The History of the Czech Lands
Compiled by Carolyn Sumbera Meiners

 

The Czech Republic, which encompasses an area of l78,864 square kilometers, is composed of three territories: Bohemia, Moravia and a part of Silesia, which are also called the Czech lands. This aggregate of territories existed as early as the Middle Ages. The following brief synopsis of the history of the Czech Lands from the turn of the 19th century to 1992.

Turn of the
Century:		 The Czech National Revival had its beginnings in order to elevate the level of the Czech language and the culture in anticipation of the restoration of the Czech statehood, following the restriction of Czech independence and institution of the German language by the Habsburg empire during the 17th and 18th centuries.
 
1805: The victory of Napoleon over the Russian and Austrian armies at the Great Battle of Three Emperors at Slavkov in southern Moravia resulted in Austrian absolutism tightening its surveillance over attempts at Czech national emancipation and effectively curbing them for decades.
 
1824 - 1832: The construction of the first horse-drawn railroad from Ceske Budejovice, Bohemia to Linz, Austria.
 
1848:

Resistance against serfdom and other feudal liabilities started spreading over the Czech countryside. Serfdom was abolished on September 7, 1848 by Constitutional Assembly in Vienna. Ferdinand V abdicated in December in favor of his nephew, Franz Joseph I, who declared the monarchy absolute. Czech peasants paid redemption fees, sold their possessions and emigrated to American for cheap land. Failures of potato crops, floods, droughts and the lure of the California gold rush brought 25,000 Czech immigrants to the U.S.
 
1848 - 1860: Industrialization of the Czech Lands with the development of enterprises such as the Vitkovice Ironworks near Ostrava, Moravia and the Skoda factory and Burgher Brewery in Plzen, Bohemia. Advances in sugar refining were made. Smelt works and coal mining were concentrated in Ostrava, Moravia and Kladno, Bohemia; machine-tool production was centered around Brno, Moravia; glass manufacturing was prevalent in northern Bohemia; and textile production was developed in northeastern Bohemia. A dense railroad network linked the industrial centers with the rest of Europe.
 
1862: Sokol Association of Physical Culture founded.
 
1867: Habsburg government made concessions to Hungarians, consenting to the joining of the two empires into Austria-Hungary. Czechs failed to achieve statehood, because of Hungarian opposition.
 
1892: Crown currency introduced.
 
1897: First combustion engine-driven car made in Koprivince, Moravia for the Haspburgs in Vienna.
 
Final Decade
of the 19th
Century:		 Czech society had nearly all the features of modern, developed society with diversification of Czech politics and the rise of new parties. In the cultural sphere, a romantizing national orientation, known as the Art Nouveau style, was predominant in Czech art, such as the works of Alfons Mucha and in music with the compositions of Antonin Dvorak and later the operas of Leos Janacek.
 
1914: The Sarajevo assassination of Austrian Crown-Prince Fancis Ferdinand d'Este, owner of the Konopiste Estate south of Prague, previded the impetus for the outbreak of World War I. Czechs were opposed to the alliance of Austria-Hungary and Germany, because their victory with increase the danger of Germanization of Central Europe.
 
1915: T.G. Masaaryk spoke out in Geneva for the shattering of the Habsburg monarchy and the development of a new state - Czechoslovakia, which would be a joining of the Czech Lands and the Slovak nation, which had been deprived of its nationality and oppressed by the Hungarians for centuries.
 
1918: After the death of Emperor Franz Joseph I and the succession of Charles I, the situation relaxed in the Czech Lands. The failure of the German and Austrian forces against the Allies resulted in the proclamation of the independence of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918. The Republic was composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Czech Silesia, Slovakia and Carpatho-Russia. T.G. Masaryk was elected President. Titles and orders of nobility were abolished.
 
1920: A constitution inspired by French and American models were ratified, proclaiming the state of Czechoslovakia a "Democratic Republic."
 
1921: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was born as a result of a split from the Social-Democrats; it looked towards the Soviet Union as its model.
 
1920's - 1930's: Czechoslovakia ranked among the ten most-developed states in the world; it had expanded its heavy and consumer industries, as well as its agricultural base.
 
1922: The first Czech passenger plane took off from the Prague airport with one passenger and a load of airmail to Bratislava.
 
1926: Strahov Stadium opened in Prague for the 8th Sokol Festival; it was the largest stadium in the world with a capacity of 240,000 spectators and 40,000 trainees.
 
1933:

The depression hit the country hard with over one million jobless people. Adolph Hitler came into power in Germany with intentions of uniting all Germans under one state; German inhabitants in the Czech Lands began aligning themselves to Germany.
 
1935: Sudento-German Party was successful in Czech parliamentary elections of 1935. Edvard Benes became President of the Republic in December when 85 year old Masaryk resigned during his fourth term.
 
1938: After international pressure and fear of possible military conflict, Czechoslovakia accepted the conclusions of the Munich Agreement signed by Hitler and the leaders of Great Britain, France and Italy that ceded the border territories of the Czech Lands (Sudetenland) to Hitler. Eventually the Tesin region went to Poland, and the southern and southeastern regions of Slovakia fell to Hungary. Benes abdicated in October and left to England, resulting in the fall of the "First Republic" and the split in the country. The official designation of the State became Czecho-Slovakia.
 
1939: Slovakia became an independent state. The German armies occupied the Czech Lands on March 15, followed by the establishment by Hitler of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as part of the great German Reiche. Czechoslovakia disappeared from the world's map for six years. Domestic and foreign resistance's formed, with Czechoslovak foreign military units rising in Poland, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
 
1940 - 1941: War escalated in Central Europe with an air battle over Great Britain, where Czech pilots gained much credit, and the attack on Soviet Union by Germans; the United States entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
 
1942: The assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich in Prague by the Czechoslovak foreign resistance resulted in Faswcist terror and the annihilation of the village of Lidice, Bohemia on June 10.
 
1945: Czechoslovakia was liberated on May 9 by Soviet troops in Prague and American troops along the line between Karlovy Vary to Plzen to Ceske Budejovice, Bohemia. The Soviet Union gained Subcarpathian Russia. The Czechoslovak Republic was reestablished with President Benes at its head. According to the agreement at the Potsdam Conference, all German inhabitants in Bohemia and Moravia were transferred into defeated Germany and their property was confiscated. The mines, key industries, banks and insurance companies were nationalized.
 
1946: The Communist rebuked the other political parties for having accepted the Munich agreement, opposed nationalization, gained the trust of the populace and won the parliamentary elections. Faith in Communist ideals was reinforced as a reaction to the hardships of war. Their victory reinforced their relationship with the Soviet Union.
 
1948: Communists effectively schemed to break up other political parties, proclaimed a governmental crisis, forced President Benes to accept the demise of the democratic parties, resign and entrust leader Klement Gottwald with the formation of a Communist government. The Communist Party seized power and remain in control for 41 years.
 
1949: Roman-Catholic bishops delivered an official protest against Communist encroachments on the Catholics Church's liberty. Josef Beran, the Archbishop of Prague, was interned for 16 years.
 
1960: A new constitution was passed; the name of the state was changed to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
 
1963: A theater in Prague produced the first play of writer Vaclav Havel, who would later become president.
 
1968: Moderated conditions in the cultural and political life gave rise to new organizations, which were to become the basis of the pluralist democracy. The "200 Word Declaration: suggested that a reform process was to carry on without the cooperation of the Communist party. This revival of society was called "Prague Spring". Armed intervention by Warsaw Treaty Member-States occurred in August, when 750,000 foreign soldiers and 6000 tanks from the USSR, East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria invaded the USSR to stop the liberation. Approximately 244,000 Czechs emigrated to other countries. Tens of thousands of Czechs protested against the Soviet occupation.
 
1969: Czechoslovakia became the federation of the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic.
 
1988: Several thousand people gathered in Prague in the first of a series of anti-Communist demonstrations.
 
1989: Over 40,000 people signed a petition asking for liberty and democracy in the country. In November, a student demonstration in Prague launched the "Velvet Revolution". Later in the month, a week-long wave of demonstrations all over the country was culminated by a three-quarter-million strong rally. A new coalition government was formed in December, and the Iron Curtain started falling down. Vaclav Havel was elected President. Representatives of certain Slovak political parties declared their desire for an independent Slovak Republic.
 
1990: In April, the name of the state was changed to the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. Free elections too place in June. Representatives of certain Slovak political parties declared their desire for an independent Slovak Republic.
 
1991: Privatization of the economy was launched. The last Soviet soldiers left the country.
 
1992: Representatives of the two most powerful parties in the Czech and Slovak Republics, which had very different views for the future of the common state, proposed the dissolution of the Federation. A treaty was signed in November. At midnight on December 31, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. Her successors be the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.