Ethnic Czechs were called Bohemians in English until the early 20th century,[19] referring to the former name of their country, Bohemia, which in turn was adapted from the late Iron Age tribe of Celtic Boii. During the Migration Period, West Slavic tribes settled in the area, "assimilated the remaining Celtic and Germanic populations",[citation needed] and formed a principality in the 9th century, which was initially part of Great Moravia, in form of Duchy of Bohemia and later Kingdom of Bohemia, the predecessors of the modern republic.
The Czech ethnic group is part of the West Slavic subgroup of the larger Slavic ethno-linguistical group. The West Slavs have their origin in early Slavic tribes which settled in Central Europe after East Germanic tribes had left this area during the migration period.[20] The West Slavic tribe of Czechs settled in the area of Bohemia during the migration period, and assimilated the remaining Celtic and Germanic populations.[21] In the 9th century the Duchy of Bohemia, under the Přemyslid dynasty, was formed, which had been part of Great Moravia under Svatopluk I. According to mythology, the founding father of the Czech people was Forefather Čech, who according to legend brought the tribe of Czechs into its land.
The Czechs are closely related to the neighbouring Slovaks (with whom they constituted Czechoslovakia 1918–1992). The Czech–Slovak languages form a dialect continuum rather than being two clearly distinct languages.[22] Czech cultural influence in Slovak culture is noted as having been much higher than the other way around.[23] Czech (Slavic) people have a long history of coexistence with the Germanic people. In the 17th century, German replaced Czech in central and local administration; upper classes in Bohemia and Moravia were Germanized, and espoused a political identity (Landespatriotismus), while Czech ethnic identity survived among the lower and lower-middle classes.[24] The Czech National Revival took place in the 18th and 19th centuries aiming to revive Czech language, culture and national identity. The Czechs were the initiators of Pan-Slavism.[25]
The Czech ethnonym (archaic Čechové) was the name of a Slavic tribe in central Bohemia that subdued the surrounding tribes in the late 9th century and created the Czech/Bohemian state. The origin of the name of the tribe itself is unknown. According to legend, it comes from their leader Čech, who brought them to Bohemia. Research regards Čech as a derivative of the root čel- (member of the people, kinsman).[26] The Czech ethnonym was adopted by the Moravians in the 19th century.[27]
The population of the Czech lands has been influenced by different human migrations that wide-crossed Europe over time. In their Y-DNA haplogroups, which are inherited along the male line, Czechs have shown a mix of Eastern and Western European traits. According to a 2007 study, 34.2% of Czech men belong to R1a. Within the Czech Republic, the proportion of R1a seems to gradually increase from west to east.[32] According to a 2000 study, 35.6% of Czech men have haplogroup R1b, which is very common in Western Europe among Germanic and Celtic nations, but rare among Slavic nations.[33] A mtDNA study of 179 individuals from Western Bohemia showed that 3% had East Eurasian lineages that perhaps entered the gene pool through admixture with Central Asian nomadic tribes in the early Middle Ages.[34] A group of scientists suggested that the high frequency of a gene mutation causing cystic fibrosis in Central European (including Czech R.) and Celtic populations supports the theory of some Celtic ancestry among the Czech population.[35]
During the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo, supporting the Slavs fighting against nearby settled Avars, became the ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, Samo's Empire. The principality Great Moravia, controlled by the Moymir dynasty, arose in the 8th century and reached its zenith in the 9th (during the reign of Svatopluk I of Moravia) when it held off the influence of the Franks. Great Moravia was Christianized, the crucial role played Byzantine mission of Cyril and Methodius. The Duchy of Bohemia emerged in the late 9th century. In 880, Prague Castle was constructed by Prince Bořivoj, founder of the Přemyslid dynasty and the city of Prague was established. Vratislav II was the first Czech king in 1085 and the duchy was raised to a hereditary kingdom under Ottokar I in 1198.
The second half of the 13th century was a period of advancing German immigration into the Czech lands. The number of Czechs who have at least partly German ancestry today probably runs into hundreds of thousands.[42] The Habsburg Monarchy focused much of its power on religious wars against the Protestants. While these religious wars were taking place, the Czech estates revolted against Habsburg from 1546 to 1547 but were ultimately defeated.[43]
Defenestrations of Prague in 1618, signaled an open revolt by the Bohemian estates against the Habsburgs and started the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, all Czech lands were declared hereditary property of the Habsburg family. The German language was made equal to the Czech language.
Czech patriotic authors tend to call the following period, from 1620 to 1648 until the late 18th century, the "Dark Age". It is characterized by devastation by foreign troops; Germanization; and economic and political decline. It is estimated that the population of the Czech lands declined by a third.[44]
The 18th and 19th century is characterized by the Czech National Revival, focusing to revive Czech culture and national identity.
Since the turn of the 20th century, Chicago is the city with the third largest Czech population, after Prague and Vienna.[45][46]
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was followed by a wave of emigration, unseen before and stopped shortly after in 1969 (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total),[50] typically of highly qualified people.
Tens of thousands of Czechs had repatriated from Volhynia and Banat after World War II. Since the 1990s, the Czech Republic has been working to repatriate Romania and Kazakhstan's ethnic Czechs.[51][52]
Following the Czech Republic's entry into the European Union in May 2004, Czechs gradually gained the right to work in EU countries without a work permit.[53]
Many people are considered national heroes and cultural icons, many national stories concern their lives. Jan Hus was a religious reformist from the 15th century and spiritual father of the Hussite Movement.[56]Jan Žižka and Prokop the Great were leaders of hussite army, George of Poděbrady was a hussite king. Albrecht von Wallenstein was a notable military leader during the Thirty Years' War. The teacher of nationsJan Amos Komenský is also considered a notable figure in Czech history.[57]Joseph Radetzky von Radetz was an Austrian general staff during the later period of the Napoleonic Wars. Josef Jungmann is often credited for expanding the modern Czech language, and preventing its extinction.[58] The most famous Czech historian was František Palacký, often called "father of nation".
Czech musicians also played an important role in the development of European music. Jan Václav Antonín Stamic in 18th-century contributed to the creation of Classicism in music[67] by innovations of compositional forms and the founding of the Mannheim school. Similarly, Antonín Rejcha's experiments prefigured new compositional techniques in the 19th century.[68] The influence of Czech musicians expanded beyond the borders of the European continent, when Antonín Dvořák created a new American classical music style, using the richness of ethnic music of that country during his mission in the US. The contribution of Alois Hába to microtonal music in the 20th century must be also mentioned.
Some notable modern Czech musicians are US-based composer and guitarist Ivan Král, musician and composer Jan Hammer and the rock band The Plastic People of the Universe which played an important part in the underground movement during the communist regime.
The Czech Republic first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007. Czech performer qualified for the grand final for the first time in 2016 when singer Gabriela Gunčíková finished in 25th place. In 2018 the singer Mikolas Josef reached the 6th place in the contest being the best result of the Czech Republic until today.
Greater coat of arms of the Czech Republic shows symbols of historical lands Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia
The Czechs live in three historical lands: Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia;[85] these regions make up the modern Czech Republic. However, the country is now divided into 14 administrative regions.[86] The local culture varies somewhat in each of the historical regions.[87]Moravians are usually more nationalistic regional patriots of Moravia, but they also speak Czech. Local dialects (such as Central Bohemian, the Chod dialect, Moravian dialects, Cieszyn Silesian, etc.) are found in various parts of the country.[88]
The Czech language is spoken by approximately 12 million people around the world, but the vast majority are in the Czech Republic.[89] It developed from the Proto-Slavic language in the 10th century[89][90] and is mutually intelligible with the Slovak language.[91]
In 1977, Richard Felix Staar described Czechs as "tolerant and even indifferent towards religion as a rule".[92]
After the Bohemian Reformation, most Czechs (about 85%) became followers of Jan Hus, Petr Chelčický and other regional Protestant Reformers. Bohemian Estates' defeat in the Battle of White Mountain brought radical religious changes and started a series of intense actions taken by the Habsburgs in order to bring the Czech population back to the Roman Catholic Church. After the Habsburgs regained control of Bohemia, Czech people were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism. All kinds of Protestant communities including the various branches of Hussites, Lutherans and Reformed were either expelled, killed, or converted to Catholicism. The Catholic Church lost the bulk of its adherents during the Communist era.
As of 2015, Pew Research Center found in that 72% of the population of Czech Republic declared to be irreligious, a category which includes atheists, agnostics and those who describe their religion as "nothing in particular", 26% were Christians (vast majority Catholics),[16] while 2% belonged to other faiths.
^This number is a lower estimate, as 2,742,669 people opted out declaring ethnicity in 2011, vast majority of whom were ethnic Czechs as the figure from the 2001 census would suggest, where there were 9.25 million Czechs, excluding Moravians (9.8 million with them included).
^Spal, Jaromír (1953). "Původ jména Čech" [Origin of the name Čech]. Naše řeč (Our Speech) (in Czech). 36 (9–10). The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic: 263–267. Archived from the original on 9 December 2012. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
^Malyarchuk; et al. (2006). "Mitochondrial DNA Variability in the Czech Population, with Application to the Ethnic History of Slavs". Human Biology. 78 (6): 681–695. doi:10.1353/hub.2007.0014. PMID17564247. S2CID18334288.
^Bohemia and Poland. Chapter 20.pp 512-513. [in:] Timothy Reuter. The New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 900 – c. 1024. 2000
^The exact dating of Slavic settlement is a matter of dispute amongst scholars. See e.g. Curta ("The Slavs in Bohemia: A Response to my critics; 2009") who favours a 7th-century settlement versus Nada Profantova, who argues a 6th-century settlement
^Jaroslav Jirik "Bohemian Barbarians. Bohemia in late Antiquity", in Neglected Barbarians Brepols 2010[page needed]
^Gruner, Wolf. 2015. Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In: Wolf Grüner & Jörg Osterloh (eds.), The Greater German Reich and the Jews: Nazi Persecution Policies in the Annexed Territories 1935–1945, pp. 99–135. Transl. Bernard Heise. New York: Berghahn, p. 103.
^Ramsden, John. 2002. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century British Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 450.
^Rothschild, Joseph. 1974. East Central Europe between the Two World Wars. Seattle: University of Washington Press, p. 366.
^Liukkonen, Petri. "Václav Havel". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 4 January 2008.
^"VACLAV HAVEL". Radio.cz. Archived from the original on 24 June 2009. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
^"Karel Gott". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. Archived from the original on 1 January 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
^Partridge, James. "Book Review: The Grandmother". Central Europe Review. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 10 February 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Maurice, Edmund (1908). The story of Bohemia from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620;: With a short summary of later events. Fisher, Unwin.
^Mershman, Francis. "St. Wenceslaus". Kevin Knight. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2008.
Berger, Tilman (July 2003). "Slovaks in Czechia—Czechs in Slovakia". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (162). doi:10.1515/ijsl.2003.035.
Wiskemann, Elizabeth (1967). Czechs & Germans: a study of the struggle in the historic provinces of Bohemia and Moravia. Royal Institute of International Affairs; Macmillan.
Mastny, Vojtech (1971). The Czechs under Nazi Rule. Columbia University Press.
Hermann, Adolf Hanus (1975). A History of the Czechs. Lane, Allen.
