Czech Republic- History

The war began in 1914. Germany and the Austro-Hungarian federation fought against France, Great Britain, and Russia. During the war, Italy converted to France, Great Britain and Russia and the United States of America also joined these states. However, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian federation were defeated[1] two years later and it meant the end of the Empire. The Hungarians constituted their own state. The Czechs constituted their state together with the Slovaks in the autumn of 1918. It was called Czechoslovakia. At the birth of Czechoslovakia there was one of outstanding Czech personality of all times, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. After founding the Czechoslovak Republic he became the first president. He was president until 1935. Czechoslovakia became a fully democratic state. After T. G. Masaryk, Edvard Beneš became president. It was a difficult time for the Czech nation because of Germany. At the congress in Munich in 1968, an agreement was signed that a part of Czechoslovakia became German.
In one year the World War II began. Edvard Beneš went to London where he founded the exile government in 1940. In Czechoslovakia the president was Emil Hácha, who did what Hitler wanted. Shortly after the end of the war in 1945, he died. Edvard Beneš became president again. But he resigned because of the communists supported by J. V. Stalin in 1948. Klement Gottwald was the leader of the Czech Communist Party, so he became president. It was the beginning of the socialistic regime in our country. People who wanted democracy were arrested and executed. The following presidents were Antonín Zápotocký, Antonín Novotný, general Ludvík Svoboda and Gustav Husák. He was the first Slovak to hold this function. He resigned in 1989 after the revolution in November. This revolution brought back democratic principles to our country. The next president of Czechoslovakia was the dramatist and writer Václav Havel. He fought against communism his whole life. He was one of the authors of the document Charta 77, for which he was constrained for several years. On the 5th July 1990 he became president of the Czechoslovak Federative Republic and after the separation of this Republic into the Czech and Slovak Republics, he became the president of the Czech Republic on the 1st January 1993.

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