Lably
Skip to content

History of the Czech lands

  • 28 min read
  • 4 chapters
Though this map was published by Frederik de Wit (1630-1706) only at the end of the 17th century, it shows Bohemia around 1620. De Wit based this map on one by his colleague Jan Janssonius (1588-1664)
Dirk Jansz van Santen · Public domain

Related on Lably

Through Stone Age, Roman Empire and Holy Roman Empire

Lab · Class 7–9Ancient Indian Empires

After the turbulence of the Migration Period, the Czech lands were ultimately conquered by the Slavic tribes. The year of 623 marks the formation of the first known state in the Czech lands, when Samo united the local Slavic tribes, defended their lands from the Avars to the east and, years later, won the Battle of Wogastisburg against the westward invading Franks. The next state recorded in the Czech lands following the dissolution of the Samo's realm was likely Great Moravia. The center of its power lay in Moravia, which includes present-day western Slovakia. In 863, Cyril and Methodius, two scholars from Greece, brought Christianity to the Great Moravia and established the first Slavic script – Glagolitsa. Great Moravia lasted until its fall to Magyar invasions at the start of the 10th century.

A new state formed around the tribe of Premyslids, who founded the Duchy of Bohemia. The duchy existed largely within the sphere of East Franconia, which became the Holy Roman Empire. The duchy sided with the Roman Catholic Church during the East-West Schism and in 1212, the duke Ottokar I was granted the hereditary title of king in reward for his service to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. The Přemyslid dynasty died out at the start of the 14th century and was replaced by the Luxembourg dynasty. The most notable of the Luxembourg rulers was Charles IV, who was elected the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He established the Archbishopric of Prague and Charles University, the first university north of the Alps and east of Paris. The start of the 15th century saw the rise of Proto-Protestant sentiment in the Czech lands. The execution of Jan Hus sparked the Hussite Wars and the religious split that followed them. The Jagiellon dynasty ascended the Czech throne in 1471. They ruled for half a century before the king Louis Jagiellon died in the Battle of Mohács and the empty throne was given to the House of Habsburg.

After the death of the Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg, the religious and political tensions grew, resulting in the Second Defenestration of Prague, which sparked the Thirty Years' War. Many of the Czech nobles supported the Protestant side and were stripped of their properties as a result. Germanization and counter-reformation of the Czech lands followed. The spread of Romanticism during the late 18th century went in hand with the movement of the Czech National Revival. After 1848, the leading representatives of the Czech National Revival increased their political efforts to gain more autonomy for the Czech lands within the Habsburg Monarchy.

The start of World War I opened the possibility of gaining full independence and formation of a sovereign state. In the Cleveland Agreement of 1915, the Czech and Slovak representatives declared their goal of creating a common state, based on the right of a people to self-determination. After the capitulation of Austria-Hungary three years later, the Czechoslovak Republic became a reality. The First Czechoslovak Republic lasted 20 years, until the breakout of World War II. By the end of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power in 1948, and entered Czechoslovakia to the Eastern Bloc. In August 1968, armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia to curtail further attempts at reformation of the Communist system. In November 1989, the Velvet Revolution replaced the Communist regime with a democratic Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. Three years later, Czech and Slovak representatives agreed to the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the formation of separate states. In 1999, the Czech Republic joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and in 2004, became a member of the European Union.

Ancient History

Stone Age

A simple chopper – left by the ancestors of the present-day Homo Sapiens – dated to 800,000 BCE was uncovered in Red Hill in Brno. First evidence of human camps was found in Přezletice near Prague and in Stránská skála near Brno which dates to about 200,000 years after that. Stone tools were found in the Kůlna Cave in central Moravia, with the estimated age of 120,000 years. More stone tools and the skeletal remains of a Neanderthal man were found at the same site in a 50,000-year-old layer.

Human remains from 45,000 years ago were found in Koněprusy Caves in Zlatý kůň at Beroun District. Human remains from 30,000 years BCE were found in Mladeč caves mammoth tusks with complex engravings (again around 30,000 BCE) were found both in Pavlov and Předmostí at Přerov, making south Moravia one of the most important archeological areas in Europe.

The archeological site in Předmostí at Přerov represents the largest accumulation of human remains of the Gravettian culture, known for creating so-called Venus figurines. One of such figurines is the famous Venus of Dolní Věstonice (29,000–25,000 BCE) found in Dolní Věstonice in south Moravia along with many other artifacts from that time. Another Venus figurine is the Venus of Petřkovice, found in what is today Ostrava. Remains of mammoth hunters from 22,000 BCE were also found in the aforementioned Kůlna Cave along with the remains of reindeer hunters and horse hunters, dated to about 10,000 years later. Approximately between 5500 and 4500 BCE, people of the Linear Pottery culture resided in Czech lands. Their settlement was discovered in Bylany near Kutná hora. Their culture was succeeded by the Lengyel culture, Funnelbeaker culture and Stroke-ornamented ware culture, which coexisted in the Czech Lands during the end of the Stone Age.

Copper Age and Bronze Age

Corded Ware culture in the north and Baden culture in the south were the predominant cultures in the Czech Lands throughout the Copper Age. The Bell Beaker culture represented the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. With the start of the Bronze Age, Únětice culture appeared. This culture got its name from a village near Prague, where the first discovery was made in the 1870s. Many of their burial mounds were uncovered, mostly in central Bohemia. It was followed by the Middle Bronze Age Tumulus culture from around 1600 BC. The Urnfield culture is blanket term for various Late Bronze Age cultures dating from c. 1300-800 BC who cremated their dead and buried the urns with their ashes. The Hallstatt culture was the last culture of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The key archeological site of the Hallstatt culture in the Czech Lands is the Býčí skála Cave, where a rare bronze statue of a bull was found. Many of these archeological sites were occupied by multiple cultures throughout the ancient times.

Iron Age

What are now the Czech Lands were settled by the Celtic tribes by the start of the Iron Age. The most prominent tribe in Bohemia were the Boii, who gave the region the name of Boiohaemia (Latin for the land of Boii), which later became Bohemia, one of the Czech Lands. Before the start of the 1st century CE, they were pushed out by various Germanic tribes (Marcomanni, Quadi, Lombards). Around 60 to 50 BC, the Dacian king Burebista established an empire that extended its reach into the lands of the Boii. The Dacian occupation primarily affected modern-day Slovakia but also held sway over regions of present-day Czech Republic and Pannonia. Following Burebista's demise in 44 BC, his empire crumbled, liberating the lands of the Boii from Dacian rule. Traces of Roman army camps were found in south Moravia, most notably near Mušov. The winter camp in Mušov was built to house approximately 20,000 soldiers. The Romans were repeatedly at war with the Marcomanni tribe during the first two centuries CE. Germanic towns are described on the Map of Ptolemaios from the 2nd century, e.g. Coridorgis for Jihlava.

Arrival of the Slavs

The following centuries of what is known as the Great Migration once again changed the ethnic composition of the Czech Lands. In the 6th century, Slavic tribes, displaced by Langobard and Thuringian tribes began to move into the Czech Lands from the east. They fought with neighboring Avars – Turko-Tartar nomads – who seized the Pannonia and frequently raided the Slavic lands and even the Frankish Empire.

Samo's realm

In 623 – according to the Chronicle of Fredegar – the Slavic tribes revolted against the oppression of the Avars. During this time, the Frankish merchant Samo allegedly came to the Czech lands with his entourage and joined with the Slavs to defeat the Avars. Thus, the Slavs adopted Samo as their ruler. Later Samo and the Slavs came into conflict with the Frankish empire whose ruler Dagobert I wanted to extend his rule to the east. That led to the Battle of Wogastisburg in 631, in which the newly established Realm of Samo successfully defended its autonomy. The realm disintegrated after Samo's death.

Sign in to keep reading

3 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in History by country, small region and city

Thirteen ColoniesBritish colonies forming the United StatesSlavery in the United StatesThe legal institution of chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of AfricansIndigenous AustraliansAboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander peoplesCrown colonyType of British colony directly administered by the British central governmentHudson's Bay CompanyCanadian retail business holding companyRacial segregation in the United StatesRacial segregation in the United States was the legally and/or socially enforced separatio