the post-Velvet Revolution leadership (rather than returning to socialist or reform- communist parties, as voters have done in Poland, Hungary, and other post communist countries). But they returned them with much lower overall voter support - so that they initially had a minority in the Parliament (99 seats out of a total of 200).

While all of the nation's problems have not been solved in the eight years since the communists were swept from power, much has been done. In the fall of 1996, the Czech Republic's first Senate as upper house of parliament was elected; while in the spring of that year - in their last session before the 1996 elections, the Czech parliament passed a law enabling the public to access their old Communist Secret Police files (at least those portions of them that don't compromise national security).

The fall of the Iron Curtained re-opened formerly closed borders, and the Czech Republic has become one of the premier tourist destinations in all the world. Unspoilt medieval city centres in Prague, Telc, Cesky Krumlov and Kutna Hora are on the UNESCO World Heritage list, as is the Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk in Zdar nad Sazavou.

Many foreigners have also moved to the Czech Republic, especially to Prague. This has returned the kind of lively, cosmopolitan feel the capital city has traditionally enjoyed through the ages, situated as it always has been on the "crossroads of Europe."

Accomplishments like the Oscar for Best Foreign Film of 1996 going to the Czech film, Kolya and the Czech victory at the 1996 World Hockey championships in Vienna (and their second-place win in the European Cup soccer finals the same year) as well as the 9 medals they brought back from the 1996 Olympics have done a lot to help to build up Czech national pride, which was rather at an ebb after 40 years of communist rule made most Czechs feel disconcerted, and as if they were "second-class Euro citizens."

After the fall of communism, people in the arts had feared that the loss of state subsidies would lead to a sharp decline in the standard of Czech culture. This has not, apparently, been the case - and Czech film, theater and music have flourished in the absence of censorship and other state interference.

Architectural activity has mostly focused on the reconstruction of important buildings that suffered from 40 years of criminal neglect under the communists. As for new buildings, the "Dancing House," (also nicknamed "Fred and Ginger") on Rasinovo nabrezi (next to President Havel's former flat) has - like the Cubist, Rondo, and other new architectural styles which came before it - caused many disputes and much controversy. But new building activity is low, and the housing crisis which has plagued this country since at least the 1920s is as bad as ever it was. The lifting of rent controls on July 1, 1997 should help to remedy the situation at least a little. As with the current economic and political crises, we will have to wait and see.

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