At the beginning of the 20th century, Bohemia was a part of the Austrian Empire. After World War I in 1918 Czechoslovakia declared its independence. The new republic had three parts: Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. The popular Tomas Garigue Masaryk became the first president. In October 1938 the Nazis occupied the Sudetenland, with the acquiescence of Britain and France, after the infamous Munich Agreement. In March 1939 Germany occupied Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia proclaimed independence as a Nazi puppet state.

After World War II, in 1945, Czechoslovakia was reestablished as an independent state. In the 1946 elections, the Communists became the largest party with 36% of the popular vote and formed a coalition government. In 1948 the Communist staged a coup d'etat and Czechoslovakia became a communist country. In the 1960s, Czechoslovakia enjoyed a gradual liberalization under the reformist general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, Alexander Dubcek. But this short period was crushed n 1968, when an invasion by Warsaw Pact troops ended the efforts of the country's leaders to liberalize the party rule and attempt to create "socialism with a human face." Anti-Soviet demonstrations the following year ushered in a period of harsh repression. In 1969, the reformist Dubcek was replaced by the orthodox Gustav Husak and Czechoslovakia stayed a communist country under the Soviet influence.

With the collapse of Soviet authority in 1989, Czechoslovakia regained its freedom after a week of demonstrations known as the "Velvet Revolution." The communist government resigned that November and the popular Vaclav Havel was elected president of the republic. At the end of 1992, Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic (Bohemia and Moravia) and the Slovak Republic (Slovakia). This peaceful splitting was called the "Velvet Divorce." Now a member of NATO, the Czech Republic has moved toward integration in world markets, a development that poses both opportunities and risks.

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Sources: CIA World Factbook 2001, Operation World, 21st Century Ed., and www.bohemica.com, written by Dominik Lukeš.