The Czech Republic 2

The Czech Republic


The Czech Republic is a state in Central Europe. It occupies an area of 78 864 sq km and has about 10.33 million inhabitants. The Administrative division consists of 76 districts. They are alternative system of administration had not been decided on yet. The head of the state is president, elected for a five-year period by the Parliament of the Czech Republic by an assembly of both parliament chamber. Executive power is the Government of the Czech Republic. Assembly is Parliament of the Czech Republic, which comprises two Houses - the Chamber of Deputis and the Senate. The Chmber of deputies has 200 deputies elected for 4 years and the Senate has 81 senators elected for 6 years, one-third of whom face an election every two years.

Geography:
Our state has a varied landscape. Bohemia is surrounded by a ring of mountains - the Šumava range, the Czech Forest, the Ore Mountains, the Jizerské Mountains, the Giant Mountains, and the Eagle Mountains. The Moravian plain is protected on the West by the bohemian-Moravian highlands, and on the North by the wooded mountainous ranges of Jeseníky and Beskydy. Fertile lowlands can be found in the valleys of big rivers - the Vltava, the Elbe (flowing into the north sea), the Oder (flowing into the Baltic Sea), and the Morava (flowing into the Danube and thence into the black Sea). The climate is mostly continental, the warmest area being in South Moravia.

Industry:
One of our most significant raw materials is coal. Black coal and anthracite are to be found mainly in the Ostrava Coal Basin, but also in the area of Kladno and elsewhere. The most significant supplies of brown coal or lignite are in the North Bohemia Coal Basin and in Western Bohemia in the Sokolov Basin. There are also minor deposits of iron ore, uranium, oil etc. The rich deposits of kaolin and clay are important for the ceramics and glass industry as well as abundant quarries of stone and limestone for the building industry.
The Czech Republic is traditionally an industrial country. The greatest percentage is represented by the engineering industry. Besides this there are the chemical industry, food industry, textile industry, metallurgy and other sorts of industry. Also the agriculture is developed enough to feed the population and be able to export its products too.

History:
From the historical point of view our territory has been inhabited by Slavonic tribes since the 5th century A.D. The first Slavonic state was Sámo’s Empire which was founded here in 623. With the further development and uniting of Slavonic tribes, the early mighty feudal Great Moravian empire was formed in the 9th century. After its disintegration, state activities were concentrated in the Czech Lands whrer in the 9th century power was taken over by the Czech tribe headed by the Přemyslid family. The first historically documented Czech prince Bořivoj I ruled over the territory of the Czech lands and over a considerable part of Great Moravia.
The Czech princes- and later kings- played an important role in Central Europe. When the Přemyslid dynasty had died out by the sword in 1306 and, after several years of instability, the Czech throne went by way of a dynastic wedding to the Luxembourgs, and the Czech Kingdom became also the centre of the Holy Roman Empire mainly during the reign of Charles IV and his son Wenceslas IV. nevertheless it was a kingdom quite independent of the Holy Roman Empire, and was ruled by the king, the most important of the seven electors of the emperor. During the reign of Charles IV (1346 - 1378), Prague grew into one of the largest European metropolises of that era, and was a significant centre of education, architecture and the arts. In 1348 Charles University - the oldest one in Central, Northern and Eastern Europe - was founded in Prague.
The first part of the 15th century is marked by the Hussite Movement (1419 - 1437). It is named after Jan Hus (john Huss), professor, dean, and later rector of Charles university. In 1415 he was tried by the Church council in Constance and burnt at the stake as a heretic. The leading representatives of the Hussite Movement were Jan Žižka and Prokop Holý. Jan Žižka, as a Hussite leader, was never defeated. Prokop Holý, in victorious battles, fought off crusades of the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire and was also prominent Hussite diplomat.
After the reign of king Jiří of Poděbrady, who is known for his appeal to other European kings to make a treaty securing peace - and after the period of the rule of Jagiellonian dynasty on the Czech throne there came the period of the Habsburg dynasty (1526 - 1918). These rulers tried to oppress the Czech nation in favour of the Germans and the Roman Catholic Church, but were nor successful until the Battle on the White Mountain in 1620, followed by 300 years of endeavours to eradicate Czech statehood and national life - though germanization and the liquidation of Czech literature and culture as a whole, and re-catholicization.
Nevertheless the 19th century brought a time of national revival, so when World War I ended in 1918, the Czech nation was able to take its fate into its own hands in the newly established Czechoslovak Republic. Though this was destroyed by the German occupation (1939 - 1945), it appeared again after World War II. In 1948 the power was taken over by the communists directed by the Soviet Union. The „Prague Spring“ in 1968 was oppressed by the invasion of the Soviet army and the „normalization“ lasted about another 20 years till the „Velvet revolution“ in 1989. The following development led to the splitting of the republic, and in 1993 two new states appeared - the Czech Republic comprising the original countries of the Czech crown, Bohemia and Moravia, and part of Silesia, the greater part of which was lost in the 18th century during the Seven Years’ Was, and the Slovak Republic.

Important days:
8th May - Liberation from Fascism Day
5th July - Arrival of Slavonic Missionaries C + M (863)
6th July - Jan Hus Burned to Death (1415)
28th October - Czechoslovak Independent Day

State symbols:
Large state emblem of the Czech Republic - coat of arms divided into quarters, of which the first and the fourth red part shows a silver, two-tailed rampant lion with a golden crown and golden harness. The other two parts consist of a silver-and-red-checkered eagle with a silver crescent with clover trefoil on a blue filed and in the midd