100 years of Czech history

October 28, 1918, is the day of Independence of the newborn Czechoslovakia. On that day the Czechoslovak Republic was founded which later was divided in two nations—the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. These two nations after almost 400 years of oppression finally got out of the Austro—Hungarian Empire. Since that day began the extraordinary journey of the independent nation “The Czech Republic”.

The first President of the newly born Czechoslovak Republic was T. G. Masaryk, a philosopher, university professor and one of the initiators of the Czechoslovak independence. Czechoslovak Republic flourished as a new state and became a major player on the political field. It formed alliances with strong western nations, not knowing, what was waiting behind the corner. Czechoslovakia became one of the 10 economically strongest countries in the world, but in 1938, everything changed. In an effort to stop the war-thirsty Nazi Germany, Czechoslovak allies decided to give the large parts of the Czechoslovak land to them, without even inviting Czechoslovakia to the table and then, just a few months before the official beginning of the WW II, Nazis broke the agreement and invaded what was left of the Czechoslovakia. But the Czechoslovak nation didn’t give up. Hundreds of guerillas were operating in the area. Passive resistance was a way to live daily lives. The Czechoslovak operatives trained abroad were being sent to Czechoslovakia in order to use their intelligence and knowledge to free the nation from Nazi Germany. The most notable operation called “Anthropoid” ended in killing one of the closest Hitler allies, Reinhard Heydrich. Although this operation was cruelly punished by the Germans, it led to recognizing the Czechoslovakia in its pre-war borders but even the end of the WW II didn’t mean that the Czechoslovakia was out of trouble.

In 1948, only three years after the victory over the Nazis, a big communist revolution took place in Czechoslovakia. It started an era of censorship, nationalization, imprisonment and oppression but the people of Czechoslovakia again didn’t give up. In the 1960s everything started to clear up. The economy was booming, great movies were being produced, borders were opened and censorship was lifted but unfortunately that wasn’t in compliance with the Russian vision of the world. So once again the Czechoslovakia was invaded, and this time not by the enemy, but by its own allies. That started almost 20 years long period of oppression called the Normalization. Finally, in 1989 everything started to fall apart in the Eastern block of nations. There was a wave of revolutions in the Czechoslovakia under the leadership of Václav Havel, and it became a free country once again. And three years later, Czech and Slovak people decided on peaceful split-up, being used as an example even today. And in the 25 years, the Czech Republic made it into the European Union, NATO and is experiencing the fastest growth.