From Great Moravia to the EU: Czech history in nine stages

Czechs get 28 October off to mark the founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and 17 November to recall both the Nazi repression of Czech students in 1939 and the start of the Velvet Revolution fifty years later. Czech history comes with a calendar attached. What follows is a quick route through it in nine stages, for a resident who wants the outline before going deeper.

Great Moravia, ninth century

The first state historians recognise in the region, Great Moravia, grew up in the ninth century around what is now Moravia and parts of neighbouring lands. In 863 the brothers Cyril and Methodius arrived from Byzantium to teach in a Slavic language, devising an alphabet for the purpose. The state did not outlast the early tenth century, but its Christian and written culture did.

The Přemyslids and the Bohemian kingdom

From the late ninth century the Přemyslid dynasty ruled Bohemia from Prague. In 1198 the ruler became a king, and the title was confirmed as hereditary in 1212. The dynasty ended in 1306 with the murder of Wenceslas III. The full story is in the Přemyslids and the medieval Czech state.

The Luxembourgs and Charles IV

After 1310 the throne passed to the House of Luxembourg. Charles IV, king of Bohemia and from 1355 Holy Roman Emperor, made Prague an imperial capital. He founded Charles University in 1348, laid out the New Town and pushed on the building of St Vitus Cathedral. Prague became one of the largest cities in Central Europe.

Hus and the Reformation

The preacher Jan Hus was burned at the stake at Constance in 1415. The Hussite movement that followed reshaped Bohemia, with wars against crusading armies and a Church that allowed communion in both kinds. Religious division marked Czech society for the next two centuries.

The Habsburgs

In 1526 the Bohemian crown passed to the Habsburgs, who held it until 1918. In 1618 Protestant nobles threw royal officials from a window at Prague Castle, an act that led into the Thirty Years' War. The Protestant estates were defeated at White Mountain in 1620, and the Habsburgs tightened their grip, expelling many nobles and imposing Catholicism. In the nineteenth century the Czech National Revival produced a modern language, literature and politics, and by the end of the century Czech parties were active in the Austrian empire.

History you can walk through

Prague makes the sequence tangible. Vyšehrad and the Castle belong to the Přemyslids. The Charles Bridge, the New Town and St Vitus Cathedral belong to Charles IV. The Hussite period left a mark in the language of Czech Protestantism and, in popular memory, in the figure of Hus himself. In the paving of Old Town Square a line of 27 crosses commemorates the leaders of the Protestant revolt who were executed there in 1621, after White Mountain.

The twentieth century is written in squares and quays. Wenceslas Square saw the crowds of the Velvet Revolution, and a memorial there recalls Jan Palach, the student who set himself on fire in January 1969 in protest at the end of the Prague Spring. Anyone living in Prague passes these places without a plaque on the way to work, which is why a rough outline of the story, as above, repays the effort.

Czechoslovakia, 1918 to 1938

At the end of the First World War the Czechoslovak Republic was proclaimed on 28 October 1918, with Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk as first president. It was a parliamentary democracy and, between the wars, one of the more industrialised states of Central Europe. It also held large minorities, notably Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians and Ruthenians.

War and occupation

In September 1938 the Munich Agreement, signed by Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom without Czechoslovakia at the table, forced the cession of the Sudetenland. In March 1939 German troops occupied the rest of the Czech lands, which became the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Czech universities were closed in November 1939. After liberation in 1945, most of the German-speaking population was expelled.

Communism and the Prague Spring

The Communist Party took power in February 1948, and a decade of political repression followed. In 1968 the party under Alexander Dubček tried the reforms known as the Prague Spring. Warsaw Pact troops invaded on the night of 20 to 21 August 1968, and the period of "normalisation" that followed lasted until 1989.

1989 and after

The Velvet Revolution began on 17 November 1989 with a student march in Prague and ended communist rule within weeks. The playwright and dissident Václav Havel became president at the end of December. Czechoslovakia split peacefully on 1 January 1993 into Czechia and Slovakia. Czechia joined NATO in 1999, the European Union on 1 May 2004 and the Schengen area on 21 December 2007.

Three themes that keep returning

First, a long tradition of statehood. Bohemia was a kingdom in the Middle Ages, and the idea of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown survived within the Habsburg empire. That is why Czech politicians and historians often speak of continuity rather than invention when they describe the republic of 1918 and the republic of 1993.

Second, a country in the middle. Czech lands sat between Germany, Poland, Austria and Hungary, and decisions that shaped them were often made elsewhere: in Vienna, at Munich in 1938, in Moscow in 1968. Many of the country's best-known political choices, such as joining NATO and the EU, came from a determination not to be on the receiving end again.

Third, language as politics. The Czech language was the centre of the National Revival in the nineteenth century, and Charles University, the Czech National Theatre and the Czech parties of the Austrian parliament all grew from the effort to make Czech a language of public life. A foreigner who learns even a little Czech will find that this effort is still valued.

A caution about all short histories, this one included: each stage compresses decades of argument. Historians still disagree about the dates and reasons for many events, from the death of Wenceslas to the causes of the Hussite wars, and the memory of the twentieth century remains politically sensitive. Treat the outline as a map to get your bearings, then read the specialist sources for any single period.

Where to go next

The present-day state is described in how the Czech state is organised, and the country's names in Czech Republic or Czechia. Several of these stages sit within walking distance of each other in Prague: the Castle, Charles Bridge and Old Town Square. The government and public administration portals below give official information on the modern state.

Frequently asked questions

When did Czechia become independent?

On 1 January 1993, when Czechoslovakia split peacefully into Czechia and Slovakia. Czechoslovakia itself was proclaimed on 28 October 1918.

What was the Velvet Revolution?

The largely peaceful end of communist rule, which began with a student march in Prague on 17 November 1989 and ended one-party government within weeks.

When did Czechia join NATO and the EU?

NATO in 1999 and the EU on 1 May 2004. It entered the Schengen area on 21 December 2007.