4. My Country – Czech Republic

History:
First state in this territory, inhabited by Slavonic tribes was Samoa’s Empire. Than The Big Moravia Empire followed. It was very famous and the capital was probably situated in the southern Moravia near village Mikulčice. Even when the Great Moravia still existed, another state formed at the region of Bohemia. It was called Czech Crown Kingdom. In 9th century the power was taken by Přemyslid dynasty. When the Přemyslid dynasty died out by the sword, the Czech throne went by way of a dynastic wedding to the Luxembourg. Under Charles IV. the Czech Kingdom became the centre of the Holy Roman Empire and the Prague was the capital town. Charles IV. built in Prague the second oldest stone bridge in our republic, establish an archbishop there and founded Charles University, the oldest one in the middle Europe. The first part of the 15th century is marked by the Hussite Movement. It is named after John Huss, rector of Charles University and preacher, who tried reform Catholic Church. He was burnt at the stake[B1] as a heretic[B2] . After the reign of Jiří of Poděbrady, who is known for his appeal to other European kings to make a treaty[B3] securing peace, Jagiellonian dynasty was established on the Czech throne. But they reigned only for a short time and the throne was passed to Habsburg dynasty. The centre of culture and politic moved from Prague to Vienna and we became a part of big Austria Empire. They oppressed[B4] Czech nation for almost 400 years. They tried to re-catholic and germanise; they also tried to liquidate Czech literature. Then the WWI began. Austria lost this war and it was split into five states. One of them was new established Czechoslovak Republic with our first president Tomáš Garigue Masaryk. This state was destroyed by the German occupation and it appeared again after WWII. But the power was taken over by the communists directed by the Soviet Union. In 1968 the Czechoslovakia was oppressed by the invasion of the Soviet army and the “normalisation” lasted about another 20 years till the “velvet revolution” in 1989. The following development led to the splitting of the republic and in 1993 two new states appeared – the Czech republic and the Slovak Republic. Our president is Václav Havel.

[B1]hranice

[B2]kacíř

[B3]smlouva

[B4]utiskovat