Welcome to the Czech Portal!
Vítejte na Českém portálu!
The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The Czech Republic has a hilly landscape that covers an area of 78,871 square kilometers (30,452 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental and oceanic climate. The capital and largest city is Prague; other major cities and urban areas include Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň and Liberec.
The Duchy of Bohemia was founded in the late 9th century under Great Moravia. It was formally recognized as an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire in 1002 and became a kingdom in 1198. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, all of the Crown lands of Bohemia were gradually integrated into the Habsburg monarchy. Nearly a hundred years later, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt led to the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Crown lands became part of the Austrian Empire.
In the 19th century, the Czech lands became more industrialized, and in 1918 most of it became part of the First Czechoslovak Republic following the collapse of Austria-Hungary after World War I. Czechoslovakia was the only country in Central and Eastern Europe to remain a parliamentary democracy during the entirety of the interwar period. After the Munich Agreement in 1938, Nazi Germany systematically took control over the Czech lands.
Czechoslovakia was restored in 1945 and three years later became an Eastern Bloc communist state following a coup d'état in 1948. Attempts to liberalize the government and economy were suppressed by a Soviet-led invasion of the country during the Prague Spring in 1968. In November 1989, the Velvet Revolution ended communist rule in the country and restored democracy. On 31 December 1992, Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced, high-income social market economy. It is a welfare state with a European social model, universal health care and free-tuition university education. It ranks 32nd in the Human Development Index. The Czech Republic is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. (Full article...)
Selected article -
The Sudetenland (/suːˈdeɪtənlænd/ ⓘ soo-DAY-tən-land, German: [zuˈdeːtn̩ˌlant]; Czech and Slovak: Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages. Since the 9th century the Sudetenland had been an integral part of the Czech state (first within the Duchy of Bohemia and later the Kingdom of Bohemia) both geographically and politically.
The word "Sudetenland" did not come into being until the early part of the 20th century and did not come to prominence until almost two decades into the century, after World War I, when Austria-Hungary was dismembered and the Sudeten Germans found themselves living in the new country of Czechoslovakia. The Sudeten crisis of 1938 was provoked by the Pan-Germanist demands of Nazi Germany that the Sudetenland be annexed to Germany, which happened after the later Munich Agreement. Part of the borderland was invaded and annexed by Poland. Afterwards, the formerly unrecognized Sudetenland became an administrative division of Germany. When Czechoslovakia was reconstituted after World War II, the Sudeten Germans were expelled and the region today is inhabited almost exclusively by Czech speakers. (Full article...)Selected picture
Photographer: Pudelek; License: Dual (GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons CC-BY-SA)
In this month
- 5 April 1937 – Prague Václav Havel Airport (pictured) opens as Prague Ruzyně Airport
- 7 April 1348 – Charles University in Prague is founded
- 17 April 1969 – First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubček, is replaced by Gustáv Husák
- 18 April 1920 – The first parliamentary elections are held in Czechoslovakia
- 26 April 1945 – The Red Army liberates the city of Brno at the end of World War II
Categories
Selected biography -
Bedřich Smetana (/ˌbɛdərʒɪx ˈsmɛtənə/ BED-ər-zhikh SMET-ə-nə, Czech: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈsmɛtana] ⓘ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Fatherland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau" (in English, "The Moldau").
Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. (Full article...)Did you know?
- ...that the Sedlec Ossuary is a chapel decorated with the bones of 40,000 people?
- ... that the World War II idea of Polish-Czechoslovakian confederation was eventually discarded by the Czechs, whose leader chose instead to believe in the Soviet Union promises of alliance?
- ... that, having played 465 league matches, Jaroslav Šilhavý holds the record for the most appearances in top-flight Czech football?
- ... that Josef Jiří Kolár was the first to begin a systematic translation of Shakespeare's plays into Czech?
General images
Related portals
Topics
Czech lands: Bohemia • Moravia • Czech Silesia
History: Únětice culture • Boii • Marcomanni • Samo • Great Moravia • Přemyslid dynasty • Lands of the Bohemian Crown • Czech lands (1526–1648) • 1648–1867 • 1867–1918) • Czechoslovakia • Czech Republic
Geography: Lakes • Protected areas • Regions • Rivers
Law: Judiciary • Law enforcement • Supreme Court of the Czech Republic
Politics: Administrative divisions • Government • Constitution • Elections • Foreign relations • Army • Parliament • Political parties • President • Prime Minister
Economy: Banks • Czech koruna • Energy • Oil and gas deposits • Stock Exchange • Tourism • Transport
Culture: Architecture • Art • Cinema • Cuisine • Demographics • Education • Language • Literature • Media • Music • Philosophy • Prostitution • Public holidays • Religion • Sport • Television • Video games
Symbols: Flag • Coat of arms • National anthem (Kde domov můj)
Lists: Outline of the Czech Republic • List of Czech Republic–related topics
WikiProjects
Featured and good content
Things to do
Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
- Commons
Free media repository - Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals - Wikidata
Free knowledge base - Wikinews
Free-content news - Wikiquote
Collection of quotations - Wikisource
Free-content library - Wikiversity
Free learning tools - Wikivoyage
Free travel guide - Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus