in yellow, and
Austrian Silesia in orange
Ancient Bohemia Bohemia, like neighboring
Bavaria, is named after the
Boii, a large
Celtic nation known to the Romans for their migrations and settlement in northern Italy and other places. Another part of the nation moved west with the
Helvetii into southern France, one of the events leading to the interventions of Julius Caesar's Gaulish campaign of 58 BC. The emigration of the Helvetii and Boii left southern Germany and Bohemia a lightly inhabited "desert" into which
Suebic peoples arrived, speaking Germanic languages, and became dominant over remaining Celtic groups. To the south, over the Danube, the Romans extended their empire, and to the southeast, in present-day Hungary, were
Dacian peoples. In the area of modern Bohemia, the
Marcomanni and other Suebic groups were led by their king,
Marobodus, after being defeated by Roman forces in Germany. He took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its mountains and forests. They were able to maintain a strong alliance with neighboring tribes, including (at different times) the
Lugii,
Quadi,
Hermunduri,
Semnones, and
Buri, which was sometimes partly controlled by the
Roman Empire and sometimes in conflict with it; for example, in the second century, they fought
Marcus Aurelius. In late classical times and the early
Middle Ages, two new Suebic groupings appeared west of Bohemia in southern Germany, the
Alemanni (in the Helvetian desert) and the Bavarians (
Baiuvarii). Many Suebic tribes from the Bohemian region took part in such movements westward, settling as far away as Spain and Portugal. With them were also tribes who had pushed from the east, such as the
Vandals and
Alans. Other groups pushed southward toward
Pannonia. The last known mention of the Kingdom of the Marcomanni, concerning a queen named
Fritigil, is from the fourth century, and she was thought to have lived in or near Pannonia. The Suebian
Langobardi, who moved over many generations from the
Baltic Sea, via the Elbe and Pannonia to Italy, recorded in a
tribal history a time spent in "Bainaib". After the
Migration Period, Bohemia was partially repopulated around the sixth century, and eventually
Slavic tribes arrived from the east, and their language began to replace the older Germanic, Celtic, and
Sarmatian ones. These are precursors of today's Czechs, but the exact amount of Slavic immigration and waves is a subject of debate, see
Bohemians (tribe). The death of
Samo's tribal confederation marked the end of the old "Slavonic" confederation, the second attempt to establish such a Slavonic union after
Carantania in
Carinthia. The 9th century was crucial for Bohemia's future. The
manorial system sharply declined, as it did in Bavaria. The influence of the central Fraganeo-Czechs grew, as a result of the important cultic center in their territory. They were Slavic-speaking and contributed to the transformation of diverse neighboring populations into a new nation named and led by them with a united "Slavic" ethnic consciousness. Christianity first appeared in the early 9th century, but became dominant only in the 10th or 11th century.
Přemysl dynasty (until 1253–1262) Bohemia was made a part of the early Slavic state of
Great Moravia, under the rule of
Svatopluk I (r. 870–894). After Svatopluk's death Great Moravia was weakened by years of internal conflict and constant warfare, ultimately collapsing and fragmenting because of continual incursions by invading nomadic
Magyars. Bohemia's initial incorporation into the Moravian Empire resulted in the extensive
Christianization of the population. A native monarchy arose, and Bohemia came under the rule of the
Přemyslid dynasty, which ruled the Czech lands for several hundred years. The Přemyslids secured their frontiers after the Moravian state's collapse by entering into a state of semivassalage to the
Frankish rulers. The alliance was facilitated by Bohemia's conversion to Christianity in the 9th century. Continuing close relations were developed with the
East Frankish Kingdom, which devolved from the
Carolingian Empire, into
East Francia, eventually becoming the
Holy Roman Empire. After a decisive victory of the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia over invading Magyars in the 955
Battle of Lechfeld,
Boleslaus I of Bohemia was granted
Moravia by German emperor
Otto the Great. Bohemia remained a largely autonomous state under the Holy Roman Empire for several decades. The jurisdiction of the
Holy Roman Empire was definitively reasserted when
Jaromír of Bohemia was granted fief of the Kingdom of Bohemia by Emperor
King Henry II of the Holy Roman Empire, with the promise that he hold it as a vassal once he reoccupied Prague with a German army in 1004, ending the rule of
Bolesław I of Poland. The first to use the title of "King of Bohemia" were the Přemyslid dukes
Vratislav II (1085) and
Vladislaus II (1158), but their heirs returned to the title of
duke. The title of king became hereditary under
Ottokar I (1198). His grandson
Ottokar II (king from 1253 to 1278) conquered a short-lived empire that contained modern
Austria and
Slovenia. Substantial German immigration began in the mid-13th century, as the court sought to replace losses from the brief
Mongol invasion of Europe in 1241. Germans settled primarily along Bohemia's northern, western, and southern borders, although many lived in towns throughout the kingdom.
Luxembourg dynasty The
House of Luxembourg accepted the invitation to the Bohemian throne with the marriage to the Přemyslid heiress, Elizabeth and the crowning subsequent of
John I of Bohemia (in the Czech Republic known as
Jan Lucemburský) in 1310. His son,
Charles IV, became King of Bohemia in 1346. He founded
Charles University in Prague, Central Europe's first university, two years later. His reign brought Bohemia to its peak both politically and in total area, resulting in his being the first king of Bohemia to be elected
Holy Roman Emperor. Under his rule, the
Bohemian crown controlled such diverse lands as
Moravia,
Silesia,
Upper Lusatia and
Lower Lusatia, Brandenburg, an area around
Nuremberg called New Bohemia,
Luxembourg, and several small towns scattered around Germany. From the 13th century on, settlements of Germans developed throughout Bohemia, making Bohemia a bilingual country. The Germans brought mining technology to the mountainous regions of the
Sudetes. In the mining town of Sankt Joachimsthal (now
Jáchymov), famous coins called Joachimsthalers were coined, which gave their name to the
thaler and the
dollar. Meanwhile,
Prague German intermediated between
Upper German and
East Central German, influencing the foundations of modern standard German. At the same time and place, the teachings of
Jan Hus, the
rector of Charles University and a prominent reformer and religious thinker, influenced the rise of modern Czech.
Hussite Bohemia , after the town of
Tábor that became their center. During the ecumenical
Council of Constance in 1415, Hus was sentenced to be burnt at the stake as a
heretic. The verdict was passed even though Hus was granted formal protection by Emperor
Sigismund of Luxembourg before the journey. Hus was invited to attend the council to defend himself and the Czech positions in the religious court, but with the emperor's approval, he was executed on 6 July 1415. His execution and five consecutive papal crusades against his followers forced the Bohemians to defend themselves in the
Hussite Wars. The uprising against imperial forces was led by a former mercenary,
Jan Žižka of Trocnov. As the leader of the Hussite armies, he used innovative tactics and weapons, such as howitzers, pistols, and fortified wagons, which were revolutionary for the time and established Žižka as a great general who never lost a battle. After Žižka's death,
Prokop the Great took over the army's command, and under him the Hussites were victorious for another ten years, to Europe's terror. The Hussite cause gradually splintered into two main factions, the moderate
Utraquists and the more fanatic
Taborites. The
Utraquists began to lay the groundwork for an agreement with the
Catholic Church and found the more radical views of the Taborites distasteful. Additionally, with general war-weariness and yearning for order, the Utraquists were able to eventually defeat the Taborites in the
Battle of Lipany in 1434. Sigismund said after the battle that "only the Bohemians could defeat the Bohemians." Despite an apparent victory for the Catholics, the Bohemian Utraquists were still strong enough to negotiate
freedom of religion in 1436. That happened in the so-called
Compacts of Basel, declaring peace and freedom between Catholics and Utraquists. It lasted only a short time, as
Pope Pius II declared the compacts invalid in 1462. In 1458,
George of Poděbrady was elected to the Bohemian throne. He is remembered for his attempt to set up a pan-European "Christian League" that would form all the states of Europe into a community based on religion. In the process of negotiating, he appointed
Zdeněk Lev of Rožmitál to tour the European courts and to conduct the talks. The negotiations were not completed because George's position was substantially damaged over time by his deteriorating relationship with the Pope.
Habsburg Monarchy '';
Sebastian Münster,
Basel, 1570 After the death of King
Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in the
Battle of Mohács in 1526, Archduke
Ferdinand I of Austria became the new king of Bohemia, and the country became a constituent state of the
Habsburg monarchy. From 1599 to 1711, Moravia (a
Land of the Bohemian Crown) was frequently raided by the
Ottoman Empire and its vassals (especially the
Tatars and
Transylvania). Overall, hundreds of thousands were enslaved whilst tens of thousands were killed. Bohemia enjoyed religious freedom between 1436 and 1620 and became one of the most liberal countries of the Christian world during that period. In 1609, Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolf II, who made Prague again the capital of the
empire at the time, himself a Roman Catholic, was moved by the Bohemian nobility to publish
Maiestas Rudolphina, which confirmed the older
Confessio Bohemica of 1575. After Emperor
Matthias II and then King of Bohemia
Ferdinand II (later Holy Roman Emperor) began oppressing the rights of
Protestants in Bohemia, the resulting
Bohemian Revolt led to outbreak of the
Thirty Years' War in 1618. Elector
Frederick V of the
Electorate of the Palatinate, a
Calvinist Protestant, was elected by the Bohemian nobility to replace Ferdinand on the Bohemian throne and was known as the Winter King. Frederick's wife, the popular
Elizabeth Stuart and subsequently Elizabeth of Bohemia, known as the Winter Queen or Queen of Hearts, was the daughter of King
James I of England and VI of Scotland. After Frederick's defeat in the
Battle of White Mountain in 1620, 27 Bohemian estates leaders and
Jan Jesenius, rector of the
Charles University of Prague, were executed on Prague's Old Town Square on 21 June 1621, and the rest were exiled from the country; their lands were given to Catholic loyalists (mostly of Bavarian and Saxon origin). That ended the pro-reformation movement in Bohemia and the role of Prague as ruling city of the Holy Roman Empire. in 1618 with other Bohemian Crown lands within the
Holy Roman Empire (1618) In the so-called "renewed constitution" of 1627, German was established as a second official language in the Czech lands. Czech formally remained the kingdom's first language, but both German and Latin were widely spoken among the ruling classes, although German became increasingly dominant, and Czech was spoken in much of the countryside. Bohemia's formal independence was further jeopardized when the Bohemian
Diet approved administrative reform in 1749. It included the indivisibility of the
Habsburg Empire and the centralization of rule, which essentially meant the merging of the Royal Bohemian Chancellery with the Austrian Chancellery. At the end of the 18th century, the
Czech National Revival movement, in cooperation with part of the Bohemian aristocracy, started a campaign for restoration of the kingdom's historic rights, whereby Czech was to regain its historical role and replace German as the language of administration. The
enlightened absolutism of
Joseph II and
Leopold II, who introduced minor language concessions, showed promise for the Czech movement, but many of these reforms were later rescinded. During the
Revolution of 1848, many Czech nationalists called for autonomy for Bohemia from Habsburg Austria, but the revolutionaries were defeated. At the same time, German-speaking towns elected representatives for the
first German Parliament at Frankfurt. Towns between
Karlsbad and
Reichenberg chose leftist representatives, while
Eger,
Rumburg, and
Troppau elected conservative representatives. The old Bohemian Diet, one of the last remnants of the independence, was dissolved, although Czech experienced a rebirth as
romantic nationalism developed among the Czechs. In 1861, a new elected Bohemian Diet was established. The renewal of the old Bohemian Crown (
Kingdom of Bohemia,
Margraviate of Moravia, and
Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia) became the official political program of both Czech liberal politicians and the majority of Bohemian aristocracy ("state rights program"), while parties representing the German minority and small part of the aristocracy proclaimed their loyalty to the centralist Constitution (so-called "Verfassungstreue"). After Austria's defeat in the
Austro-Prussian War in 1866, Hungarian politicians achieved the
Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, ostensibly creating equality between the empire's Austrian and Hungarian halves. An attempt by the Czechs to create a tripartite monarchy (Austria-Hungary-Bohemia) failed in 1871. The "state-rights program" remained the official platform of all Czech political parties (except for social democrats) until 1918. Under the state-rights program, appealing to the stability of Bohemia's borders over many centuries, the Czech emancipation movement claimed the right to the whole of the Bohemian lands over the Germans' right to the lands, amounting to a third of Bohemia, where they formed the majority.
Interbellum After
World War I, the
German Bohemians demanded that the regions with German-speaking majority be included in a
German state. But Czech political leaders claimed the entire Bohemian lands, including majority German-speaking areas, for Czechoslovakia. By the end of October, bilingual towns had been occupied by Czech forces. By end of November, many purely German-speaking towns had been occupied. German or Austrian troops, bound by the ceasefire agreement, did not support Bohemian German self-defense, while the Czechoslovak army, an
Entente army, could freely operate. The absorption of the German-speaking areas in
Czechoslovakia was hence a
fait accompli. As a result, all of Bohemia (as the largest and most populous land) became the core of the newly formed country of
Czechoslovakia, which combined Bohemia,
Moravia,
Czech Silesia,
Upper Hungary (present-day
Slovakia) and
Carpathian Ruthenia into one state. Under its first president,
Tomáš Masaryk, Czechoslovakia became a liberal democratic republic, but serious issues emerged regarding the Czech majority's relationship with the
German and Hungarian minorities.
German occupation and World War II After the
Munich Agreement in 1938, the border regions of Bohemia historically inhabited predominantly by ethnic Germans (the
Sudetenland) were annexed to
Nazi Germany. The remnants of Bohemia and Moravia were then annexed by Germany in 1939, while the Slovak lands became the separate
Slovak Republic, a puppet state of Nazi Germany. From 1939 to 1945, Bohemia (without the Sudetenland) and Moravia formed the German
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. During
World War II, the Germans operated the
Theresienstadt Ghetto for Jews, the Dulag Luft Ost,
Stalag IV-C and Stalag 359
prisoner-of-war camps for
French, British, Belgian, Serbian, Dutch, Slovak, Soviet, Romanian, Italian and other
Allied POWs, and the Ilag IV camp for interned civilians from western Allied countries in the region. There were also 17
subcamps of the
Flossenbürg concentration camp, in which both men and women, mostly
Polish, Soviet and Jewish, but also French, Yugoslav, Czech,
Romani and of several other ethnicities, were imprisoned and subjected to
forced labor, and 16 subcamps of the
Gross-Rosen concentration camp, in which men and women, mostly Polish and Jewish, but also Czechs, Russians, and other people, were similarly imprisoned and subjected to forced labor. Nazi authorities brutally suppressed any open opposition to German occupation, and many Czech patriots were executed as a result. In 1942, the Czechoslovak resistance
assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, and in reprisal German forces murdered the population of a whole village,
Lidice. In the spring of 1945, there were
death marches of prisoners of several subcamps of the Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen and
Buchenwald concentration camps in Saxony and Silesia, and Allied POWs from camps in Austria reached the region. In May 1945, Allied
American, Polish,
Czechoslovak, Soviet and Romanian troops captured the region, which was then restored to Czechoslovakia. After the war ended in 1945, after initial plans to cede lands to Germany or to create German-speaking cantons had been abandoned,
Recent history The Communist Party won the most votes in free elections, but not a
simple majority.
Klement Gottwald, the communist leader, became prime minister of a coalition government. In February 1948, the non-communist members of the government resigned in protest against arbitrary measures by the communists and their Soviet protectors in many of the state's institutions. Gottwald and the communists responded with a ''coup d'état'' and installed a pro-Soviet authoritarian state. In 1949, Bohemia ceased to be an administrative unit of Czechoslovakia, as the country was divided into administrative regions that did not follow the historical borders. In 1989,
Agnes of Bohemia became the first saint from a Central European country to be canonized (by
Pope John Paul II) before the "
Velvet Revolution" later that year. After the
Velvet Divorce in 1993, the territory of Bohemia remained in the Czech Republic. The new
Constitution of the Czech Republic provided for higher administrative units to be established, providing for the possibility of Bohemia as an administrative unit, but did not specify the form they would take. A 1997 constitutional act rejected the restoration of self-governing historical Czech lands and decided on the regional system that has been in use since 2000.
Petr Pithart, former Czech prime minister and president of the
Senate at the time, remained one of the main advocates of the land system, claiming that the primary reason for its refusal was the fear of possible Moravian separatism. and geographical names. The distinction and border between the Czech lands is also preserved in
local dialects. In April 2025, a significant gold treasure was unearthed in north-eastern Bohemia, beneath Zvičina Hill. The hoard, weighing approximately , includes nearly of gold coins, with an estimated value exceeding CZK 7.5 million. Discovered hidden in a forested area, this find is considered one of the most remarkable in recent Czech history. The coins are believed to date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, offering valuable insights into the region's historical economy and trade practices. The discovery is currently under examination by experts to determine its origins and historical significance. ==Former parts==