This article describes ethnic minorities in Czechoslovakia from 1918 until 1992.
Czechoslovakia was founded as a country in the aftermath of World War I with its borders set out in the Treaty of Trianon and Treaty of Versailles, though the new borders were approximately de facto established about a year prior. One of the main objects of these treaties was to secure independence for minorities previously living within the Kingdom of Hungary or to reunify them with an existent nation-state.
However some territorial claims were based on economic grounds instead of ethnic ones, for instance the Czechoslovak borders with Poland (to include coal fields and a railway connection between Bohemia and Slovakia) and Hungary (on economic and strategic grounds), which resulted in successor states with percentages of minorities almost as high as in Austria-Hungary before. [1] Czechoslovakia had the highest proportion of minorities, who constituted 32.4% of the population. [2]
During World War II, the Jewish and Romani minorities had been exterminated by the Nazis, and after the war most Germans and many Hungarians were expelled under the Beneš decrees. Afterwards, other minority groups migrated to Czechoslovakia, Roma from Hungary and Romania, Bulgarians fleeing the Soviet troops, Greeks and Macedonians fleeing the Greek Civil War. Later, migrant workers and students came from other Communist bloc countries, including Vietnamese and Koreans.
Regions | "Czechoslovaks" (Czechs and Slovaks) | Germans | Hungarians | Rusyns | Jews | others | Total population |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bohemia | 4 382 788 | 2 173 239 | 5 476 | 2 007 | 11 251 | 93 757 | 6 668 518 |
Moravia | 2 048 426 | 547 604 | 534 | 976 | 15 335 | 46 448 | 2 649 323 |
Silesia [4] | 296 194 | 252 365 | 94 | 338 | 3 681 | 49 530 | 602 202 |
Slovakia | 2 013 792 | 139 900 | 637 183 | 85 644 | 70 529 | 42 313 | 2 989 361 |
Carpathian Ruthenia | 19 737 | 10 460 | 102 144 | 372 884 | 80 059 | 6 760 | 592 044 |
Czechoslovak Republic | 8 760 937 | 3 123 568 | 745 431 | 461 849 | 180 855 | 238 080 | 13 410 750 |
Ethnic group | census 1921 1 | census 1930 | census 1950 | census 1961 | census 1970 | census 1980 | census 1991 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
Czechs | 6,758,983 | 67.5 | 7,304,588 | 68.3 | 8,343,558 | 93.9 | 9,023,501 | 94.2 | 9,270,617 | 94.4 | 9,733,925 | 94.6 | 8,363,768 | 81.2 |
Moravians | 1,362,313 | 13.2 | ||||||||||||
Silesians | 44,446 | 0.4 | ||||||||||||
Slovaks | 15,732 | 0.2 | 44,451 | 0.4 | 258,025 | 2.9 | 275,997 | 2.9 | 320,998 | 3.3 | 359,370 | 3.5 | 314,877 | 3.1 |
Poles | 103,521 | 1.0 | 92,689 | 0.9 | 70,816 | 0.8 | 66,540 | 0.7 | 64,074 | 0.7 | 66,123 | 0.6 | 59,383 | 0.6 |
Germans | 3,061,369 | 30.6 | 3,149,820 | 29.5 | 159,938 | 1.8 | 134,143 | 1.4 | 80,903 | 0.8 | 58,211 | 0.6 | 48,556 | 0.5 |
Ukrainians | 13,343 | 0.1 | 22,657 | 0.2 | 19,384 | 0.2 | 19,549 | 0.2 | 9,794 | 0.1 | 10,271 | 0.1 | 8,220 | 0.1 |
Rusyns | 1,926 | 0.0 | ||||||||||||
Russians | 6,619 | 0.1 | 5,051 | 0.0 | 5,062 | 0.0 | ||||||||
Vietnamese | 421 | 0.0 | ||||||||||||
Hungarians | 7,049 | 0.1 | 11,427 | 0.1 | 13,201 | 0.1 | 15,152 | 0.2 | 18,472 | 0.2 | 19,676 | 0.2 | 19,932 | 0.2 |
Romani [5] | 227 | 0.0 | 19,770 | 0.2 | 19,392 | 0.2 | 32,903 | 0.3 | ||||||
Jews | 35,699 | 0.4 | 37,093 | 0.4 | 218 | 0.0 | ||||||||
Yugoslavs | 4,749 | 0.0 | 3,957 | 0.0 | ||||||||||
Romanians | 966 | 0.0 | 3,205 | 0.0 | 1,034 | 0.0 | ||||||||
Others/undeclared | 10,038 | 0.1 | 5,719 | 0.1 | 11,441 | 0.1 | 10,095 | 0.1 | 36,220 | 0.4 | 39,300 | 0.4 | 39,129 | 0.4 |
Total | 10,005,734 | 10,674,386 | 8,896,133 | 9,571,531 | 9,807,697 | 10,291,927 | 10,302,215 | |||||||
1 On the territory of the census date. |
Ethnic group | census 1950 | census 1961 | census 1970 | census 1980 | census 1991 | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
Slovaks | 86.6 | 85.3 | 85.5 | 4,317,008 | 86.5 | 4,519,328 | 85.7 | |||
Hungarians | 10.3 | 12.4 | 12.2 | 559,490 | 11.2 | 567,296 | 10.8 | |||
Romani 1 | – | – | – | – | – | 75,802 | 1.4 | |||
Czechs | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1.0 | 57,197 | 1.1 | 59,326 | 1.1 | |||
Ruthenians | 1.4 | – | 0.9 | 0.7 | 17,197 | 0.3 | ||||
Ukrainians | 13,281 | 0.3 | ||||||||
Others/undeclared | 0.5 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 22,105 | 0.4 | ||||
Total | 3,442,317 | 4,174,046 | 4,537,290 | 4,991,168 | 5,274,335 | |||||
1Before 1991 the Romani were not recognized as a separate ethnic group |
According to article 128 §3 of the 1920 Constitution "Citizens of the Czechoslovak Republic may, within the limits of the common law, freely use any language they chose in private and business intercourse, in all matters pertaining to religion, in the press and in all publications whatsoever, or in public assemblies." [8]
These rights were also provided for in article 57 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1919: "The Czecho-Slovak State accepts and agrees to embody in a Treaty with the Principal Allied and Associated Powers such provision as may be deemed necessary by these Powers to protect the interests of inhabitants of that State who differ from the majority of the population in race, language or religion." [9]
"In addition, the Language act granted minorities the right to address courts, offices and state organs in their own language, but only in communities where that national minority comprised more than 20 percent of the population." [10]
The proceedings in the parliament were held either in the official languages of Czechoslovakia, Czech and Slovak, or in one of the recognized minority languages. Practically, everyone spoke their own language. [11]
A Government Council for Nationalities was established in 1968 in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in accordance to Article 5 of the Constitutional Law No. 144/1968. [12]
After World War I, the Czechs outnumbered Slovaks two to one in the new Czechoslovak state. [13] The Slovaks lived in the shadow of the more internationally recognized Czech leadership and the great capital of Prague. [13] The relationship between the Czechs and Slovaks was asymmetrical: Slovakia was considered an agrarian appendage to the highly industrial Czech nation, [13] [14] and the Czechs viewed Slovak culture as lacking in maturity and refinement. [14] The languages of the two nations are closely related and mutually intelligible, and many Czechs viewed Slovak as a caricature of Czech. [14] In his 1934 memoirs, the President of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, writes he said in a 1924 interview to a French journalist of Le Petit Parisien : «There is no Slovak nation, it has been invented by Hungarian propaganda. The Czechs and Slovaks are brothers. They understand each other perfectly. All that separates them is the cultural level – the Czechs are more developed than the Slovaks, because the Magyars kept them in the dark. (...) In one generation there will be no difference between the two branches of our national family.» [15] However the interview is nowhere to be found in the scanned full archives of Le Petit Parisien. [16]
There were two German minority groups in the interwar Czechoslovakian Republic, the Sudeten Germans in Bohemia and Moravia (present-day Czech Republic) and the Carpathian Germans in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia (present-day Ukraine).
In addition, there was a sizeable German-speaking urban Jewish minority, and several Jewish politicians were elected as members of German minority parties like the German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic or the German Democratic Liberal Party.
The Polish minority in Czechoslovakia (Polish : Polska mniejszość w Czechosłowacji, Czech : Polská národnostní menšina v Československu, Slovak : Poľská menšina v Československu) (today the Polish minority in the Czech Republic and Slovakia) is the Polish national minority living mainly in the Trans-Olza region of western Cieszyn Silesia. The Polish community is the only national (or ethnic) minority in the Czech Republic that is linked to a native specific geographical area. [17] Trans-Olza is located in the north-eastern part of the country. It comprises Karviná District and the eastern part of Frýdek-Místek District. Many Poles living in other regions of the Czech Republic have roots in Trans-Olza as well.
Poles formed the largest ethnic group in Cieszyn Silesia in the 19th century, but at the beginning of the 20th century the Czech population grew. The Czechs and Poles collaborated on resisting Germanization movements, but this collaboration ceased after World War I. In 1920 the region of Trans-Olza was incorporated into Czechoslovakia after the Polish–Czechoslovak War. Since then the Polish population demographically decreased. In 1938 it was annexed by Poland in the context of the Munich Agreement and in 1939 by Nazi Germany. The region was then given back to Czechoslovakia after World War II. Polish organizations were re-created, but were banned by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. After the Velvet Revolution, Polish organizations were re-created again and Trans-Olza had adopted bilingual signs.
Hungarians (and other minorities e.g. Germans and Rusyns) were excluded from the constituent assembly, barring them from having any influence on the new Czechoslovak constitution. [18] Later on, all the minorities gained the right to use their languages in municipalities where they constituted at least 20% of the population even in communication with government offices and courts. However due to gerrymandering and disproportionate distribution of population between Bohemia and Slovakia the Hungarians had little (if any) representation in the National Assembly and thus their influence on the politics of Czechoslovakia remained limited. The same considerations had limited the Slovak intelligentsia's political power as well. [18]
During communism there were no signs of organized Jewish life and the situation was similar to others communities of Central and Eastern Europe controlled directly by the state. [19] Most of the Jews left the country for Israel or the United States who wanted to follow Jewish lives and freedom. [19] For many years there has been no religious leadership. [19]
After World War I, the Roma people formed an ethnic community, living on the social periphery of the mainstream population. [20] The state always focused on the Roma population not as a distinct ethnic minority, but rather perceived it as a particularly anti-social and criminal group. [20] This attitude was reflected in the policy of collecting special police evidence—fingerprint collections of members of Romany groups (1925), a law about wandering Roma (1927). [20]
Racism was not an unknown phenomenon under communism. [21] Roma people were forced to resettle in small groups around the country left them isolated. [21] This policy of the state was oriented toward one of assimilation of the Roma people (in 1958, Law No. 74, "On the permanent settlement of nomadic and semi-nomadic people"), forcibly limited the movement of that part of the Roma (perhaps 5%–10%) who still traveled on a regular basis. [20] In the same year, the highest organ of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia passed a resolution, the aim of which was to be "the final assimilation of the Gypsy population". The "Gypsy question" was decreased to a "problem of a socially-backward section of the population". [20] During this period, the governments actively supported sterilisation and abortion for Roma women and the policy was not repealed until 1991. [21]
The popular perception of Romani even before 1989 was of lazy, dirty criminals who abused social services and posed a significant threat to majority values. [21]
After World War II, the Rusyn nationality was declared to be Ukrainian in Czechoslovakia. [22] The Rusyns refused Ukrainian identity, instead declaring their nationality as Slovak. [22] Rusyn cultural institutions were changed to Ukrainian, and the usage of the Rusyn language in official communications ceased. [22] Most settlement had only a Slovak-language school and a Slovak identity and orientation were adopted by most of the Rusyn populace, and they were, in effect, de-nationalized. [22]
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked state in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
Demographic features of the population of the Czech Republic include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations.
Český Těšín is a town in Karviná District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 23,000 inhabitants.
The First Czechoslovak Republic emerged from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October 1918. The new state consisted mostly of territories inhabited by Czechs and Slovaks, but also included areas containing majority populations of other nationalities, particularly Germans (22.95 %), who accounted for more citizens than the state's second state nation of the Slovaks, Hungarians (5.47 %) and Ruthenians (3.39 %). The new state comprised the total of Bohemia whose borders did not coincide with the language border between German and Czech. Despite initially developing effective representative institutions alongside a successful economy, the deteriorating international economic situation in the 1930s gave rise to growing ethnic tensions. The dispute between the Czech and German populations, fanned by the rise of Nazism in neighbouring Germany, resulted in the loss of territory under the terms of the Munich Agreement and subsequent events in the autumn of 1938, bringing about the end of the First Republic.
The German-speaking population in the interwar Czechoslovak Republic, 23.6% of the population at the 1921 census, usually refers to the Sudeten Germans, although there were other German ethno-linguistic enclaves elsewhere in Czechoslovakia inhabited by Carpathian Germans, and among the German-speaking urban dwellers there were ethnic Germans and/or Austrians as well as German-speaking Jews. 14% of the Czechoslovak Jews considered themselves Germans in the 1921 census, but a much higher percentage declared German as their colloquial tongue during the last censuses under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
From the Communist coup d'état in February 1948 to the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The country belonged to the Eastern Bloc and was a member of the Warsaw Pact and of Comecon. During the era of Communist Party rule, thousands of Czechoslovaks faced political persecution for various offences, such as trying to emigrate across the Iron Curtain.
Czechoslovakia had a peak population of 15.6 million, mainly composed of Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romani people, Silesians, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and Jews. The ethnic composition of Czechoslovakia changed over time from Sudeten Germans being the most prominent ethnicity to Czechs and Slovaks making up two-thirds of the demographic. Amongst this demographic there was also a diverse range of religions with Roman Catholic being the most prominent. This population has been found to have had an increasing growth rate that had a declining trajectory. The population density was approximately 121 persons per square kilometre with the highest population density being in Moravia of 154 persons per square kilometre.
Carpathian Ruthenia is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast, with smaller parts in eastern Slovakia and the Lemko Region in Poland.
Trans-Olza, also known as Trans-Olza Silesia, is a territory in the Czech Republic, which was disputed between Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Interwar Period. Its name comes from the Olza River.
Cieszyn Silesia, Těšín Silesia or Teschen Silesia is a historical region in south-eastern Silesia, centered on the towns of Cieszyn and Český Těšín and bisected by the Olza River. Since 1920 it has been divided between Poland and Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic. It covers an area of about 2,280 square kilometres (880 sq mi) and has about 810,000 inhabitants, of which 1,002 square kilometres (387 sq mi) (44%) is in Poland, while 1,280 square kilometres (494 sq mi) (56%) is in the Czech Republic.
Border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia began in 1918 between the Second Polish Republic and First Czechoslovak Republic, both freshly created states. The conflicts centered on the disputed areas of Cieszyn Silesia, Orava Territory and Spiš. After World War II they broadened to include areas around the cities of Kłodzko and Racibórz, which until 1945 had belonged to Germany. The conflicts became critical in 1919 and were finally settled in 1958 in a treaty between the Polish People's Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
Czechization or Czechisation is a cultural change in which something ethnically non-Czech is made to become Czech.
Hungarians constitute the largest minority in Slovakia. According to the 2021 Slovak census, 456,154 people declared themselves Hungarian, while 462,175 stated that Hungarian was their mother tongue.
Slovakization or Slovakisation is a form of either forced or voluntary cultural assimilation and acculturation, during which non-Slovak nationals give up their culture and language in favor of the Slovak one. This process has relied most heavily on intimidation and harassment by state authorities. Another method of Slovakization was artificial resettlement. In the past the process has been greatly aided by deprivation of collective rights for minorities and ethnic cleansing, but in the last decades its promotion has been limited to the adoption of anti-minority policies and anti-minority hate speech.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia, a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian and Hungarian territories.
The Polish minority in the Czech Republic is a Polish national minority living mainly in the Trans-Olza region of western Cieszyn Silesia. The Polish community is the only national minority in the Czech Republic that is linked to a specific geographical area. Trans-Olza is located in the north-eastern part of the country. It comprises Karviná District and the eastern part of Frýdek-Místek District. Many Poles living in other regions of the Czech Republic have roots in Trans-Olza as well.
After centuries of relative ethnic diversity, the population of modern Poland has become nearly completely ethnically homogeneous Polish as a result of altered borders and the Nazi German and Soviet or Polish Communist campaigns of genocide, expulsion and deportation during and after World War II. Ethnic minorities remain in Poland, however, including some newly arrived or increased in number. Ethnic groups include Germans, Ukrainians and Belarusians.
Czech–German relations are the relationship between Germany and the Czech Republic. The two countries share 815 km of common borders and both are members of the European Union, NATO, OECD, OSCE, Council of Europe and the World Trade Organization.
The Czechoslovak-Polish War, also known mostly in Czech sources as the Seven-day war was a military confrontation between Czechoslovakia and Poland over the territory of Cieszyn Silesia in early 1919.
The Czechoslovak–Hungarian population exchange was the exchange of inhabitants between Czechoslovakia and Hungary after World War II. Between 45,000 and 120,000 Hungarians were forcibly transferred from Czechoslovakia to Hungary, and their properties confiscated, while around 72,000 Slovaks voluntarily transferred from Hungary to Czechoslovakia.
Maps showing the ethnic, linguistic or religious diversity are to be considered with much precaution as they may reflect the national or ideological beliefs of their author(s), or simply include errors. The same can be said about ethnic, linguistic or religious censuses, as the governments that organize them are not necessarily neutral.