Bohemia (Ger.
Boehmen) is a region of central Europe bounded by {fill in your favorite boundaries}. Roman authors provide the first clear reference to this area, when it was the home of the
Boii, a Celtic people. As part of the territory often crossed during the major Germanic and Slavic migrations, the area has been alternately inhabited by many different peoples. By the late 9th c., the inhabitants were mostly Slavic, while the borderlands between Bohemia and Francia proper were somewhat fluid in regards to their inhabitants.
In 845 the people known to the Franks as Bohemians (these people were of Slavic origin, and had nothing to do with the Boii) came to Regensburg? to pledge allegiance to the East Frankish king and to receive baptism. One of the more powerful Slavic leaders in Bohemia, Zwentibold? (also known as Swatopluk), became the godfather to the son of emperor [Arnulf of Carinthia]?, the Carolingian ruler in the East. Arnulf's son was named after Zwentibold. Arnulf of Carinthia renewed the tributary agreement that allowed Zwentibold's Slavs free reign over the territories up to the Oder river. After the carolingian kingdom fell into decline, Bohemia was for a time a part of the short-lived kingdom of Greater Moravia, then the base of the Slavic Przemyslid Dukes, who ruled in Bohemia and partially in Poland until 1306, when their line became extinct.
Conversion and alignment with Rome
- Vaclav (Saint Wenceslas) builds church of St. Vitus
- 935 - Vaclav murdered by Boleslav
- Bohemia under considerable influence from Duchy of Bavaria
- Boleslav rules 935-967
- 964, Piast Duke Mieszko I marries a daughter of Boleslav I
Relations with the Frankish and the Ottonian empires
Elevation from Duchy to Kingdom
Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire
Prague was one of the great cities of the Empire. Bohemia was an independent kingdom until 1526.
Modern Bohemia
After
World War I, Bohemia, which had been part of the [Austro-Hungarian Empire]
?, was assigned to the newly-formed country of
Czechoslovakia.
World War II and irredentism.
Communist era
Czech Republic
/Talk