History of Bohemia

Bohemia (boh-HEE-mee-ə; Czech: Čechy ; German: Böhmen ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia proper as a means of distinction.

The Lands of the Bohemian Crown were the states in Central Europe during the medieval and early modern periods with feudal obligations to the Bohemian kings. The crown lands primarily consisted of the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire according to the Golden Bull of 1356, the Margraviate of Moravia, the Duchies of Silesia, and the two Lusatias, known as the Margraviate of Upper Lusatia and the Margraviate of Lower Lusatia, as well as other territories throughout its history. This agglomeration of states nominally under the rule of the Bohemian kings was referred to simply as Bohemia. They are now sometimes referred to in scholarship as the Czech lands, a direct translation of the Czech abbreviated name.

The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was a partially-annexed territory of Nazi Germany that was established on 16 March 1939 after the German occupation of the Czech lands. The protectorate's population was mostly ethnic Czech.

Ferdinand Stamm (pseudonym Fernand) (11 May 1813 – 29 July 1880), was a Bohemian-Austrian writer, industrialist and politician. Stamm was born in Orpus (Mezilesí) near Preßnitz (Přisečnice) in the Bohemian Ore Mountains in the present-day Czech Republic. The son of a small mine owner who died when he was young, Stamm attended school in Duppau (Doupov) and then Saaz (Žatec). He began working as a journalist and private tutor while at Prague University, and, after graduating, joined the Viennese literary scene, producing essays, sketches, and a novel, Leben und Lieben, Dichten und Trachten des Amtsschreibers Michael Häderlein (1845). In 1848 he became a member of the Kremsier (Kroměříž) Imperial Diet, the editor of the Deutsche Zeitung aus Boehmen, and a mining entrepreneur. The following year he moved to Komotau (Chomutov), where he wrote on the living conditions of workers in the Ore Mountains. In 1856 he returned to Vienna, where he founded several short-lived periodicals and directed large railway, mining, and iron concerns. In the 1860s he helped establish, and curated, the Austrian Museum for Arts and Industry, and served in the Bohemian Diet and the Austrian Imperial Diet. After losing most of his fortune in the 1874 crash, he worked as a journalist and died at Pötzleinsdorf, Vienna.

King John's eldest son Charles IV was elected King of the Romans in 1346 and succeeded his father as King of Bohemia in the same year. Charles IV created the Bohemian Crown lands on the foundation of the original Czech lands ruled by the Přemyslid dynasty until 1306, together with the incorporated provinces in 1348. By linking the territories, the interconnection of crown lands thus no more belonged to a king or a dynasty but to the Bohemian monarchy itself, symbolically personalized by the Crown of Saint Wenceslas.

The Boii (Latin plural, singular Boius; Ancient Greek: Βόιοι) were a Celtic tribe of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul (present-day Northern Italy), Pannonia (present-day Austria and Hungary), present-day Bavaria, in and around present-day Bohemia (after whom the region is named in most languages; comprising the bulk of today's Czech Republic), parts of present-day Slovakia and Poland, and Gallia Narbonensis (located in modern Languedoc and Provence).

The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands (Czech: České země) is a historical-geographical term which denotes the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia out of which Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic and Slovakia, were formed. Together the three have formed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia since 1919, and the Czech Republic since 1 January 1993.

The Czech lands, then also known as Lands of the Bohemian Crown, were largely subject to the Habsburgs from the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. There were invasions by the Turks early in the period, and by the Prussians in the next century. The Habsburgs consolidated their rule and under Maria Theresa (1740–1780) adopted enlightened absolutism, with distinct institutions of the Bohemian Kingdom absorbed into centralized structures. After the Napoleonic Wars and the establishment of the Austrian Empire, a Czech National Revival began as a scholarly trend among educated Czechs, led by figures such as František Palacký. Czech nationalism took a more politically active form during the 1848 revolution, and began to come into conflict not only with the Habsburgs but with emerging German nationalism.

Although the Kingdom of Bohemia, both of the Lusatias, the Margraviate of Moravia, and Silesia were all under Habsburg rule, they followed different paths of development. Moravians and Silesians had accepted the hereditary right of the Austrian Habsburgs to rule and thus escaped the intense struggle between native estates and the Habsburg monarchy that was to characterize Bohemian history. In contrast, the Bohemian Kingdom had entrenched estates that were ready to defend what they considered their rights and liberties. The Habsburgs pursued a policy of centralization and conflict arose, which was further complicated by ethnic and religious issues.

The Kingdom of Bohemia (Czech: České království), sometimes referenced in English literature as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe. It was the predecessor state of the modern Czech Republic.