Czech Republic - national flag
The flag was officially adopted in 1920 by the formation of the Czechoslovak
state after the First World War. To Bohemia's white-red heraldic colors, a blue
triangle was added to distinguish the flag from the Polish one. Blue
is Mæhren's heraldic base color. The flag remained unchanged when Slovakia
became independent in 1993.
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Czech Republic - prehistory
According to a2zgov, Czech Republic is rich in Paleolithic finds. The oldest pebble tools are more
than 1/2 million. years old, and for approximately 1/2 million. years
ago simple hand wedges and scrapers were manufactured. From the Middle
Paleolithic, several bone finds are known to Neanderthal man. At Bečov, the
traces of a small semicircular hut have been examined. From the Late
Paleolithic, the mammoth hunting ground Dolní Věstonice can be highlighted,
inhabited for approximately 28,000-26,000 years ago. Round huts with hearth and walls
of earth and stone have been found; sometimes mammoth bones and tusks were used
in the construction. From Dolní Věstonice come the world's oldest figures in
burnt clay of mammoth, rhino, bear, reindeer and lion as well as a female
figure. Funerals, mammoth bones and bone carvings have also been found
at Předmostí. approximately 5000 BC agriculture was introduced with the ribbon
ceramic culture. The Bronze Age began approximately 2200 BC, and approximately 1800 BC the
Czech Republic was covered by the high grave culture. The Iron Age began
approximately 700 BC, and from approximately 500 BC the Czech Republic became part of the
Celtic La Tčne culture, from which in 400-tfKr. rich princely tombs are known
such as at Chlum with Etruscan imports. Even then was the fortressZávist near
Prague probably an important princely seat. Later a city arose here,
an oppidum. Other oppida are Stradonice and Staré Hradisko. Around the birth of
Christ, the La Tčne culture was replaced by Germanic cultures with immigration
from the north and west by tribes such as Marxists and hermundurs. At Musow,
extremely rich tombs from the 1st century AD have been found. with Roman
imports.
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the world, such as EZS which represents the official name of Czech Republic.

Czech Republic - history
During the migration period, the Huns' advance in the 400's affected. only
peripheral southern Moravia, but from 500-t. an extensive and rapid migration of
Slavic tribes, which also came to include Czech territory, took place.
Written sources are almost non-existent, but a Frankish chronicle from the
600's. mentions an allegedly Frankish merchant, Samo, who headed a Slavic
"empire" or tribal community 623-658, whose territorial extent we do not know,
however.
Historical overview |
from approximately 150000 BC |
Middle Paleolithic; traces of Neanderthal man |
from approximately 35000 BC |
younger Paleolithic; the mammoth hunting ground Dolní Věstonice |
approx. 5000-2200 BC |
oldest arable crops; ribbon ceramic culture |
approx. 2200-700 BC |
Bronze Age; high grave culture; The Aunjetitz culture |
approx. 700 BC-375 AD |
Iron Age, Celtic La Tčne culture; around the birth of Christ
beginning Germanic immigration from the north and west |
approx. 375-approx. 600 |
the females penetrate; Slavic tribes displaced the Germanic
settlements |
900-t. |
the principality of Bohemia arises |
1029 |
Moravia becomes part of the Principality of Bohemia |
1198 |
Bohemia becomes kingdom |
1419-34 |
The Hussite Wars |
1526 |
Ferdinand I of Habsburg is elected King of Bohemia |
1618 |
conflict between the Habsburgs and the Bohemian estates triggers the
Thirty Years' War |
1620 |
the Habsburgs defeat the Bohemian estates at the Battle of the White
Mountain |
1627 |
Bohemia and Moravia become Habsburg heritage |
1848 |
revolution year; first Pan-Slavic Congress in Prague |
1916 |
Masaryk and Benes set up a Czechoslovak National Council in exile |
1918 |
Czechoslovak state is proclaimed on October 28 in Prague |
1919 |
The borders of Czechoslovakia are set in Versailles 1919 and Trianon
1920 |
1938 |
Munich Agreements; The Sudetenland is ceded to Germany |
1939 |
Slovakia declares independence; The Bohemia-Moravian Protectorate
arises after German annexation |
1945 |
Czechoslovakia's first post-war government is constituted |
1948 |
the communists take power in Czechoslovakia |
1955 |
Czechoslovakia becomes a member of the Warsaw Pact |
1968 |
Prague Spring; Czechoslovakia is being invaded by a number of Warsaw
Pact countries |
1969 |
Czechoslovak federal state is proclaimed; Alexander Dubcek resigns |
1989 |
The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia; in December, Václav Havel
is elected president |
1992 |
Czechoslovakia will be divided on 31 December into Slovakia and the
Czech Republic |
1993 |
Václav Havel is elected the first president of the Czech Republic in
January |
1999 |
The Czech Republic joins NATO |
2004 |
The Czech Republic becomes a member of the EU |
The first well-documented state formation in the area was the Great Moorish
Empire, while the historical roots of modern-day Czechia date back to the 900's,
when a principality emerged in Bohemia. From 1029, the neighboring country
of Moravia was linked to the kingdom, and these two countries still make up the
Czech Republic today.
The population here was predominantly Czech, but in the 1200's. German
immigrants settled in the mountainous fringes of Bohemia in particular, just as
they contributed to many urban foundations. In 1198, Bohemia gained the status
of a kingdom, and for a time the country became a great power in Central
Europe.
The 1400's Hussite War weakened the country, however, and in 1526 the Austrian
Ferdinand I of Habsburg was elected king of Bohemia. The Catholic Habsburgs came
into increasing conflict with the Protestant Bohemian estates, which in 1618
triggered the Thirty Years' War.
After the victory of the Habsburgs in the Battle of the White Mountain
in 1620, Bohemia experienced a strong recatolation and an increasingly strong
central government from Vienna. Linguistically, Czech gradually became Latin and
German as cultural and administrative languages.
In the 1800's. a strong Czech national movement emerged, seeking autonomy for
Bohemia and Moravia within the Habsburg Empire, a claim rejected by the large
German minority.
At the end of World War I, the Czechs, led by TG Masaryk, succeeded in
gaining Allied support for an independent state enlarged with Slovakia, which
until that time had belonged to Hungary, and thus Czechoslovakia emerged
on 28.10.1918.
The Czech-German conflict continued in Czechoslovakia, and relations between
Czechs and Slovaks became increasingly tense, which Adolf Hitler used to break
up the country in 1938-39 and establish the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia.
After World War II, Czechoslovakia was restored and the majority of its
German population was displaced. The Communist takeover of power in 1948
dampened the Czechoslovak conflicts, but did not resolve them, and after the
fall of communism in 1989, they flared up again, resulting in a division of
Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia per. 1/1/1993
Heads of government |
1992-97 |
Vaclav Klaus |
1997-98 |
Josef Tosovsky |
1998-2002 |
Milos Zeman |
2002-04 |
Vladimir Spidla |
2004-05 |
Stanislav Gross |
2005 |
Jiří Paroubek |
The Czech Republic was then an independent state. Under Prime Minister Václav
Klaus, the country pursued a very self-conscious policy from 1993, emphasizing
economic reforms at home and a foreign policy monopoly on rapprochement with the
West, claiming to have distanced itself from other post-communist countries in
aligning with Western standards.
After the 1996 election, Klaus was able to form a government again, albeit
with a weakened mandate. A growing economic crisis and numerous economic
scandals with corporate eviction and corruption forced Klaus to resign in
December 1997 when his party ODS split.
Danmarks Nationalbank Governor Josef Tošovský (b. 1950) led a transitional
government until an extraordinary parliamentary election in June 1998, after
which the Social Democrat Miloš Zeman formed a minority government with the
support of Klaus' ODS, with which a permanent co-operation agreement was
concluded.
History after 2000
In foreign policy, the Czech Republic gained EU accession status in 1997, and
under Zeman's rule, the process of adapting to EU standards was accelerated so
that, after a referendum, the country could join the EU along with the other
Central and Eastern European candidate countries 1.5. 2004.
By 1999, the Czech Republic, along with Poland and Hungary, had joined
NATO. Miloš Zeman's government got made a necessary privatization of the
banking sector, and from 1999 the economy began to improve. Since 2002, the
growth rate of GDP has risen steadily to now around 6% (2006), and the Czech
Republic is also approaching the economic level of the old EU countries.
The parliamentary elections in 2002 resulted in a narrow Social Democratic
election victory, allowing the party under Vladimír Špidla to form a majority
government in a coalition with two smaller bourgeois parties. In 2003, in a
lengthy process, Parliament elected Václav Klaus to succeed Václav Havel as
President of the Czech Republic, although Klaus, with his pronounced EU
skepticism, is often at odds with both the government and his own old party, the
ODS.
Internal unrest in the Social Democrats meant that Špidla had to resign as
head of government in July 2004 and his successor Stanislav Gross (b. 1969) in
April 2005 following a corruption scandal. He was replaced by the energetic Jiří
Paroubek, who, however, could not prevent the ODS from becoming the largest
party in the June 2006 elections.
The election left the Czech Republic in an unstable political situation, with
the left and the right each receiving 100 seats.
After 2013, the president is elected by direct election. The first directly
elected president was Miloš Zeman.
Czech Republic - visual arts and architecture
With the advent of Christianity in the 800-900's. churches and monasteries
were built in both Bohemia and Moravia. Prague got in the first half of
1000-t. its first basilica church, the Romanesque St. George, and the
castle Hradčany were founded in 1200-t. During the reign of Charles IV
(1346-78), Prague became a metropolis, and with inspiration from foreign
artists, Gothic in Bohemia developed into one of the richest in Europe. At the
castle Karlštejn near Prague, the painter Theoderik oversaw the decoration of
the Holy Chapel (1357-65). Charles Bridge in Prague was built under the
direction of Peter Parléř, who also worked at the Cathedral of St. Veit; both
are excellent examples of High Gothic.
After the Hussite wars of 1419-34 and the victory of Catholicism over the
Reformation tendencies, the Renaissance gained ground in the late 1400's, in
the Smíšek Chapel in the Cathedral of Kutná Hora. With the reign of the
Habsburgs from 1526 and the convening of Italian architects and sculptors, the
renaissance unfolded in the Belvedere Summer Palace in Prague (1538-64),
and many cities and palaces were adapted to the ideals of the
Renaissance. Rudolf II's reign 1576-1612 was one of the most important epochs in
the country's art. With artists such as Bartholomäus Spranger, Adriaen de
Vries and Johann von Aachen attached to the court in Prague, Rudolfine
Mannerism emerged, which had influence throughout Europe.
In the period after 1620, the painter Karel Škréta stands out with his
synthesis of the international currents of the time. The renewal of architecture
now took place in the secular buildings of the aristocracy, and in the
1700's. developed a distinctive blending style of Baroque and Gothic. The
painter Petr Jan Brandl brought the baroque style into his portraits and
religious motifs and provided inspiration for his contemporaries, Vaclav
Reinerwho painted frescoes in several of Prague's churches. In the 1700's. the
artistic influence of Austria spread with inspiration from Italian and Dutch
baroque, as seen in churches around Olomouc and Brno. Leading architects were
Christoph and Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer. The development of art and
architecture was controlled from Vienna, and it led in the 1800's. to a
flourishing of the national and folkloristic features of art with the
painter Josef Mánes as the father of a national Czech expression.
The architecture was in the 1800's. characterized by historicism until
modernism broke through around 1900. The Bauhaus school was a source of
inspiration, and Mies van der Rohe's Tugendhat House (1928-30) near Brno and the
city of Zlín, planned after Le Corbusier's advice, shows the influence
of functionalism up to World War II. In art, modernity manifested itself in
several groups of artists. František Bílek became the main figure of the Art
Nouveau style. Cubism stood out strongly, also internationally, with Emil
Filla, Bohumil Kubišta and František (François) Kupka. After World War I, when
the Czechoslovak Republic was formed, artists and intellectuals formed an
internationally oriented avant-garde. From the artists' association Devětsil
sprang in the early 1920's the so-called artificialism, in which folklore and a
modern poetic expression were combined, and from this developed surrealism,
which in the 1930's and 1940's was represented by Toyen, Jindřich
Štýrský and Josef Istler.
After World War II, state-promoted social realism became prevalent. With
the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and the division of the country into the Czech
Republic and Slovakia in 1993, artists were once again given the opportunity to
work freely, also in an international context. Graphics and book illustration
have in the 1900's. has been extensively used by artists as a means of
expression, highly experimental and internationally noted in times of repression
of artistic freedom.
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