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Bohemia

Coordinates: 50°N 15°E / 50°N 15°E / 50; 15
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For other uses, see Bohemia (disambiguation).

Bohemia
Čechy (Czech)
Čěska (Upper Sorbian)
Historical land
Karlštejn Castle
Náměstí Republiky, Plzeň
Prague
Karlovy Vary
Flag of Bohemia
Flag
Coat of arms of Bohemia
Coat of arms
Bohemia (green) overlapped with the current regions of the Czech Republic
Bohemia (green) overlapped with the current regions of the Czech Republic
Location of Bohemia in the European Union
Location of Bohemia in the European Union
CountryCzech Republic
CapitalPrague
Area
 • Total52,065 km2 (20,102 sq mi)
Population
 • Total6,800,000
 • Density130/km2 (340/sq mi)
DemonymBohemian
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)

Bohemia (/boʊˈhiːmiə/ boh-HEE-mee-ə;[1] Czech: Čechy [ˈtʃɛxɪ] ⓘ;[2] German: Böhmen [ˈbøːmən] ⓘ; Upper Sorbian: Čěska [ˈtʃɪska]; Silesian: Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia,[3] in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia proper as a means of distinction.[4]

Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire.[5] After World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, the whole of Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia, defying claims of the German-speaking inhabitants that regions with German-speaking majority should be included in the Republic of German-Austria. Between 1938 and 1945, these border regions were annexed to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland.[6]

The remainder of Czech territory became the Second Czechoslovak Republic, and was subsequently occupied as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia until the end of World War II, after which Bohemia became part of the restored Czechoslovakia. In 1969, the Czech lands (including Bohemia) were given autonomy within Czechoslovakia as the Czech Socialist Republic. In 1990, the name was changed to the Czech Republic, which became a separate state in 1993 with the breakup of Czechoslovakia.[6]

Until 1948, Bohemia was an administrative unit of Czechoslovakia as one of its "lands" (země).[7] Since then, administrative reforms have replaced self-governing lands with a modified system of "regions" (kraje), which do not follow the borders of the historical Czech lands (or the regions from the 1960 and 2000 reforms).[7] However, the three lands are mentioned in the preamble of the Constitution of the Czech Republic: "We, citizens of the Czech Republic in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia..."[8]

Bohemia had an area of 52,065 km2 (20,102 sq mi), and today is home to about 6.8 million of the Czech Republic's 10.8 million inhabitants. Bohemia was bordered in the south by Upper and Lower Austria (both in Austria), in the west by Bavaria (in Germany), and in the north by Saxony and Lusatia (in Germany and Poland, respectively), in the northeast by Silesia (in Poland), and in the east by Moravia (also part of the Czech Republic). Bohemia's borders were mostly marked by mountain ranges such as the Bohemian Forest, the Ore Mountains, and the Giant Mountains; the Bohemian-Moravian border roughly follows the Elbe-Danube watershed.

Etymology[edit]

See also: Name of the Czech Republic

In the second century BC, the Romans were competing for dominance in northern Italy with various peoples, including the Gauls-Celtic tribe Boii. The Romans defeated the Boii at the Battle of Placentia (194 BC) and the Battle of Mutina (193 BC). Afterward, many of the Boii retreated north across the Alps.[9] Much later Roman authors refer to the area they had once occupied (the "desert of the Boii" as Pliny and Strabo called it[10]) as Boiohaemum. The earliest mention[9] was by Tacitus' Germania 28 (written at the end of the first century AD),[11] and later mentions of the same name are in Strabo and Velleius Paterculus.[12] The name appears to consist of the tribal name Boio- plus the Proto-Germanic noun *haimaz "home" (whence Gothic haims, German Heim, Heimat, English home), indicating a Proto-Germanic *Bajahaimaz.

Boiohaemum was apparently isolated to the area where King Marobod's kingdom was centered, within the Hercynian forest. Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII in his 10th-century work De Administrando Imperio also mentioned the region as Boiki (see White Serbia).[13][14][15][16][17]

The Czech name "Čechy" is derived from the name of the Slavic ethnic group, the Czechs, who settled in the area during the sixth or seventh century AD.

History[edit]

Further information: History of the Czech lands and History of Czechoslovakia
An 1892 map showing Bohemia proper outlined in pink, Moravia in yellow, and Austrian Silesia in orange

Ancient Bohemia[edit]

Bohemia, like neighboring Bavaria, is named after the Boii, a large Celtic nation known to the Romans for their migrations and settlement in northern Italy and other places. Another part of the nation moved west with the Helvetii into southern France, which was one of the events leading to the interventions of Julius Caesar's Gaulish campaign of 58 BC. The emigration of the Helvetii and Boii left southern Germany and Bohemia a lightly inhabited "desert" into which Suebic peoples arrived, speaking Germanic languages, and became dominant over remaining Celtic groups. To the south, over the Danube, the Romans extended their empire, and to the southeast, in present-day Hungary, were Dacian peoples.

In the area of modern Bohemia, the Marcomanni and other Suebic groups were led by their king, Marobodus, after they had suffered defeat to Roman forces in Germany. He took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its mountains and forests. They were able to maintain a strong alliance with neighboring tribes, including (at different times) the Lugii, Quadi, Hermunduri, Semnones, and Buri, which was sometimes partly controlled by the Roman Empire and sometimes in conflict with it; for example, in the second century, they fought Marcus Aurelius.

In late classical times and the early Middle Ages, two new Suebic groupings appeared to the west of Bohemia in southern Germany, the Alemanni (in the Helvetian desert), and the Bavarians (Baiuvarii). Many Suebic tribes from the Bohemian region took part in such movements westwards, even settling as far away as Spain and Portugal. With them were also tribes who had pushed from the east, such as the Vandals, and Alans.

Other groups pushed southwards towards Pannonia. The last known mention of the Kingdom of the Marcomanni, concerning a queen named Fritigil, is from the fourth century, and she was thought to have lived in or near Pannonia. The Suebian Langobardi, who moved over many generations from the Baltic Sea, via the Elbe and Pannonia to Italy, recorded in a tribal history a time spent in "Bainaib".

After the Migration Period, Bohemia was partially repopulated around the sixth century, and eventually Slavic tribes arrived from the east, and their language began to replace the older Germanic, Celtic, and Sarmatian ones. These are precursors of today's Czechs, but the exact amount of Slavic immigration is a subject of debate. The Slavic influx was divided into two or three waves. The first wave came from the southeast and east, when the Germanic Lombards left Bohemia (circa 568 AD). Soon after, from the 630s to 660s, the territory was taken by Samo's tribal confederation. His death marked the end of the old "Slavonic" confederation, the second attempt to establish such a Slavonic union after Carantania in Carinthia.

Other sources (Descriptio civitatum et regionum ad septentrionalem plagam Danubii, Bavaria, 800–850) divide the population of Bohemia into the Merehani, Marharaii, Beheimare (Bohemani), and Fraganeo. (The suffix -ani or -ni means "people of-"). Christianity first appeared in the early 9th century, but became dominant only much later, in the 10th or 11th century.

The 9th century was crucial for the future of Bohemia. The manorial system sharply declined, as it did in Bavaria. The influence of the central Fraganeo-Czechs grew, as a result of the important cultic center in their territory. They were Slavic-speaking, thus contributed to the transformation of diverse neighboring populations into a new nation named and led by them with a united "slavic" ethnic consciousness.[18]

Přemysl dynasty[edit]

Main article: History of Bohemia in the High Middle Ages
The coat of arms of the Přemyslid dynasty (until 1253–1262)

Bohemia was made a part of the early Slavic state of Great Moravia, under the rule of Svatopluk I (r. 870–894). After Svatopluk's death Great Moravia was weakened by years of internal conflict and constant warfare, ultimately collapsing and fragmenting because of the continual incursions of the invading nomadic Magyars. Bohemia's initial incorporation into the Moravian Empire resulted in the extensive Christianization of the population. A native monarchy arose to the throne, and Bohemia came under the rule of the Přemyslid dynasty, which would rule the Czech lands for the next several hundred years.

The Přemyslids secured their frontiers after the collapse of the Moravian state by entering into a state of semivassalage to the Frankish rulers. The alliance was facilitated by Bohemia's conversion to Christianity, in the 9th century. Continuing close relations were developed with the East Frankish Kingdom, which devolved from the Carolingian Empire, into East Francia, eventually becoming the Holy Roman Empire.

After a decisive victory of the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia over invading Magyars in the 955 Battle of Lechfeld, Boleslaus I of Bohemia was granted the Moravia by German emperor Otto the Great. Bohemia would remain a largely autonomous state under the Holy Roman Empire for several decades. The jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire was definitively reasserted when Jaromír of Bohemia was granted fief of the Kingdom of Bohemia by Emperor King Henry II of the Holy Roman Empire, with the promise that he hold it as a vassal once he reoccupied Prague with a German army in 1004, ending the rule of Bolesław I of Poland.

The first to use the title of "King of Bohemia" were the Přemyslid dukes Vratislav II (1085) and Vladislaus II (1158), but their heirs would return to the title of duke. The title of king became hereditary under Ottokar I (1198). His grandson Ottokar II (king from 1253 to 1278) conquered a short-lived empire that contained modern Austria and Slovenia. The mid-13th century had the beginning of substantial German immigration, as the court sought to replace losses from the brief Mongol invasion of Europe in 1241. Germans settled primarily along the northern, western, and southern borders of Bohemia, although many lived in towns throughout the kingdom.

Luxembourg dynasty[edit]

The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bohemia

The House of Luxembourg accepted the invitation to the Bohemian throne with the marriage to the Přemyslid heiress, Elizabeth and the crowning subsequent of John I of Bohemia (in the Czech Republic known as Jan Lucemburský) in 1310. His son, Charles IV, became King of Bohemia in 1346. He founded Charles University in Prague, Central Europe's first university, two years later.

His reign brought Bohemia to its peak both politically and in total area, resulting in his being the first king of Bohemia to also be elected as Holy Roman Emperor. Under his rule, the Bohemian crown controlled such diverse lands as Moravia, Silesia, Upper Lusatia and Lower Lusatia, Brandenburg, an area around Nuremberg called New Bohemia, Luxembourg, and several small towns scattered around Germany.

From the 13th century on, settlements of Germans developed throughout Bohemia, making Bohemia a bilingual country. The German settlers particularly brought mining technology to the mountainous regions of the Sudetes. In the mining town of Sankt Joachimsthal (now Jáchymov), famous coins called Joachimsthalers were coined, which gave their name to the thaler and the dollar.

Meanwhile, Prague German intermediated between Upper German and East Central German, influencing the foundations of modern standard German. At the same time and place, the teachings of Jan Hus, the rector of Charles University and a prominent reformer and religious thinker, influenced the rise of modern Czech.

Hussite Bohemia[edit]

The radical Hussites became known as Taborites, after the town of Tábor that became their center

During the ecumenical Council of Constance in 1415, Jan Hus was sentenced to be burnt at the stake as a heretic. The verdict was passed despite the fact that Hus was granted formal protection by Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg prior to the journey. Hus was invited to attend the council to defend himself and the Czech positions in the religious court, but with the emperor's approval, he was executed on 6 July 1415. The execution of Hus, as well as five consecutive papal crusades against followers of Hus, forced the Bohemians to defend themselves in the Hussite Wars.

The uprising against imperial forces was led by a former mercenary, Jan Žižka of Trocnov. As the leader of the Hussite armies, he used innovative tactics and weapons, such as howitzers, pistols, and fortified wagons, which were revolutionary for the time, and established Žižka as a great general who never lost a battle.

After Žižka's death, Prokop the Great took over the command for the army, and under his lead the Hussites were victorious for another ten years, to the sheer terror of Europe. The Hussite cause gradually splintered into two main factions, the moderate Utraquists and the more fanatic Taborites. The Utraquists began to lay the groundwork for an agreement with the Catholic Church and found the more radical views of the Taborites distasteful. Additionally, with general war-weariness and yearning for order, the Utraquists were able to eventually defeat the Taborites in the Battle of Lipany in 1434. Sigismund said after the battle that "only the Bohemians could defeat the Bohemians."

Despite an apparent victory for the Catholics, the Bohemian Utraquists were still strong enough to negotiate freedom of religion in 1436. That happened in the so-called Compacts of Basel, declaring peace and freedom between Catholics and Utraquists. It lasted for only a short period of time, as Pope Pius II declared the compacts to be invalid in 1462.

In 1458, George of Poděbrady was elected to ascend to the Bohemian throne. He is remembered for his attempt to set up a pan-European "Christian League", which would form all the states of Europe into a community based on religion. In the process of negotiating, he appointed Zdeněk Lev of Rožmitál to tour the European courts and to conduct the talks. However, the negotiations were not completed because George's position was substantially damaged over time by his deteriorating relationship with the Pope.

Habsburg Monarchy[edit]

Main articles: History of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1526–1648) and History of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1648–1867)
Bohemia as the heart of Europa regina; Sebastian Münster, Basel, 1570

After the death of King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria became the new king of Bohemia, and the country became a constituent state of the Habsburg monarchy.

Bohemia enjoyed religious freedom between 1436 and 1620, and became one of the most liberal countries of the Christian world during that period. In 1609, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who made Prague again the capital of the empire at the time, himself a Roman Catholic, was moved by the Bohemian nobility to publish Maiestas Rudolphina, which confirmed the older Confessio Bohemica of 1575.

After Emperor Matthias II and then King of Bohemia Ferdinand II (later Holy Roman Emperor) began oppressing the rights of Protestants in Bohemia, the resulting Bohemian Revolt led to outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618. Elector Frederick V of the Electorate of the Palatinate, a Calvinist Protestant, was elected by the Bohemian nobility to replace Ferdinand on the Bohemian throne, and was known as the Winter King. Frederick's wife, the popular Elizabeth Stuart and subsequently, Elizabeth of Bohemia, known as the Winter Queen or Queen of Hearts, was the daughter of King James I of England and VI of Scotland.

After Frederick's defeat in the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, 27 Bohemian estates leaders together with Jan Jesenius, rector of the Charles University of Prague, were executed on the Prague's Old Town Square on 21 June 1621, and the rest were exiled from the country; their lands were then given to Catholic loyalists (mostly of Bavarian and Saxon origin). That ended the pro-reformation movement in Bohemia and also ended the role of Prague as ruling city of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Kingdom of Bohemia    in 1618 with other Bohemian Crown lands    within the Holy Roman Empire   (1618).

In the so-called "renewed constitution" of 1627, German was established as a second official language in the Czech lands. Czech formally remained the first language in the kingdom, but both German and Latin were widely spoken among the ruling classes, although German became increasingly dominant, and Czech was spoken in much of the countryside.

Detailed map of Bohemia, 1742
Detailed map of Bohemia, 1742

The formal independence of Bohemia was further jeopardized when the Bohemian Diet approved administrative reform in 1749. It included the indivisibility of the Habsburg Empire and the centralization of rule, which essentially meant the merging of the Royal Bohemian Chancellery with the Austrian Chancellery.

At the end of the 18th century, the Czech National Revival movement, in cooperation with part of the Bohemian aristocracy, started a campaign for restoration of the kingdom's historic rights, whereby Czech was to regain its historical role and replace German as the language of administration. The enlightened absolutism of Joseph II and Leopold II, who introduced minor language concessions, showed promise for the Czech movement, but many of these reforms were later rescinded. During the Revolution of 1848, many Czech nationalists called for autonomy for Bohemia from Habsburg Austria, but the revolutionaries were defeated. At the same time, German-speaking towns elected representatives for the first German Parliament at Frankfurt. Towns between Karlsbad and Reichenberg chose leftist representatives, while Eger, Rumburg, and Troppau elected conservative representatives.[19] The old Bohemian Diet, one of the last remnants of the independence, was dissolved, although Czech experienced a rebirth as romantic nationalism developed among the Czechs.

In 1861, a new elected Bohemian Diet was established. The renewal of the old Bohemian Crown (Kingdom of Bohemia, Margraviate of Moravia, and Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia) became the official political program of both Czech liberal politicians and the majority of Bohemian aristocracy ("state rights program"), while parties representing the German minority and small part of the aristocracy proclaimed their loyalty to the centralist Constitution (so-called "Verfassungstreue").

After the defeat of Austria in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, Hungarian politicians achieved the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, ostensibly creating equality between the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the empire. An attempt by the Czechs to create a tripartite monarchy (Austria-Hungary-Bohemia) failed in 1871. The "state-rights program" remained the official platform of all Czech political parties (except for social democrats) until 1918.

Under the state-rights program, appealing to the stability of Bohemia's borders over many centuries, the Czech emancipation movement claimed the right to the whole of the Bohemian lands over the Germans' right to the lands, amounting to a third of Bohemia, where they formed the majority.[20]

Interbellum[edit]

Bohemia (westernmost area) in Czechoslovakia 1918–1938
Linguistic map of interwar Czechoslovakia (c. 1930)

After World War I, the German Bohemians demanded that the regions with German-speaking majority be included in a German state. Czech political leaders however claimed the entire Bohemian lands, including majority German-speaking areas, for Czechoslovakia.[21] By the end of October, bilingual towns had been occupied by Czech forces. By end of November, many purely German-speaking towns had been occupied.[22] German or Austrian troops, bound by the cease-fire agreement, did not support Bohemian German self-defense, while the Czechoslovak army, having status of an Entete army, could freely operate.[23] The absorption of the German-speaking areas in Czechoslovakia was hence a fait accompli.[24]

As a result, the totality of Bohemia (as the largest and most populous land) became the core of the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia, which combined Bohemia, Moravia, Czech Silesia, Upper Hungary (present-day Slovakia) and Carpathian Ruthenia into one state.[25] Under its first president, Tomáš Masaryk, Czechoslovakia became a liberal democratic republic, but serious issues emerged regarding the Czech majority's relationship with the native German and Hungarian minorities.

German occupation and World War II[edit]

Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, the border regions of Bohemia historically inhabited predominantly by ethnic Germans (the Sudetenland) were annexed to Nazi Germany. The remnants of Bohemia and Moravia were then annexed by Germany in 1939, while the Slovak lands became the separate Slovak Republic, a puppet state of Nazi Germany. From 1939 to 1945, Bohemia (without the Sudetenland), together with Moravia, formed the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

During World War II, the Germans operated the Theresienstadt Ghetto for Jews, the Dulag Luft Ost, Stalag IV-C and Stalag 359 prisoner-of-war camps for French, British, Belgian, Serbian, Dutch, Slovak, Soviet, Romanian, Italian and other Allied POWs, and the Ilag IV camp for interned civilians from western Allied countries in the region.[26] There were also 17 subcamps of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, in which both men and women, mostly Polish, Soviet and Jewish, but also French, Yugoslav, Czech, Romani and of several other ethnicities, were imprisoned and subjected to forced labor,[27] and 16 subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, in which men and women, mostly Polish and Jewish, but also Czechs, Russians, and other people, were similarly imprisoned and subjected to forced labor.[28]

Any open opposition to German occupation was brutally suppressed by the Nazi authorities, and many Czech patriots were executed as a result. In 1942, the Czechoslovak resistance carried out the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and in reprisal German forces murdered the population of a whole village, Lidice. In the spring of 1945, death marches of prisoners of several subcamps of the Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen and Buchenwald concentration camps in Saxony and Silesia, and Allied POWs from camps in Austria reached the region.[27][28][29][30]

In May 1945, Allied American,[31] Polish,[32] Czechoslovak, Soviet and Romanian troops captured the region, which was then restored to Czechoslovakia. After the war ended in 1945, after initial plans to cede lands to Germany or to create German-speaking cantons had been abandoned,[20] the vast majority of the Bohemian Germans were expelled by the order of the re-established Czechoslovak central government, based on the Potsdam Agreement. The Bohemian Germans' property was confiscated by the Czech authorities, and according to contemporary estimates, amounted to a third of the Czechoslovak national income. Germans who were valued for their skills were allowed to stay to pass on their knowledge to the Czech migrants.[20] The expulsion severely depopulated the area and from then on, locales were referred to in only their Czech equivalents regardless of their previous demographic makeup. The resettlement of the formerly German-settled areas allowed many poorer people to acquire property, thus "equalizing" Czechoslovak society.[20]

Recent history[edit]

The Communist Party won the most votes in free elections, but not a simple majority. Klement Gottwald, the communist leader, became prime minister of a coalition government.

Bohemian city Karlovy Vary

In February 1948, the non-communist members of the government resigned in protest against arbitrary measures by the communists and their Soviet protectors in many of the state's institutions. Gottwald and the communists responded with a coup d'état and installed a pro-Soviet authoritarian state. In 1949, Bohemia ceased to be an administrative unit of Czechoslovakia, as the country was divided into administrative regions that did not follow the historical borders.

In 1989, Agnes of Bohemia became the first saint from a Central European country to be canonized by Pope John Paul II before the "Velvet Revolution" later that year.

After the Velvet Divorce in 1993, the territory of Bohemia remained in the Czech Republic. The new Constitution of the Czech Republic provided for higher administrative units to be established, providing for the possibility of Bohemia as an administrative unit, but did not specify the form they would take. A constitutional act in 1997 rejected the restoration of self-governing historical Czech lands, and decided for the regional system that has been in use since 2000.[33] Petr Pithart, former Czech prime minister and president of the Senate at the time, remained one of the main advocates of the land system,[34] claiming that the primary reason for its refusal was the fear of possible Moravian separatism.[34]

Bohemia thus remains a historical region, and its administration is divided between Prague and the Central Bohemian, Plzeň, Karlovy Vary, Ústí nad Labem, Liberec, and Hradec Králové regions, as well as most of the Pardubice and South Bohemian region, and parts of the Vysočina and South Moravian regions.[7] In addition to their use in the names of the regions, the historical land names remain in use in names of municipalities, cadastral areas, railway stations[35] or geographical names.[36] The distinction and border between the Czech lands is also preserved in local dialects.

Former parts[edit]

Žitava[edit]

Zittau (Czech: Žitava) and Ostritz (Czech: Ostřice) in modern south-eastern Saxony were initially a part of Bohemia in the Middle Ages[37] (and briefly Lower Silesia in 1319–1346).[38] Žitava was a Bohemian royal city, granted city rights by King Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1255.[38] In 1346, it co-formed the Lusatian League along with five most dominant Upper Lusatian cities, which were also under Bohemian rule, and had closer economic interests with those cities since.[37][38] Žitava was not formally annexed from Bohemia to Upper Lusatia, however, it shared the history of Upper Lusatia since,[38] and was annexed from the Kingdom of Bohemia by the Electorate of Saxony in 1635. The coat of arms of Zittau is a remnant of the city's ties to both Bohemia and Lower Silesia, as it contains the Bohemian lion and the Lower Silesian Piast Eagle.

In 1945, some 4000 Czechs were registered in Zittau, and formed a Czech National Committee.[39] The Czechs made an attempt to reintegrate the city with Bohemia, and thus Czechoslovakia, but the efforts were decisively rejected in 1948.[39]

A panorama of Zittau

Kladsko[edit]

Main article: County of Kladsko

The area around Kłodzko (Czech: Kladsko; Latin: Glacio) in south-western Poland was culturally and traditionally a part of Bohemia, but was also a part of Lower Silesia under rule of the Polish Piast dynasty in 1278–1290 and 1327–1341. Kłodzko Land has been again a part of Lower Silesia since its conquest by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1763. Referred to as "Little Prague", the Kłodzko Valley region on the Nysa Kłodzka River was the focus of several attempts to reincorporate the area into Czechoslovakia, one of several Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts.

The last attempt occurred in May 1945, when Czechoslovakia tried to annex the area. The Czechs argued that because of the small Czech minority present in the western part of the Kłodzko Valley, which was called the region's "Czech Corner", the area should go over to Czechoslovakia instead of being assigned to Poland, as no relevant Polish minority lived in the area. Pressure brought on by the Soviet Union led to a ceasing of military operations, with the Czech minority being expelled to Germany and Czechoslovakia. According to canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, the area remained part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Prague until 1972.

Capitalizing on interest regarding the Kladsko area in the Czech national psyche, a special tourist area in the Náchod District has been designated as the Kladsko Borderland Tourist Area[40] (tourism district; Czech: turistická oblast Kladské pomezí). The area, entirely within the Czech Republic, was formerly known as the Jirásek's Region (Czech: Jiráskův kraj), Adršpach rocks (Czech: Adršpašské skály).

A panorama of Kłodzko, the capital city of Kłodzko Land, which is referred to as "Little Prague"

Historical administrative divisions[edit]

Lands of the Bohemian Crown (until 1635), map by Josef Pekař, 1921

Kraje of Bohemia during the Kingdom of Bohemia:

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Bohemia" Archived 23 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  2. ^ There is no distinction in Czech between adjectives referring to Bohemia and to the Czech Republic; i.e. český means both Bohemian and Czech.
  3. ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001–05
  4. ^ The Cambridge Modern History. The Macmillan Company. 1902. p. 331. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  5. ^ Jiří Pehe: Co vlastně slavíme 28. října? Archived 12 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b "Bohemia". Archived from the original on 20 June 2012. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c Petr Jeřábek: Krajské uspořádání? Vadí i po čtrnácti letech Archived 27 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Deník.cz, 2 January 2014, compare maps and texts Archived 27 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Ústava České republiky Archived 26 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine, 1/1993 Sb. (Constitution of the Czech Republic)
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Collis, John. The Celts: Origins, Myth, and Inventions. Tempus Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7524-2913-2
  10. ^ Pliny 3.146 and Strabo 7.1 290 and 292 Archived 25 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, but also see 7.2 293 Archived 24 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "Tacitus: Germania". Thelatinlibrary.com. Archived from the original on 18 April 2003. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
  12. ^ Green, Dennis (2014), "The Boii, Bavaria and Bohemia", The Baiuvarii and Thuringi: An ethnographic Perspective, Boydell & Brewer, p. 18, ISBN 9781843839156, archived from the original on 3 October 2023, retrieved 13 September 2020
  13. ^ Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1997) [1898]. Andrzej Poppe; Frank E. Sysyn; Uliana M. Pasiczny (eds.). History of Ukraine-Rus'. Volume 1: From Prehistory to the Eleventh Century. Translated by Marta Skorupsky. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press. pp. 161–162. ISBN 978-1-895571-19-6. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2019. The second detail in Constantine's account, which supposedly points to the eastern Carpathians, is his reference to a 'place called Boiki (Boiki)' on the border with the White Serbs; for a long time this was considered – and some consider it still – to be a reference to the Ukrainian Boikos. That is very unlikely, however, because the location is too far east for the Serbs, nor has any indication been found that the name of the Boikos was ever in such wide usage. So all we are left with to suggest the existence of a Rus' Croatia in the Carpathians is the Primary Chronicle ... Published by H. Jireiek, the Karten zur Geschichte (1897) also show the 'Boiki' on the Dnister (map 4). It is more likely that Boiki is a distorted variant of the name Boiohem, or Bohemia, as most scholars now believe...
  14. ^ Gyula Moravcsik, ed. (1949). De administrando imperio. Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Görög Filoĺ́ogiai Intézet. pp. 130–131. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2019. ...should be modern Saxony, where remnants of Serbs (Sorbs) are still living. The name 'Boiki' has been much disputed over by specialists ... has proved that the 'place called Boiki' can only be Bohemia. Grégoire (L'Origine, 98) rejects Skok's proposal to read 'Boioi', and suggests 'Boimi'. C.'s account contains one serious inexactitude: namely, the statement that the Serbs lived 'in a place called by them Boiki'. Although we have documentary proof of the existence of Croats in Bohemia, we have none to suggest that Serbs lived there. Bohemia was in fact another neighbor of White Serbia
  15. ^ Andreas Nikolaou Stratos (1968). Byzantium in the seventh century. Adolf M. Hakkert. p. 326. ISBN 9789025607487. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2019. These, he says, descended from the unbaptized Serbs who were also called "white" and lived in a place called by them "Boiki" (Bohemia)...
  16. ^ Acta archaeologica Carpathica. Państwowe Wydawn. Naukowe. 1999. p. 163. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2019. Wielu spośród nich osiedlili królowie węgierscy u zachodnich granic swego królestwa; morze Ciemne = Bałtyk; Boiki = Bohemia, czyli Czechy...
  17. ^ Slavia antiqua. Vol. 44. Poznań Society of Friends of Learning. 2003. p. 13. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2019. Serbów balkañskich znajdowala siç w kraju zwanym u nich Boiki (Bohemia=Czechy)...
  18. ^ Petr Charvát: "Zrod Českého státu" [Origin of the Bohemian State], March 2007, ISBN 80-7021-845-2, in Czech
  19. ^ Arnold Suppan (2008). ""Germans" in the Austrian Empire and in the Monarchy". In Ingrao; Szabo (eds.). The Germans and the East. Purdue University Press. p. 156.
  20. ^ Jump up to: a b c d von Arburg, Adrian. "Abschied und Neubeginn". Als die Deutschen weg waren Was nach der Vertreibung geschah: Ostpreußen, Sudetenland, Schlesien (in German).
  21. ^ Murdock, Caitlin (2010). Changing Places: Society, Culture, and Territory in the Saxon-Bohemian Borderlands, 1870-1946. University of Michigan Press. p. 100.: "Czech political leaders claimed the entire Bohemian crown lands, including majority German-speaking areas, for Czechoslovakia. In the nineteenth century, Czech nationalist activists had used Bohemia’s historical status as an independent kingdom to argue for Bohemian states rights (Staatsrecht/státní pravo) within the Habsburg Empire"
  22. ^ Hans Mommsen; Dušan Kováč; Jiří Malíř, eds. (2001). "Im Widerstreit der Selbstbestimmungsansprüche: Vom Habsburgerstaat zur Tschechoslowakei - die Deutschen der böhmischen Länder 1918 bis 1919". Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Beziehungen zwischen Tschechen, Slowaken, und Deutschen. Klartext. pp. 197–198.: "Schon am 30. Oktober 1918 erreichten den Statsrat erste Meldungen über die teschcische und südslawische Besetzung zweisprachiger Orte entlang der Sprachgrenze. [...] Kaum war der Entschluß zu den Provinzgründungen publik, da begann die tschechische Besetzung von mehrheitlich- oder ausschließlich-deutschen Orten an der Peripherie des deutschen Anspruchsgebiets"
  23. ^ Hans Mommsen; Dušan Kováč; Jiří Malíř, eds. (2001). "Im Widerstreit der Selbstbestimmungsansprüche: vom Habsburgerstaat zur Tschechoslowakei–die Deutschen der böhmischen Länder 1918 bis 1919". Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Beziehungen zwischen Tschechen, Slowaken und Deutschen. Klartext. p. 203.: "Die Ausweitung des Konfliktes zum förmlichen Krieg zwischen Deutschösterreich und der Tschechoslowakei war jedoch mit den gesamtsataatlichen Zielen unvereinbar. Deutschösterreich unterstand den Bedingungen des Wafenstillstandes, während andereseits die Tschehslowakei zu den verbündeten Siegersaaten zählte und daher ihre Armee als Ententeheer laut Waffenstilland Beweungsfreiheit in ganz Österreich-Ungarn genoss
  24. ^ Murdock, Caitlin (2010). Changing Places: Society, Culture, and Territory in the Saxon-Bohemian Borderlands, 1870-1946. University of Michigan Press. p. 103.:"By mid-December, the borderlands were firmly under Czechoslovak control. A Czechoslovak state with the historic borders of the Bohemian crown was a fait accomplit"
  25. ^ Preclík, Vratislav (2019). Masaryk a legie (in Czech). Paris Karviná in association with the Masaryk Democratic Movement, Prague. pp. 111–112, 124–125, 128, 129, 132, 140–148, 184–209. ISBN 978-80-87173-47-3.
  26. ^ Megargee, Geoffrey P.; Overmans, Rüdiger; Vogt, Wolfgang (2022). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV. Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. pp. 128, 362, 417, 565. ISBN 978-0-253-06089-1.
  27. ^ Jump up to: a b "Subcamps". KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  28. ^ Jump up to: a b "Subcamps of KL Groß-Rosen". Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  29. ^ "Buchenwald war überall - Projekt »Netzwerk der Außenlager«". aussenlager-buchenwald.de (in German). Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  30. ^ Megargee; Overmans; Vogt, p. 274
  31. ^ "Liberation of Pilsen". Liberation Route Europe. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  32. ^ Wołek, Karol (2020). "The liberation of the German concentration camp in Holýšov, Czech Republic, by the Polish Armed Forces". The Warsaw Institute Review (in Polish). Vol. 2, no. 13. pp. 117–118. ISSN 2543-9839.
  33. ^ "Portál veřejné správy". portal.gov.cz. Archived from the original on 28 December 2019.
  34. ^ Jump up to: a b Petr Zídek: Dnešním politikům chybí odvaha, tvrdí Petr Pithart. Z uprchlíků strach nemá Archived 27 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Lidovky.cz, 17 October 2015, interview with Petr Pithart
  35. ^ Seznam železničních stanic Archived 27 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine, List of railway stations, České dráhy (Czech railways) – search for "v Čechách" (17×), "na Moravě" (15×), "Český", "České", "Moravský", "Moravské", etc.
  36. ^ Geomorfologické celky ČR Archived 2 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine (Geomorphologic areas of the Czech Republic), KČT Tábor
  37. ^ Jump up to: a b Metzig, Gregor M. (2010). "Sigismund I. und der Oberlausitzer Sechsstädtebund in den Hussitenkriegen (1419–1437)". Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. 59 (1): 5. ISSN 0948-8294.
  38. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Knothe, Hermann (1879). Geschichte des Oberlausitzer Adels und seiner Güter (in German). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. p. 546–547, 643.
  39. ^ Jump up to: a b "20. století". Hrádek nad Nisou (in Czech). Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  40. ^ interactive, inCUBE. "Story Landscape – Kladsko Borderland, Glatz Borderlan". www.kladskepomezi.cz. Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2014.

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