Portal:Czech Republic

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

Welcome to the Czech Portal!
Vítejte na Českém portálu!

The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central and Eastern Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The Czech Republic has a hilly landscape that covers an area of 78,871 square kilometers (30,452 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental and oceanic climate. The capital and largest city is Prague; other major cities and urban areas include Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň and Liberec.

The Duchy of Bohemia was founded in the late 9th century under Great Moravia. It was formally recognized as an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire in 1002 and became a kingdom in 1198. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, all of the Crown lands of Bohemia were gradually integrated into the Habsburg monarchy. Nearly a hundred years later, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt led to the Thirty Years' War. After the Battle of White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Crown lands became part of the Austrian Empire.

In the 19th century, the Czech lands became more industrialized, and in 1918 most of it became part of the First Czechoslovak Republic following the collapse of Austria-Hungary after World War I. Czechoslovakia was the only country in Central and Eastern Europe to remain a parliamentary democracy during the entirety of the interwar period. After the Munich Agreement in 1938, Nazi Germany systematically took control over the Czech lands.

Czechoslovakia was restored in 1945 and three years later became an Eastern Bloc communist state following a coup d'état in 1948. Attempts to liberalize the government and economy were suppressed by a Soviet-led invasion of the country during the Prague Spring in 1968. In November 1989, the Velvet Revolution ended communist rule in the country and restored democracy. On 31 December 1992, Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced, high-income social market economy. It is a welfare state with a European social model, universal health care and free-tuition university education. It ranks 32nd in the Human Development Index. The Czech Republic is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. (Full article...)

View new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

Cover of the score, 1919

The Bartered Bride (Czech: Prodaná nevěsta, The Sold Bride) is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The work is generally regarded as a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863 to 1866, and first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague, on 30 May 1866 in a two-act format with spoken dialogue. Set in a country village and with realistic characters, it tells the story of how, after a late surprise revelation, true love prevails over the combined efforts of ambitious parents and a scheming marriage broker.

The opera was not immediately successful, and was revised and extended in the following four years. In its final version, premiered in 1870, it rapidly gained popularity and eventually became a worldwide success. Until this time, the Czech national opera had only been represented by minor, rarely performed works. This opera, Smetana's second, was part of his quest to create a truly Czech operatic genre. Smetana's musical treatment made considerable use of traditional Bohemian dance forms, such as the polka and furiant, and, although he largely avoided the direct quotation of folksong, he nevertheless created music considered by Czechs to be quintessentially Czech in spirit. The overture, often played as a concert piece independently from the opera, was, unusually, composed before almost any of the other music had been written. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

edit

Selected picture

A Škoda 15 T, one of the trams in Prague

Photographer: Honza Groh; License: Creative Commons CC-BY-SA

More pictures...

edit

In this month

1 May 2004 – The Czech Republic joins the European Union
9 May 1974 – The Prague Metro begins operation
14 May 1855 – The book The Grandmother by Božena Němcová is released
27 May 1942 – An assassination attempt (pictured) on acting Reichsprotektor Reinhardt Heydrich in Prague as part of Operation Anthropoid results in him dying on 4 June – the villages of Lidice and Ležáky are razed to the ground in response
29 May 1975 – Gustáv Husák becomes President of Czechoslovakia, remaining in office until 1989

More anniversaries...

edit

Selected biography - show another

Gregor Johann Mendel OSA (/ˈmɛndəl/; Czech: Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian-Czech biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno (Brünn), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was born in a German-speaking family in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire (today's Czech Republic) and gained posthumous recognition as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. Taking seed color as an example, Mendel showed that when a true-breeding yellow pea and a true-breeding green pea were cross-bred their offspring always produced yellow seeds. However, in the next generation, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1 green to 3 yellow. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms "recessive" and "dominant" in reference to certain traits. In the preceding example, the green trait, which seems to have vanished in the first filial generation, is recessive and the yellow is dominant. He published his work in 1866, demonstrating the actions of invisible "factors"—now called genes—in predictably determining the traits of an organism. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
John Amos Comenius Petr Čech Dominik Hašek Jaromír Jágr Pavel Nedvěd Tomáš Rosický Franz Kafka Bedřich Smetana Emanuel Moravec Gustav Mahler Fredy Hirsch Antonín Kinský Vlastimil Koubek Petra Kvitová Martin Miller (actor) Vratislav Lokvenc Vladimír Remek Leoš Janáček Libor Michálek Vojtěch Jarník Markéta Vondroušová Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková

edit

Did you know?

...that the Sedlec Ossuary is a chapel decorated with the bones of 40,000 people?
... that the leftist Czechoslovak Chemical Workers' Union was expelled from the OSČ trade union centre in 1922?
... that Czech international footballer Jan Suchopárek dislocated his shoulder while attempting a bicycle kick?
... that a 1926 voyage to Java inspired Czech poet Konstantin Biebl for the remainder of his life?

More did you know facts

Read more...

General images

The following are images from various Czech Republic-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Fried cheese, served with tartar sauce and side salad (from Czech cuisine)
Image 2Korozluky Castle (from Czech architecture)
Image 3The Kingdom of Bohemia in 1618 with other Bohemian Crown lands within the Holy Roman Empire (1618). (from Bohemia)
Image 4Apple strudel with raisins (from Czech cuisine)
Image 5Emperor Francis Joseph I. (reigned 1848–1916) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 6St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle, John of Luxembourg laid the foundation stone in 1344 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 7Vladislaus Hall at the Prague Castle, built from 1490 to 1502 by Benedikt Rejt (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 8Pilsner Urquell in a branded mug (from Czech cuisine)
Image 9Russian occupation in 1968 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 10Dacian Influence over Bohemia (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 11Territories ruled by Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1273 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 12The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bohemia (from Bohemia)
Image 13Library of Clementinum, a former Jesuit College, built in 1722 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 14Svíčková na smetaně served with dumplings, whipped cream and cranberries (from Czech cuisine)
Image 15Obložené chlebíčky, a type of snack or appetizer (from Czech cuisine)
Image 16An 1892 map showing Bohemia proper outlined in pink, Moravia in yellow, and Austrian Silesia in orange (from Bohemia)
Image 17Iconic brutalist Transgas building, demolished in 2019 (from Czech architecture)
Image 18Prague-style beef goulash (from Czech cuisine)
Image 19Copper engraving of the Second Defenestration of Prague from Theatrum Europaeum by Matthäus Merian. (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 20Baroque St. Nicholas Church in Malá Strana, built between 1704 and 1755 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 21Rotunda of St. George from the beginning of the 12th century on Mount Říp (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 22Linguistic map of interwar Czechoslovakia (c. 1930) (from Bohemia)
Image 23Duchy of Bohemia, around 1029 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 24Europe after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 25Emperor and King Charles IV. Luxembourg (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 26A panorama of Zittau (from Bohemia)
Image 27The coat of arms of the Přemyslid dynasty (until 1253–1262) (from Bohemia)
Image 28Czech kings Ottokar II, Wenceslas II and Wenceslas III from the Přemyslid dynasty (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 29Monument to Master Jan Hus, a religious reformer and philosopher in Prague (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 30Zelňačka (from Czech cuisine)
Image 31The National Theater from 1881 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 32Cubist architecture in Prague (from Czech architecture)
Image 33Map of protected areas of the Czech Republic: national parks (grey) and protected landscape areas (green) (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 34House of the Black Madonna (from Czech architecture)
Image 35Stone sculpture of a Celtic man, found in Mšecké Žehrovice (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 36Empress Maria Theresa (reignet 1740–1780) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 37King George of Podebrady, one of the first promoters of united Europe (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 38A panorama of Kłodzko, the capital city of Kłodzko Land, which is referred to as "Little Prague" (from Bohemia)
Image 39The First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 40Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, philosopher, Czechoslovak president in the years 1918-1935 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 41Christmas cookies (vánoční cukroví) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 42Beheading of 27 Bohemian nobles at the Old Town Square in Prague, 1621 (contemporary illustration) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 43Frgál, a type of koláč baked in Moravian Wallachia (from Czech cuisine)
Image 44Bohemian city Karlovy Vary (from Bohemia)
Image 45The radical Hussites became known as Taborites, after the town of Tábor that became their center (from Bohemia)
Image 46Bohemia (westernmost area) in Czechoslovakia 1918–1938 (from Bohemia)
Image 47Václav Havel, playwright, dissident and president from 1989 to 2003 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 48Bohemia as the heart of Europa regina; Sebastian Münster, Basel, 1570 (from Bohemia)
Image 49Nakládaný hermelín (marinated cheese) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 50Entrance to Moravian Karst PLA (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 51A "traditional Bohemian platter" at a restaurant in central Prague, consisting of roast duck, roast pork, beer sausage, smoked meat, red and white cabbage, bread, bacon and potato dumplings. (from Czech cuisine)
Image 52Bronze sword, Urnfield culture, c. 1200 BC (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 53Saint Wenceslas, Czech prince (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 54Semi-detached villa in Brno by Otto Eisler, according to MoMA's Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, is a defining building of the International style. (from Czech architecture)
Image 55Svíčková na smetaně (Marinated tenderloin), served here with dumplings and cream (from Czech cuisine)
Image 56Venus of Dolní Věstonice, the oldest ceramic article in the world (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 57Buděticko Nature Park with Rabí Castle (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 58Kačina Castle in Chotkov (from Czech architecture)
Image 59John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), Czech philosopher and school reformer (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 60Lands of the Bohemian Crown (until 1635), map by Josef Pekař, 1921 (from Bohemia)
Image 61Cubist lamp by Emil Králíček, Jungmannovo náměstí, next to the Gothic Church of Our Lady of the Snows (Prague) (from Czech architecture)
Image 62Writer Božena Němcová (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 63Territory under the control of the Přemyslids, c. 1301 (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 64Hroby Nature Monument in Radenín (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 65Great Moravia during the reign of Svatopluk I (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 66Fried bramboráky (potato pancakes) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 67Řežabinec a Řežabinecké tůně National Nature Reserve (from Protected areas of the Czech Republic)
Image 68Monument to the village of Lidice murdered by the Nazis (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 69Church of Saint Agnes of Bohemia (Spořilov) (from Czech architecture)
Image 70Adria Palace (Prague) (from Czech architecture)
Image 71Detailed map of Bohemia, 1742 (from Bohemia)
Image 72Vepřo-knedlo-zelo (Roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut) (from Czech cuisine)
Image 73The extent of the Protestant Reformation (1545–1620) (from History of the Czech lands)
Image 74Grand Café Orient in Prague (from Czech architecture)

Related portals

edit

Topics

Czech lands: Bohemia • Moravia • Czech Silesia

History: Únětice culture • Boii • Marcomanni • Samo • Great Moravia • Přemyslid dynasty • Lands of the Bohemian Crown • Czech lands (1526–1648) • 1648–1867 • 1867–1918) • Czechoslovakia • Czech Republic

Geography: Lakes • Protected areas • Regions • Rivers

Law: Judiciary • Law enforcement • Supreme Court of the Czech Republic

Politics: Administrative divisions • Government • Constitution • Elections • Foreign relations • Army • Parliament • Political parties • President • Prime Minister

Economy: Banks • Czech koruna • Energy • Oil and gas deposits • Stock Exchange • Tourism • Transport

Culture: Architecture • Art • Cinema • Cuisine • Demographics • Education • Language • Literature • Media • Music • Philosophy • Prostitution • Public holidays • Religion • Sport • Television • Video games

Symbols: Flag • Coat of arms • National anthem (Kde domov můj)

Lists: Outline of the Czech Republic • List of Czech Republic–related topics

edit

WikiProjects

WikiProject Czech Republic

WikiProject Europe

edit

Featured and good content

	Featured articles		Dominik Hašek • Earth-grazing meteoroid of 13 October 1990 • Franz Kafka • Gustav Mahler • Bedřich Smetana • The Bartered Bride
	Good articles		Patrik Berger • FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 • Reinhard Heydrich • Leoš Janáček • Vlastimil Koubek • Libor Michálek • Pavel Nedvěd • Panzer 35(t) • Polish minority in the Czech Republic • Prague Spring • Punch-up in Piestany • Randy Blythe manslaughter case • The Brothers Grimm (film) • Winton Train • Zaolzie