History

Although the history of the Czech Lands stretches back for over ten centuries, the Czech Republic as an autonomous state was not created until 1 January 1993. However, the seeds of the republic were sown much earlier.

Until 1918, the Czech Lands were part of Austria-Hungary. Towards the end of the First World War, on 28 October 1918, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were merged with what is today the Slovak Republic to form the Czechoslovak Republic. The first president was Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. On 14 March 1939, the Slovak part of the republic broke away and a day later the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was declared. After the war, the Czechoslovak Republic was restored. The forty-year Communist regime, which began in 1948, changed the name of the state to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (in 1960). The ‘Velvet Revolution’ in 1989, which overthrew the totalitarian regime, resulted in another new name for the state, this time the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. On 1 January 1993, the republic split up and two new states were formed – the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.