The Czech and Slovak Territory

Czechoslovak Territory	Fundamentals of Czech History The Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, as reads the official title of Czechoslovakia today, is composed from a historic-legal perspective of four parts: Bohemia, Moravia, a part of Silesia and Slovakia. Whereas Bohemia. Moravia and Silesia (the "Czech lands") existed from the Middle Age in the framework of one state or confederation of states. The present territory of Slovakia was from around the year 1000 up until 1918 an integral part of the historical Hungarian kingdom. The firs rise of the Czechoslovak Republic in the fall of 1918 signalled a radical change of relations and of political conditions. The history of the Czech lands and Slovakia as such does not form an organic whole, and it would be strained and unfortunate to make an attempt at their entire mapping in the framework of one account. In terms of the program, the following lines will therefore concentrate on the historical development of Bohemia. Moravia and Silesia, while Slovakian points at issue will be called into question after birth of Czechoslovakia: otherwise, the Slovakian past will be touched upon only in the most essential measure. Geographically, the territory of Bohemia on the one hand and of Moravia with the part of Silesia on the other hand, are relatively marked distinct. Bohemia proper is surrounded by mountain ranges whose origin reaches to the Paleozoik era (Šumava. the Krušné Mountains, the Lužické Mountains, the Jizerské Mountains, the Broumovské Mezihorí the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands), where as Moravia, should we pass over the Ash Mountains (Jeseníky), opens with its lowlands onto the lands of Austria and the Slovakian Danubian Basin.
Czech lands in primeval times	The Czech lands were settled in the Old Stone Age (the oldest find o the remains of man on Czech territory dates back 600.000 - 700.000 years ago), but more significant is evidence of the activities of the "mammoth hunters" (especially from the Moravian localities of Predmostí u Prerova, Pavlov and Dolní Vestonice from 22.000 - 26.000 years ago): from both times, they are marked by traces of human working.
Celts and Germanic tribes	As we come closer towards the present, the sources accrue. In the period of the rise of antique Rome (2nd-1st centuries B.C.) the Celtic tribe of the Boji, also called the Bohemians, inhabited Czech territory. Accordingly, the land received the Latin appellation Bohemia (from which also the German designation Böhmen). At the turn of the epoch, a time of the proceeding migration of nations: the Celts were replaced by the Germanic tribe of the Marcomans, whose ruler Marobud fought with the Romans (9-lO A.D.). Bohemia and Moravia, however, rested outside of the frame of the Ancient Roman Empire, whose fortified frontiers (limes Romanus) touched on these areas only peripherally (the locality of Mušov in Southern Moravia). The Czech lands did not come into more systematic relations with Classical times, which were reflected in their later civilization development.
Turn of the 6th century arrival of the Slavs	The period of the Migration of Nations, which lasted for some centuries, fundamentally transformed the ethnical composition of the inhabitants of the present Czechoslovak territory. From around the turn of the 6th century. Slavic tribes began flowing into the Slovak and Moravian lowlands as well as into the Bohemian basin from the Southeast, and progressively drove from there the Germanic tribes, at this time the Langobards and the Thuringians.	With the beginning of the 6th century, the first Slavs come to our lands.
434 - 453 Attila	Archaeological finds from this time are sparse, however, and so one of the few points to grasp hold of remains a written account of the Byzantine historian Prokopios, which mentions circa the year 512 the presence of Slavs in the Czech lands. Slavs and Germans lived side by side for a certain time in some regions, but from the beginning this cohabitation was interrupted by invasions of the Avars, nomads of Turk-Tartar origin, who gained possession of Panonia (the Latin geographical designation for the portion of present-day Hungary west of the Danube) and undertook raids as far as into the Franconian empire. This fact seemingly contributed at the beginning of the 7th century to the fall of the Germanic ethnic groups in Bohemian-Moravian territory. Members of German tribes either left or merged with the Slavs, who became the single inhabitants of the land.
623 - 658 Rise of the Empire of Samo	The disparate lifestyles of the Slavic tribes and the neighbouring Avars regularly engendered mutual conflicts. While the Slavs lived in agricultural settlements, the nomadic Avars were more mobile, more aggressive and they even subjugated a part of the Slavic population. Sometime around the year 620, an uprising of Slavic tribes broke out against Avar dominance. The up risers achieved significant success in 623-624; at their head stood the Franconian merchant Samo, who it is said came from present-day central France. After the repulsion of the Avars, Samo was recognized by the united Slavic tribes as their ruler and head of an extensive realm encompassing the territory of Bohemia, Moravia, a part of Slovakia and evidently also of Bavarian territory, inhabited at that time by Slavs. It was the first realm which the Western Slavs formed, although it involved a tribal union linked in the person of the sovereign rather than a state formation in the true sense of the word. Its centre evidently laid in the Southern Moravian lowlands around the river Morava, where at that time arose fortified settlements and small castles. Samo governed for nearly thirty-five years and led successful defensive war against Franconian King Dagobert, who he defeated in 631 at the castle in Vogastisburg (perhaps in north western Bohemia). After Samo's death, sometime in the years 658-659, his realm crumbled.	In the 7th century the Samo empire.