Buzola

History - Czech Republic

History of Czech republic

The earliest settlement of the lands now known as the Czech Republic is shrouded in mystery, although we do know that various Celtic and Germanic tribes passed this way before the Slavs moved in at some time over the 5th, 6th or 7th centuries.

At some point, the Slavs were conquered by the mystery-shrouded Great Moravian Empire but it wasn’t until that empire fell, in the 10th century, that the Bohemian lands and the city of Prague really hit their stride, under the Přemyslid dynasty.

It’s hard to separate the history of Přemyslid dynasty from the myths that surround it.

According to legend, the clan was originally ruled by the prophetess Libuše. Under pressure to find a husband, however, she went into a trance and sent a white horse out to find a groom.

As predicted, the horse found a ploughman, with two spotted oxen. This was Přemysl. Libuše married Přemysl and the dynasty bearing his name became the first great dynasty on the Czech lands.

Another Libuše-related legend explains the foundation of Prague.

Standing on the top of Vyšehrad hill, Libuše predicted that “a city whose splendor will reach to the stars" would be established nearby, at the spot where a carpenter would be found building a door frame. (The word “práh”, an old Czech word for threshold, is thought to be the origin of the Czech name for Prague, Praha.)

Luckily for Prague TV, a carpenter was found and the city we now live in came into being.

The most celebrated figure in Czech history was also a member of Přemyslid dynasty.

This was Wenceslas I (in Czech, Václav I), the fourth Přemysl leader and – by the standards of the day – a bit of a bleeding-heart liberal.

Wenceslas formed closer alliances with Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire and also dabbled with Christianity. His easygoing attitudes didn’t go down too well at home, however, and he was murdered by his brother Boleslav in 929.

Wenceslas’s legacy would live on, however. He was made a saint shortly after his death while today Prague’s main square (Václavské náměstí) bears his name and a statue that has become a focal point for gatherings and demonstrations of all kinds, including 1989 Velvet Revolution.

For English-speakers, meanwhile, Wenceslas is probably best known through the Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas (although he wasn’t, in fact, a king – merely a prince.)

The Přemyslids gave way to the Luxembourg Dynasty in the 1306 and the kingdom of Bohemia continued to grow, hitting its heights under Charles IV (Karel IV) who divided his time between heading the Holy Roman Empire and dragging Prague kicking and screaming into the 14th century.

Charles IV was responsible for building the Charles Bridge (Karlův most), creating the New Town (Nové Město) and setting up Central Europe’s first university, the Charles (Univerzita Karlova).

Although a Christian, Charles IV was also a vocal critic of church corruption, a position shared by his son, Wenceslas IV. But Wenceslas was a weaker leader than his father, and in the turbulent times ahead that would be a big problem.

The trouble began in 1403 when the rector of the Prague university, Jan Hus, began to preach in Czech rather than Latin, and campaigned against corruption in the Catholic church. (A (rather ugly) statue of Jan Hus now stands in Old Town Square.)

Hus was declared a heretic and was burned at the stake in 1415 and his followers, the Hussites, began a bloody religious struggle against the establishment.

The most famous of the Hussites was the one-eyed military genius, Jan Žižka, who led a band of peasant farmers to five consecutive military victories over the crusaders sent by Rome to fight him. (Today, a giant statue of Žižka, on horseback, oversees the Prague district that bears his name, Žižkov.)

Relative calm and prosperity were restored in 1458, when George of Podebrady (Jiří z Poděbrad), an elected Protestant king, took the throne – but the peace was to be shortlived.

Hungary’s Catholic King, Matthias Corvinus, objected to George’s religious leanings, and declared war. Hostilities didn’t cease until George’s death in 1471.

Following George’s death, the Bohemian crown passed to two successive members of the Polish Jagellon dynasty, Vladislav II and Ludvík.

Following Ludvík’s death, the Bohemian nobles elected the Habsburg Duke Ferdinand I king of Bohemia, unwittingly beginning several centuries of mostly repressive Austrian rule.

To varying degrees over the next 400 years, the Czech population’s language, culture and brand of religion were suppressed by the Catholic Habsburgs.

The reign of the eccentric, alchemy-obsessed Rudolf II provided a little light relief from the volatile religious climate.

Rudolf was responsible for building Golden Lane at Prague Castle, to house his army of alchemists, and it’s Rudolf’s wholesale sponsorship of artists, scientists and mystics that’s mainly responsible for Prague’s ongoing reputation as a magical city.

The election of Frederick of Palatinate to the Bohemian throne in 1619 briefly raised hopes among Bohemian Protestants that their fortunes were about to change. Those hopes were crushed in 1620, however, when Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II and the armies of the Roman Catholic League defeated Frederick’s scant forces at the Battle of White Mountain (Bílá Hora) in what is now Prague?s sixth district.

Ferdinand II took control, from Vienna, and the suppression of the Czech identity became even more brutal.

Protestant hopes were raised again in 1634, during the Thirty Years’ War, when General Valdštejn (or Wallenstein), leader of the Imperial Catholic armies, defected to join the Protestant cause. But that hope died when Valdštejn was murdered by Irish mercenaries in Cheb (now in western Bohemia).

By the middle of the 17th century, German had replaced Czech as the official language of government in Bohemia. For over a century, only peasants spoke Czech and the language came close to dying out.

Against this unlikely background, a Czech National Revival (národní obrození) started, beginning with a resurgence of interest in the Czech language, led by writers František Palacký and Karel Havlíček Borovský.

Over time, however, this cultural revival became a political independence movement.

Things came to a head during World War I. While millions of Czech soldiers deserted to the Allies rather than fighting under the Austria-Hungary banner, a philosophy professor named Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and a lawyer (and former Slavia Praha soccer player) named Edvard Beneš lobbied abroad for Czech independence.

Masaryk and Beneš were successful and on October 28th, 1918, an independent state of Czechs and Slovaks – Czechoslovakia – was declared.