The First Republic: why interwar Czechoslovakia is still the benchmark

Ask Czechs what they admire about the interwar republic and the answers come as a bundle: a democratic constitution, a sound currency, fine architecture, a president who was also a philosopher, and a sense that the country counted in Europe. Ask the German, Slovak and Hungarian communities of the time and the bundle looks different. Both memories are real, and the First Republic is best understood with both in view.

It lasted twenty years. It began with the proclamation described in creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 and ended with the crisis covered in the Munich Agreement and the occupation. In between came a political and cultural life that Czechs still use as a yardstick.

A democracy in a region of dictatorships

The constitution of 1920 created a parliamentary republic with a two-chamber National Assembly and a president elected by parliament, with relatively limited powers. Elections used proportional representation with party lists. Many parties stood, and no single party ever governed alone, so coalitions were the rule.

A distinctive feature was an informal group called the Pětka (the Five), made up of leaders of the main coalition parties, which agreed on difficult questions before they reached parliament. Critics said it was undemocratic; admirers said it kept the system stable. Czechoslovakia's political stability was unusual in the region, where Hungary, Poland, Austria, Germany and others moved towards authoritarian rule during these years.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the founding president, was re-elected three times and stayed in office until 1935. A philosopher who wrote on Czech history and Hussite ideals, he became a symbol of the state's liberal tradition. His successor, Edvard Beneš, had led foreign policy since 1918 and had a quite different style, careful and diplomatic.

The economy: industry and uneven ground

The Czech lands had inherited the industrial heart of Austria-Hungary, so the new state started with many factories and a skilled workforce, but it had lost the imperial market and had to find new customers. Škoda Works in Plzeň produced armaments, locomotives and heavy machinery, ČKD in Prague built trams and engines, and Tatra in Moravia built cars. The shoemaking firm Baťa in Zlín grew into a global company and a model town with its own housing and social planning.

The finance minister Alois Rašín split the Czechoslovak koruna from the old Austro-Hungarian currency in 1919 and pursued a hard-money policy, and the koruna was relatively strong in the region in the 1920s. The republic also provided early forms of social insurance. But the economy was uneven: Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia were much poorer and less industrial than Bohemia and Moravia, and that gap fed political resentment. When the world depression hit around 1930, export-dependent sectors suffered badly. Unemployment was concentrated in the border areas, many of them German-speaking, which mattered politically.

Culture, architecture and daily life

Culture flourished. Karel Čapek, who gave the world the word robot in his play R.U.R., shared cafés with painters and composers. Prague's avant-garde Devětsil group mixed poetry, photography and architecture, and the Barrandov film studios opened in the 1930s. Some of the best-known modernist houses of the era stand in the Czech lands: the Müller Villa in Prague, designed by Adolf Loos, and the Tugendhat Villa in Brno by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Daily life for most people was modest. Villages lived much as before while towns grew, and Sokol, football and the cinema drew people together. Prague's German and Jewish communities had their own theatres, newspapers and associations.

Minorities: the republic's hardest question

Officially this was the state of the Czechoslovak nation. The census shows how mixed it was: Germans were the largest minority, at more than a fifth of the population, Hungarians and Ruthenians (Rusyns) were also numerous, and there were Poles and Jews. The 1920 constitution and later laws protected minority rights, including language rights where a minority reached a set share of the local population. German schools and a German university in Prague continued, and German parties took part in government for much of the 1920s.

Even so, many Germans felt like second-class citizens. They had not been asked about joining the state, and the early land reform and administrative policies seemed to favour Czechs. Slovaks, meanwhile, wanted more autonomy than Prague was willing to give, and the Slovak People's Party grew on that demand. A sincere commitment to democracy did not remove these grievances.

The shadow from outside

From 1933 Czechoslovakia bordered a hostile Germany. Its security rested on alliances: the Little Entente with Romania and Yugoslavia, a treaty with France and, from 1935, a mutual assistance pact with the Soviet Union that depended on French action. In the mid-1930s it also began building a system of border fortifications.

At home the depression had radicalised politics in the border regions. In 1933 Konrad Henlein founded a movement that became the Sudeten German Party, which won the largest share of the vote in the 1935 parliamentary elections. Its demands escalated, with strong encouragement from Berlin, from autonomy to union with Germany. The story of how that unfolded is the subject of Czech Germans and the Sudetenland.

How to read the legacy

The First Republic is easy to romanticise, and Czech public memory sometimes does. An honest account includes the unresolved minority questions, the economic divide with Slovakia and the limits of the party system. It also includes real achievements: a working democracy, universal suffrage, a strong civil society and a refuge for people fleeing dictatorship. German writers and politicians who left Nazi Germany found shelter in Prague in the 1930s.

The legacy is visible in the city. Functionalist apartment blocks in Dejvice and Vinohrady, the Veletržní Palace and many schools date from this era. When Czechs invoke the "first republic", they usually mean a standard to be measured against, and it helps to know what is being measured.

The National Museum, Prague Castle and Czech Parliament websites carry historical material, and Zlín has a good deal of Baťa-era architecture. Check opening hours with the operators.

Frequently asked questions

Why is it called the First Republic?

It was the first Czechoslovak republic, before the occupation, the communist period and the later federation. The term usually means 1918 to 1938.

Who was the first president?

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, elected on 14 November 1918, who served until he resigned in December 1935.

How many Germans lived in the republic?

They were the largest minority, more than a fifth of the population, mostly in the border regions of Bohemia and Moravia.

Was the republic a real democracy?

Yes, a parliamentary one with universal suffrage and many parties, although minority and regional tensions remained unresolved.