150-669: The dissolution of Czechoslovakia ( Czech : Rozdělení Československa , Slovak : Rozdelenie Československa ), which took effect on December 31, 1992, was the self-determined secession of the federal republic of Czechoslovakia into the independent countries of the Czech Republic (also known as Czechia) and Slovakia . Both mirrored the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic , which had been created in 1969 as
300-583: A " Greater Serbia " from parts of Croatia and Bosnia . Other irredentist movements have also been brought into connection with the Yugoslav Wars, such as " Greater Albania " (from Kosovo , idea abandoned following international diplomacy) and " Greater Croatia " (from parts of Herzegovina , abandoned in 1994 with the Washington Agreement ). Often described as one of Europe's deadliest armed conflicts since World War II ,
450-449: A Yugoslav Royalist and Serbian nationalist movement and guerrilla force , committed mass crimes against Muslims and Croats that are considered a genocide by several authors, and they also supported the instatement of a Serbian monarchy and the establishment of a Yugoslav federation. The Communist -led Yugoslav Partisans were able to appeal to all groups, including Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks, and also engaged in mass killings. In 1945,
600-561: A clause forbidding the use of the state symbols of Czechoslovakia by its successor states was inserted into the constitutional law on the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. From 1990 to 1992, the red and white flag of Bohemia (differing only slightly from the Polish flag by proportion and tone) officially served as the flag of the Czech Republic. Eventually, after a search for new symbols, the Czech Republic unilaterally decided to ignore
750-635: A distinction between phonemic /l/ and /ʎ/ which survives in Slovak. With the beginning of the national revival of the mid-18th century, Czech historians began to emphasize their people's accomplishments from the 15th through 17th centuries, rebelling against the Counter-Reformation (the Habsburg re-catholization efforts which had denigrated Czech and other non- Latin languages). Czech philologists studied sixteenth-century texts and advocated
900-506: A dozen additional counties in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, North Dakota and Minnesota . As of 2009, 70,500 Americans spoke Czech as their first language (49th place nationwide, after Turkish and before Swedish ). Standard Czech contains ten basic vowel phonemes , and three diphthongs. The vowels are /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /o/, and /u/ , and their long counterparts /aː/, /ɛː/, /iː/, /oː/ and /uː/ . The diphthongs are /ou̯/, /au̯/ and /ɛu̯/ ;
1050-502: A functioning state, the government demanded continued control from Prague, but Slovaks continued to ask for decentralisation. In 1992, the Czech Republic elected Václav Klaus and others, who demanded either an even tighter federation ("viable federation") or two independent states. Vladimír Mečiar and other leading Slovak politicians wanted a kind of confederation . Both sides opened frequent and intense negotiations in June. On July 17,
1200-636: A grant of automatic citizenship only to those who were born on Czech territory. For others, the right to citizenship required proof of a five-year period of residence, an "unobjectionable" criminal record, significant fees and a complicated bureaucratic process, which reportedly excluded a rather large percentage of Roma. The Slovak government did not want to grant citizenship to nonresidents. Significant numbers of Roma living in Czech orphanages did not have their legal status clarified and were released from care as adult noncitizens without any right to work or live in
1350-504: A highway attack between Pristina and Mitrovica, and arrested more than 100 Albanian militants. Adem Jashari, as one of the founders and leaders of the KLA, was convicted of terrorism in absentia by a Yugoslav court on 11 July 1997. Human Rights Watch subsequently described the trial, in which fourteen other Kosovo Albanians were also convicted, as "[failing] to conform to international standards". The NATO North Atlantic Council claimed
1500-617: A lesser extent, Croatian populations in Bosnia-Hercegovina". A telegram sent to the White House on 8 February 1994 by U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Peter W. Galbraith , stated that genocide was occurring. The telegram cited "constant and indiscriminate shelling and gunfire" of Sarajevo by Karadzic's Yugoslav People Army; the harassment of minority groups in Northern Bosnia "in an attempt to force them to leave"; and
1650-571: A more-restricted distinction between "hard" and "soft" consonants (see Phonology below). The term "Old Czech" is applied to the period predating the 16th century, with the earliest records of the high medieval period also classified as "early Old Czech", but the term "Medieval Czech" is also used. The function of the written language was initially performed by Old Slavonic written in Glagolitic , later by Latin written in Latin script . Around
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#17327651397461800-416: A much lower understanding of Slovak. Also, the number of Slovak-language books and newspapers sold in the Czech Republic dropped drastically. The Czech television news, however, started to reintroduce Slovak-language coverage from Slovakia and Slovak television (STV2) rebroadcasts the Czech television newscast Události ČT daily, ten minutes after midnight. On the public Radio and Television of Slovakia , it
1950-573: A new 10 SK coin was introduced. At the beginning, the currencies could be exchanged at par, but later the value of the Slovak koruna was usually lower than that of the Czech koruna (in 2004, around 25–27% lower). On August 2, 1993, both currencies were distinguished by different stamps that were first affixed to and then printed on old Czechoslovak koruna banknotes. New Czech and Slovak coins replaced old ones during 1993. On January 1, 2009, Slovakia adopted
2100-506: A peaceful division. Peaceful division was prioritized as the process ran in parallel with the violent breakup of Yugoslavia (another formerly socialist, Slavic federal state created after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary ). On November 13, the Federal Assembly passed Constitution Act 541, which settled the division of property between the Czech lands and Slovakia. With Constitution Act 542, passed on November 25, they agreed to
2250-514: A realistic chance of returning as a major language. However, Josef Jungmann and other revivalists used Dobrovský's book to advocate for a Czech linguistic revival. Changes during this time included spelling reform (notably, í in place of the former j and j in place of g ), the use of t (rather than ti ) to end infinitive verbs and the non-capitalization of nouns (which had been a late borrowing from German). These changes differentiated Czech from Slovak. Modern scholars disagree about whether
2400-607: A referendum on "sovereignty and autonomy of Serbian people in Croatia" on 17 August 1990. Their boycott escalated into an insurrection in areas populated by ethnic Serbs, mostly around Knin, known as the Log Revolution . Local police in Knin sided with the growing Serbian insurgency, while many government employees, mostly police where commanding positions were mainly held by Serbs, lost their jobs. The new Croatian constitution
2550-664: A result, the JNA opposed Croatian independence and sided with the Croatian Serb rebels. The Croatian Serb rebels were unaffected by the embargo because they were supported and supplied by the JNA. By mid-July 1991, the JNA moved an estimated 70,000 troops to Croatia. The fighting rapidly escalated, eventually spanning hundreds of square kilometers from western Slavonia through Banija to Dalmatia. Border regions faced direct attacks from forces within Serbia and Montenegro. In August 1991,
2700-489: A slow rise from low to high, quickly dropping to low on the last word or phrase. In modern Czech syntax, adjectives precede nouns, with few exceptions. Relative clauses are introduced by relativizers such as the adjective který , analogous to the English relative pronouns "which", "that" and "who"/"whom". As with other adjectives, it agrees with its associated noun in gender, number and case. Relative clauses follow
2850-474: A verb; information about its subject is encoded in the verb. Enclitics (primarily auxiliary verbs and pronouns) appear in the second syntactic slot of a sentence, after the first stressed unit. The first slot can contain a subject or object, a main form of a verb, an adverb, or a conjunction (except for the light conjunctions a , "and", i , "and even" or ale , "but"). Czech syntax has a subject–verb–object sentence structure. In practice, however, word order
3000-690: Is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group , written in Latin script . Spoken by over 12 million people including second language speakers, it serves as the official language of the Czech Republic . Czech is closely related to Slovak , to the point of high mutual intelligibility , as well as to Polish to a lesser degree. Czech is a fusional language with a rich system of morphology and relatively flexible word order . Its vocabulary has been extensively influenced by Latin and German . The Czech–Slovak group developed within West Slavic in
3150-636: Is a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. This branch includes Polish , Kashubian , Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak . Slovak is the most closely related language to Czech, followed by Polish and Silesian . The West Slavic languages are spoken in Central Europe. Czech is distinguished from other West Slavic languages by
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#17327651397463300-570: Is a recognized minority language in Slovakia, Slovak citizens who speak only Czech may communicate with the government in their language in the same way that Slovak speakers in the Czech Republic also do. Immigration of Czechs from Europe to the United States occurred primarily from 1848 to 1914. Czech is a Less Commonly Taught Language in U.S. schools, and is taught at Czech heritage centers. Large communities of Czech Americans live in
3450-422: Is also relevant to the declension patterns of nouns, which vary according to whether the final consonant of the noun stem is hard or soft. Voiced consonants with unvoiced counterparts are unvoiced at the end of a word before a pause, and in consonant clusters voicing assimilation occurs, which matches voicing to the following consonant. The unvoiced counterpart of /ɦ/ is /x/. The phoneme represented by
3600-524: Is common to have at least one daily newscast from the Czech Republic during prime time news. Furthermore, many programmes on Slovak television channels are still dubbed into Czech, some films in cinemas are subtitled in Czech and there are far more Czech-language books and periodicals on the market than there were before the dissolution. The major boost for the language interchange has come from private television channel providers like CS Link (Czech Republic) and Sky Link (Slovakia) that offer Slovak channels in
3750-432: Is flexible and used to distinguish topic and focus , with the topic or theme (known referents) preceding the focus or rheme (new information) in a sentence; Czech has therefore been described as a topic-prominent language . Although Czech has a periphrastic passive construction (like English), in colloquial style, word-order changes frequently replace the passive voice. For example, to change "Peter killed Paul" to "Paul
3900-560: Is lessened by both nations' membership in the EU as the freedom of movement for workers , a policy that guarantees EU citizens the right to work and to live anywhere in the Union. In the case of movement between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the policy took effect from 2004. By contrast, the Czech Republic has prohibited dual citizenship for naturalized citizens and requires them to give up existing citizenship(s) prior to receiving citizenship of
4050-581: Is one of the EU's official languages and the 2012 Eurobarometer survey found that Czech was the foreign language most often used in Slovakia. Economist Jonathan van Parys collected data on language knowledge in Europe for the 2012 European Day of Languages . The five countries with the greatest use of Czech were the Czech Republic (98.77 percent), Slovakia (24.86 percent), Portugal (1.93 percent), Poland (0.98 percent) and Germany (0.47 percent). Czech speakers in Slovakia primarily live in cities. Since it
4200-575: Is realized as its voiceless allophone [r̝̊], a sound somewhere between Czech r and š . The consonants /r/, /l/, and /m/ can be syllabic , acting as syllable nuclei in place of a vowel. Strč prst skrz krk ("Stick [your] finger through [your] throat") is a well-known Czech tongue twister using syllabic consonants but no vowels. Each word has primary stress on its first syllable , except for enclitics (minor, monosyllabic, unstressed syllables). In all words of more than two syllables, every odd-numbered syllable receives secondary stress. Stress
4350-422: Is the only former Eastern Bloc state that had an entirely peaceful breakup. In the following years, as Slovakia's economy struggled, Slovaks began to describe the dissolution as a "sandpaper divorce". A number of reasons have been given for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, with the main debates focusing on whether dissolution was inevitable or whether dissolution occurred in conjunction with or even in contrast to
4500-499: Is unrelated to vowel length; both long and short vowels can be stressed or unstressed. Vowels are never reduced in tone (e.g. to schwa sounds) when unstressed. When a noun is preceded by a monosyllabic preposition, the stress usually moves to the preposition, e.g. do Prahy "to Prague". Czech grammar, like that of other Slavic languages, is fusional ; its nouns, verbs, and adjectives are inflected by phonological processes to modify their meanings and grammatical functions, and
4650-566: The Antarctic Treaty from the date that Czechoslovakia had signed the agreement in 1962. Both countries have ratified the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties , and it was not a factor in the dissolution of Czechoslovakia since it did not come into force until 1996. The dissolution had some negative impact on the two economies, especially in 1993, as traditional links were severed to accommodate
Dissolution of Czechoslovakia - Misplaced Pages Continue
4800-531: The Battle of Vukovar began, where fierce fighting took place with around 1,800 Croat fighters blocking the JNA's advance into Slavonia. By the end of October, the town was almost completely devastated as a result of land shelling and air bombardment. The Siege of Dubrovnik started in October with the shelling of UNESCO World Heritage Site Dubrovnik , where the international press was criticised for focusing on
4950-466: The Bosniaks , who wanted to preserve the territorial integrity of the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina , and the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb proto-state Republika Srpska and the self-proclaimed Croat Herzeg-Bosnia , which were led and supplied by Serbia and Croatia respectively, reportedly with a goal of the partition of Bosnia , which would leave only a small part of land for
5100-480: The Czech National Bank by stamping Czechoslovak banknotes. The stamps had already been prepared in secret in 1992 after the decision about the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. In December 1992 some of the reserve banknotes started to be stamped in the selected banks in secret. From 8 February to 12 February old banknotes of 100, 500 and 1,000 Kčs (Czechoslovak crowns) were exchanged for the stamped ones in
5250-574: The Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) was established under Josip Broz Tito , who maintained a strongly authoritarian leadership that suppressed nationalism . After Tito's death in 1980, relations between the six republics of the federation deteriorated. Slovenia , Croatia and Kosovo desired greater autonomy within the Yugoslav confederation, while Serbia sought to strengthen federal authority. As it became clear that there
5400-778: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN in The Hague, Netherlands , to prosecute all individuals who had committed war crimes during the conflicts. According to the International Center for Transitional Justice , the Yugoslav Wars resulted in the deaths of 140,000 people, while the Humanitarian Law Center estimates at least 130,000 casualties. Over their decade-long duration,
5550-681: The Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 (the first complete Czech translation of the Bible from the original languages) became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries as it was used as a model for the standard language. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the only official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt (of predominantly Protestant aristocracy) which
5700-622: The Leskovec-Dresden Bible , also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were also produced outside universities. Literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation . Jan Hus contributed significantly to the standardization of Czech orthography , advocated for widespread literacy among Czech commoners (particularly in religion) and made early efforts to model written Czech after
5850-592: The Schengen Agreement Area in 2007, rendering the border less significant. Most federal assets were divided in a ratio of two to one, the approximate ratio between the Czech and Slovak population in Czechoslovakia, including army equipment, rail and airliner infrastructure. Some minor disputes, such as gold reserves stored in Prague and federal know-how valuation, lasted for a few years after
6000-604: The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFR Yugoslavia). The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia , which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Serbia , and Macedonia (now called North Macedonia ). SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in
6150-692: The Socialist Republic of Serbia , Kosovo's autonomy suffered and so the region was faced with state-organized oppression: from the early 1990s, Albanian language radio and television were restricted and newspapers shut down. Kosovar Albanians were fired in large numbers from public enterprises and institutions, including banks, hospitals, the post office and schools. In June 1991, the University of Priština assembly and several faculty councils were dissolved and replaced by Serbs. Kosovar Albanian teachers were prevented from entering school premises for
Dissolution of Czechoslovakia - Misplaced Pages Continue
6300-475: The Visegrád Group , to reduce costs. One of the problems not solved during dissolution was the question of a large number of Romani living in the Czech Republic born and officially registered in today's Slovakia. Most of them did not re-register their official place of stay during the months before dissolution and so the question of their citizenship was left open. The 1992 Czech Nationality Act allowed
6450-618: The euro as its currency, with a conversion rate of 30.126 SK/€, and the €2 commemorative coin for 2009 , Slovakia's first, featured the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in remembrance of the common struggle of the Czechoslovaks for democracy. By a quirk of fate, the welcoming speech on the behalf of the European Union on the occasion of Slovakia's entry to the eurozone was delivered by Mirek Topolánek ,
6600-742: The high medieval period, and the standardization of Czech and Slovak within the Czech–Slovak dialect continuum emerged in the early modern period. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the modern written standard became codified in the context of the Czech National Revival . The most widely spoken non-standard variety , known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague , but is now spoken as an interdialect throughout most of Bohemia . The Moravian dialects spoken in Moravia and Czech Silesia are considerably more varied than
6750-406: The voiced velar fricative consonant (/ɣ/) and consistent stress on the first syllable. The Bohemian (Czech) language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the late 13th and early 14th century and administrative documents first appear towards the late 14th century. The first complete Bible translation ,
6900-467: The "less-developed Slovakia". Similarly, others looked forward to an independent unexploited Slovakia that might become a new " economic tiger ". According to The Prague Post , "Slovak GDP reached 95 percent of the Czech GDP, and it is likely to draw level with it. The Slovak gross national product (GNP), which includes citizens' incomes abroad and deducts the money multinational companies move out of
7050-470: The 1917 type, but during the Normalization Period in the 1970s, Gustáv Husák , despite being a Slovak himself, returned most control to Prague. That approach encouraged a regrowth of Slovak separatism after the fall of communism. By 1991, the Czech Republic's GDP per capita was some 20% higher than Slovakia's. Transfer payments from the Czech budget to Slovakia, which had been the rule in
7200-570: The 1992 referendum on independence. They failed to persuade people not to vote, and instead the intimidating atmosphere combined with a Serb boycott of the vote resulted in a resounding 99% vote in support for independence. On 19 June 1992, the war in Bosnia broke out, though the Siege of Sarajevo had already begun in April after Bosnia and Herzegovina had declared independence. The conflict, typified by
7350-523: The 2022 Ukraine war. The areas of "Sector East", unaffected by the Croatian military operations, came under UN administration ( UNTAES ), and were reintegrated to Croatia in 1998 under the terms of the Erdut Agreement . On 2 April 1992, a conflict engulfed Bosnia and Herzegovina as it also declared independence from rump Yugoslavia. The war was predominantly a territorial conflict between
7500-528: The 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, settling on the eastern fringes of the Frankish Empire . The West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries. The diversification of the Czech-Slovak group within West Slavic began around that time, marked among other things by its use of
7650-616: The American city of Pittsburgh , at which the future Czechoslovak President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and other Czech and Slovak representatives signed the Pittsburgh Agreement , which promised a common state consisting of two equal nations: Slovaks and Czechs. However, the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920 specified a single "Czechoslovak nation". In subsequent years, there were political tensions in
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#17327651397467800-694: The Bosniaks. On 18 December 1992, the United Nations General Assembly issued resolution 47/121 in which it condemned Serbian and Montenegrin forces for trying to acquire more territories by force. The Yugoslav armed forces had disintegrated into a largely Serb-dominated military force. The JNA opposed the Bosnian-majority led government's agenda for independence, and along with other armed nationalist Serb militant forces attempted to prevent Bosnian citizens from voting in
7950-633: The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina required the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska to recognize all "constituent peoples" as entitled to full equality throughout the nation. Similarly, Article X of the constitution declares that the rights and freedoms defined in Article II may not be altered. Features like these are common throughout the constitution in order to assuage feelings of mistrust between
8100-592: The Croatian Army and the combined Bosnian and Croat forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina conducted an operation codenamed Operation Mistral in September 1995 to push back Bosnian Serb military gains. The advances on the ground along with NATO air strikes put pressure on the Bosnian Serbs to come to the negotiating table. Pressure was put on all sides to stick to the cease-fire and negotiate an end to
8250-563: The Croats and Serbs who lived there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many early proponents of a united Yugoslavia came from this region, such as Ante Trumbić , a Croat from Dalmatia. However, by the time of the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, any hospitable relations between Croats and Serbs in Dalmatia had broken down, with Dalmatian Serbs fighting on the side of the self-declared proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina . Even though
8400-532: The Czech Republic and Slovakia since they automatically lose Slovak citizenship upon voluntarily acquiring another one (see previous paragraph). Exempt from that law are only Slovak citizens who obtain a foreign citizenship by virtue of marriage with a foreign national. Some Slovak politicians have speculated in the media about softening the Citizenship Act, but no change has yet materialised as of January 2015. Citizens of both countries were allowed to cross
8550-408: The Czech Republic and a new 200 Kč banknote was introduced. Each person over 15 could exchange banknotes up to 4,000 crowns, and minors below 15 years of age up to 1,000 crowns. Banknotes of lower denominations and coins remained until new ones were printed and minted. Banks in the Czech Republic converted all money on 8 February 1993 from Kčs to Kč. In Slovakia stamps were also applied on banknotes, and
8700-623: The Czech Republic and vice versa. Additionally, several channels, regardless of their national origin, offer programs both in Czech and Slovak (CSFilm, TV Barrandov ) or even mix like TV Nova 's Nova Sport coverage of the English Premier League . New impulses to mutual contacts coming via television are also common shows like the Intelligence Test of Nations, Czechoslovakia's Got Talent , and Masked Singer broadcast by PRIMA and TV JOJ, and Czecho-Slovak SuperStar ,
8850-566: The Czech Republic or the Slovak Republic, based on their previous citizenship, permanent residence address, birthplace, family ties, job and other criteria. Additionally, people had one year's time to claim the other citizenship under certain conditions. Slovak legislation allowed dual citizenship until 2010, when it was abolished under the Citizenship Act . Only a handful of people have exercised that right, but its significance
9000-410: The Czech Republic, the right wing opened the economy, and the left wing privatised banks and attracted foreign investors. Until 2005, the GDP of the two countries was growing at a similar rate. However, from 2005 to 2008, the Slovak economy grew faster than the Czech economy. Economists agree that this growth was caused by the right-wing reforms of the Mikuláš Dzurinda government and the promise to adopt
9150-418: The Czech Republic. That requirement can be waived only if giving up an existing citizenship might put the applicant or their relatives in danger of persecution in their homeland, which was not the case of applicants from Slovakia. That situation changed with the new Citizenship Act of 2013 (186/2013 Sb.), in force since January 1, 2014. However, most Slovak citizens are still unable to become dual citizens of both
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#17327651397469300-401: The Czech Republic. Under pressure from the European Union, the Czech government made amendments to its nationality law in 1999 and 2003, which effectively solved the problem, but compensation has not been provided to those rendered stateless in 1992. In the former Czechoslovakia, the first television channel was a federal one, and the Czech and Slovak languages were used in equal ratios in
9450-513: The Czechoslovak national anthem. Young Slovak people still have the same knowledge of Czech as their predecessors, if not better. In Slovakia, Czech may still be used automatically in all judicial proceedings, and all documents written in Czech are acknowledged by Slovak authorities and vice versa. Further, the Slovak Official Language Act, passed in 2009, reconfirmed the right of Czechs to use their language in all official communication when dealing with Slovak authorities although it explicitly limited
9600-556: The Czechs and the Slovaks agreed to honour the treaty obligations of Czechoslovakia. The Slovaks transmitted a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations on May 19, 1993, to express their intent to remain a party to all treaties signed and ratified by Czechoslovakia and to ratify treaties signed but not ratified before dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The letter acknowledged that under international law , all treaties signed and ratified by Czechoslovakia would remain in force. For example, both countries are recognized as signatories of
9750-402: The EU countries whose salaries form the lowest portion of their GDP. In other words, some of people's incomes come from sources other than their main employment, which reduces the real difference between the Czech and the Slovak salaries. Slovaks have become a more integral part of the EU because of their adoption of the euro and are more resolved to take part in the banking and fiscal unions. In
9900-445: The KLA undertook a series of attacks against police stations and Yugoslav government employees, saying that the Yugoslav authorities had killed Albanian civilians as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. On 22 April 1996, four attacks on Serbian security personnel were carried out almost simultaneously in several parts of Kosovo. In January 1997, Serbian security forces assassinated KLA commander Zahir Pajaziti and two other leaders in
10050-408: The KLA was "the main initiator of the violence" and that it had "launched what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation". Pursuing Jashari for the murder of a Serb policeman, the Serbian forces again attempted to assault the Jashari compound in Prekaz on 22 January 1998. Between 1991 and 1997, mostly in 1996–97, 39 persons were killed by the KLA. Attacks between 1996 and February 1998 led to
10200-413: The KLA. The KLA sought to destabilize the region, hoping the United States and NATO would intervene. Serbian patrols were ambushed and policemen were killed. It was only in the next year that the KLA organization took responsibility for these attacks. The KLA, originally composed of a few hundred Albanians, attacked several police stations and wounded many police officers in 1996–1997. In February 1996
10350-522: The Slovak national team to the silver medal at the 2012 IIHF World Championship , having beaten the Czech team in the semifinals. Several sports have featured a common league, and discussions about having a common football or ice hockey league continue. Czech language Czech ( / tʃ ɛ k / CHEK ; endonym : čeština [ˈtʃɛʃcɪna] ), historically also known as Bohemian ( / b oʊ ˈ h iː m i ə n , b ə -/ boh- HEE -mee-ən, bə- ; Latin : lingua Bohemica ),
10500-453: The Slovak parliament adopted the declaration of independence of the Slovak nation . Six days later, Klaus and Mečiar agreed to secede Czechoslovakia into two separate states at a meeting in Bratislava . Czechoslovak President Václav Havel resigned, rather than oversee the secession, which he had opposed. In a September 1992 opinion poll, only 37% of Slovaks and 36% of Czechs favoured dissolution. The goal of negotiations switched to achieving
10650-449: The Soviet Union , when the Russian Federation was recognized as successor state not only to the Russian SFSR but also to the Soviet Union itself, and also contrasts with the dissolution of Yugoslavia , where the rump Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , dominated by Serbia and encompassing only it and Montenegro , unsuccessfully demanded recognition as the sole successor to the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia , even though
10800-571: The Ten-Day War in Slovenia. The Croatian War of Independence began when Serbs in Croatia , who were opposed to Croatian independence , announced their secession from Croatia. In the 1990 parliamentary elections in Croatia, Franjo Tuđman became the first President of Croatia . He promoted nationalist policies and had a primary goal of the establishment of an independent Croatia. The new government proposed constitutional changes , reinstated
10950-412: The Yugoslav Wars were marked by many war crimes , including genocide , crimes against humanity , ethnic cleansing , massacres , and mass wartime rape . The Bosnian genocide was the first European wartime event to be formally classified as genocidal in character since the military campaigns of Nazi Germany , and many of the key individuals who perpetrated it were subsequently charged with war crimes;
11100-505: The aforementioned law and to keep the Czechoslovak flag, with an altered meaning. Slovakia, meanwhile, adopted its traditional flag ; however, just before independence, on September 3, 1992, the coat of arms was added in order to prevent confusion with the similar flags of Russia and Slovenia. The national territory was divided along the existing internal borders, but the border was not clearly defined at some points and, in some areas,
11250-495: The areas of the breakaway SAO Krajina. The JNA had disarmed the Territorial Units of Slovenia and Croatia prior to the declaration of independence, at the behest of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. This was greatly aggravated by an arms embargo, imposed by the UN on Yugoslavia. The JNA was ostensibly ideologically unitarian, but its officer corps was predominantly staffed by Serbs or Montenegrins (70 percent). As
11400-735: The attacks that were coming from the UÇPMB. The insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia was an armed conflict in the northwestern part of the country which began when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) militant group began attacking the security forces of the Republic of Macedonia at the end of January 2001, and ended with the Ohrid Agreement in August. The goal of the NLA
11550-588: The beginning to xenophobic nationalist in the late 1980s and 1990s. In Serbia and Serb-dominated territories, violent confrontations occurred, particularly between nationalists and non-nationalists who criticized the Serbian government and the Serb political entities in Bosnia and Croatia. Serbs who publicly opposed the nationalist political climate during the Yugoslav wars were reportedly harassed, threatened, or killed. However, following Milošević's rise to power and
11700-466: The border cut across streets, access roads and communities that had coexisted for centuries. The most serious issues occurred around the following areas: The new countries were able to solve the difficulties via mutual negotiations, financial compensation and then an international treaty covering the border modifications. People living or owning property in the border area, however, continued to experience practical problems until both new countries entered
11850-530: The border using an ID card instead of a passport and were allowed to work anywhere without the need to obtain an official permit. Border checks were completely removed on December 21, 2007, when both countries joined the Schengen Agreement . Under the current European regulations, citizens of either country are entitled to the diplomatic protection of any other EU country and so both have been considering merging their embassies, together with nations of
12000-421: The bureaucracy of international trade, but the impact was considerably less than expected by many people. A customs union between the Czech Republic and Slovakia remained in place from the dissolution until May 1, 2004, when both countries entered the European Union (EU). Many Czechs hoped that dissolution would quickly start an era of high economic growth in the Czech Republic, which no longer had to sponsor
12150-486: The city's architectural heritage, instead of reporting the destruction of Vukovar in which many civilians were killed. On 18 November 1991, the battle of Vukovar ended after the city ran out of ammunition. The Ovčara massacre occurred shortly after Vukovar's capture by the JNA. Meanwhile, control over central Croatia was seized by Croatian Serb forces in conjunction with the JNA Corps from Bosnia and Herzegovina, under
12300-471: The conflict in which the Yugoslav government requested KFOR support in suppressing UÇPMB attacks, since the government could only use lightly armed military forces as part of the Kumanovo Agreement, which created a buffer zone so the bulk of the Yugoslav armed forces could not enter. Yugoslav president Vojislav Koštunica warned that fresh fighting would erupt if KFOR units did not act to prevent
12450-492: The conflicts resulted in major refugee and humanitarian crises. In 2006 the Central European free trade agreement ( CEFTA ) was expanded to include many of the previous Yugoslav republics. In order to show that despite the political conflicts economic cooperation was still possible. CEFTA went into full effect by the end of 2007. The Yugoslav Wars have alternatively been referred to as: The state of Yugoslavia
12600-434: The conservative revivalists were motivated by nationalism or considered contemporary spoken Czech unsuitable for formal, widespread use. Adherence to historical patterns was later relaxed and standard Czech adopted a number of features from Common Czech (a widespread informal interdialectal variety), such as leaving some proper nouns undeclined. This has resulted in a relatively high level of homogeneity among all varieties of
12750-624: The constituent states of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic until the end of 1989. It is sometimes known as the Velvet Divorce , a reference to the bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989, which had led to the end of the rule of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia . Czechoslovakia was created with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I . In 1918, a meeting took place in
12900-578: The country , with Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Marković declaring that the secessions of Slovenia and Croatia were both illegal and contrary to the constitution of Yugoslavia, and he also expressed his support for the Yugoslav People's Army in order to secure the integral unity of Yugoslavia. The Slovenes (represented by Milan Kučan and Lojze Peterle ) and Croats argued that the act was not secession but disassociation ( Slovene : razdruževanje , Croatian : razdruživanje ) from Yugoslavia as
13050-590: The country, is higher than the Czech one. Old-age pensions are more or less at the same level in both countries, and the consumption per capita is slightly higher in Slovakia. However, salaries are 10 percent lower on average in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic". However, Martin Filko, the head of the Institute of Financial Policy of the Slovak Finance Ministry, pointed out that Slovakia is among
13200-524: The deaths of 10 policemen and 24 civilians. A NATO -facilitated ceasefire between the KLA and Yugoslav forces was signed on 15 October 1998, but both sides broke it two months later and fighting resumed. When the killing of 45 Kosovar Albanians in the Račak massacre was reported in January 1999, NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force to forcibly restrain
13350-427: The dialects of Bohemia. Czech has a moderately-sized phoneme inventory, comprising ten monophthongs , three diphthongs and 25 consonants (divided into "hard", "neutral" and "soft" categories). Words may contain complicated consonant clusters or lack vowels altogether. Czech has a raised alveolar trill , which is known to occur as a phoneme in only a few other languages, represented by the grapheme ř . Czech
13500-508: The different ethnic groups and maintain lasting stability. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States reported in April 1995 (three months before Srebrenica massacre ) that nearly 90 percent of all the atrocities in the Yugoslav wars up to that point had been perpetrated by Serb militants. Most of these atrocities occurred in Bosnia . After September 1990 when the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution had been unilaterally repealed by
13650-619: The dissolution. Initially, the old Czechoslovak currency, the Czechoslovak koruna , remained in use by both countries . Czech fears of an economic loss caused the adoption of two national currencies as early as February 8, 1993. On February 2, 1993 Act No. 60/1993 Coll. came in effect in the Czech Republic to create a separate currency that was already envisaged in the Czech Constitution and in Act No. 6/1993 Coll. that created
13800-422: The double cross. The same principle was applied to the two-part bilingual Czechoslovak national anthem that comprised two separate pieces of music, the Czech stanza Kde domov můj and the Slovak stanza Nad Tatrou sa blýska . Disputes occurred only with respect to the Czechoslovak flag . During the 1992 negotiations on the details of dissolution of Czechoslovakia, as demanded by Vladimír Mečiar and Václav Klaus ,
13950-405: The easily separable affixes characteristic of agglutinative languages are limited. Czech inflects for case, gender and number in nouns and tense, aspect, mood , person and subject number and gender in verbs. Parts of speech include adjectives, adverbs , numbers, interrogative words , prepositions , conjunctions and interjections . Adverbs are primarily formed from adjectives by taking
14100-577: The end of 1992, tensions between Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks rose and their collaboration fell apart. In January 1993, the two former allies engaged in open conflict, resulting in the Croat–Bosniak War . In 1994 the US brokered peace between Croatian forces and the Bosnian Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Washington Agreement . After the successful Flash and Storm operations,
14250-561: The end of these operations, Croatia had reclaimed all of its territory except the UNPA Sector East portion of Slavonia, bordering Serbia. During and after theses offensives, around 150,000–200,000 Serbs of the area formerly held by the ARSK were ethically cleansed and a variety of crimes were committed against some of the remaining civilians by Croatian forces. The Croatian Serbs became the largest refugee population in Europe prior to
14400-607: The euro because of the financial crisis and the Civic Democrats' ideological stance. Since federalisation in 1968, Czechoslovakia had divided citizenship, either of the Czech Socialist Republic or of the Slovak Socialist Republic , the word Socialist being dropped from both names shortly after the Velvet Revolution . That distinction, however, had little effect on citizens' life. On January 1, 1993, all Czechoslovak citizens automatically became citizens either of
14550-612: The euro, which attracted investors. When the left-wing populist Robert Fico replaced Dzurinda as Slovak prime minister after eight years in 2006, he reduced the right-wing reforms only moderately, but he did not abolish them, unlike the Czech Social Democrats (ČSSD). Meanwhile, the Czechs had three ČSSD prime ministers in four years (2002–06), followed by a centre-right cabinet, which cut and simplified taxes but failed to push through other reforms and did not want to adopt
14700-481: The events that occurred between the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the end of the joined state in 1992. Those who argue from the inevitability stance tend to point to the differences between the two nations, which date back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire , and to other issues. There are differences between the Czechs and Slovaks, such as problems with the shared state during communism, the success of
14850-555: The federal government ordered the Yugoslav People's Army to secure border crossings in Slovenia. Slovenian police and Slovenian Territorial Defence blockaded barracks and roads, leading to stand-offs and limited skirmishes around the republic. After several dozen casualties, the limited conflict was stopped through negotiation at Brioni on 7 July 1991, when Slovenia and Croatia agreed to a three-month moratorium on separation. The Federal Army completely withdrew from Slovenia by 26 October 1991. Fighting in Croatia had begun weeks prior to
15000-517: The federation was originally established as a voluntary union of peoples. The Badinter Commission ruled in November 1991 that the act was not secession but a separation as provided for by the constitution of the second Yugoslavia. According to Stephen A. Hart, author of Partisans: War in the Balkans 1941–1945 , the ethnically mixed region of Dalmatia held close and amicable relations between
15150-477: The final ý or í of the base form and replacing it with e , ě , y , or o . Negative statements are formed by adding the affix ne- to the main verb of a clause, with one exception: je (he, she or it is) becomes není . Because Czech uses grammatical case to convey word function in a sentence (instead of relying on word order , as English does), its word order is flexible. As a pro-drop language , in Czech an intransitive sentence can consist of only
15300-488: The former commander of the fifth army in Zagreb Martin Špegelj , 50% of the command positions were previously held by Croats, while a few years later at the beginning of the war all key positions were held by Serbs. The first of the conflicts, known as the Ten-Day War, was initiated by the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) on 26 June 1991 after the separation of Slovenia from the federation on 25 June 1991. Initially,
15450-473: The four remaining ex-Yugoslav states, now independent, collectively encompassed around three-fifths of former Yugoslavia, both in population and in territory. Therefore, Czechoslovakia's membership in the United Nations ceased upon the dissolution of the country, but on January 19, 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were admitted as new, separate states. With respect to other international treaties,
15600-473: The influence of Slobodan Milošević , whose government invoked Serbian nationalism as an ideological replacement for the weakening communist system . As a result, the JNA began to lose Slovenes , Croats , Kosovar Albanians , Bosniaks , and Macedonians , and effectively became a fighting force of only Serbs and Montenegrins . According to a 1994 report by the United Nations (UN), the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia; instead, it aimed to create
15750-464: The lack of unified media between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and most importantly the actions of the political leaders of both nations like the disagreements between Prime Ministers Klaus and Mečiar. Since the coat of arms of Czechoslovakia was a composition of those of the historic geographic areas forming the country, each republic simply kept its own symbol: the Czechs the lion and the Slovaks
15900-431: The language. Czech is spoken by about 10 million residents of the Czech Republic . A Eurobarometer survey conducted from January to March 2012 found that the first language of 98 percent of Czech citizens was Czech, the third-highest proportion of a population in the European Union (behind Greece and Hungary ). As the official language of the Czech Republic (a member of the European Union since 2004), Czech
16050-844: The last two are found only in loanwords such as auto "car" and euro "euro". In Czech orthography, the vowels are spelled as follows: The letter ⟨ ě ⟩ indicates that the previous consonant is palatalized (e.g. něco /ɲɛt͡so/ ). After a labial it represents /jɛ/ (e.g. běs /bjɛs/ ); but ⟨mě⟩ is pronounced /mɲɛ/, cf. měkký ( /mɲɛkiː/ ). The consonant phonemes of Czech and their equivalent letters in Czech orthography are as follows: Czech consonants are categorized as "hard", "neutral", or "soft": Hard consonants may not be followed by i or í in writing, or soft ones by y or ý (except in loanwords such as kilogram ). Neutral consonants may take either character. Hard consonants are sometimes known as "strong", and soft ones as "weak". This distinction
16200-529: The late 1920s after the assassination of Croatian politician Stjepan Radić . This nation lasted from 1918 to 1941, when it was invaded by the Axis powers during World War II, which provided support to the Croatian fascist Ustaše (founded in 1929), whose regime carried out the genocide of Serbs , Jews and Roma by executing people in concentration camps and committing other systematic and mass crimes inside its territory. The predominantly Serb Chetniks ,
16350-639: The latter being the first international edition of the Pop Idol song contest broadcast by TV Nova and Markíza (both owned by CME ), which also organized joint versions of MasterChef and The Voice in 2012. Also, the New Year's Eve Program for 2009 was prepared and broadcast jointly by ČT and STV and for 2010 by the Czech TV PRIMA and the Slovak TV JOJ, this time even including the singing of
16500-771: The leadership of Ratko Mladić . In January 1992, the Vance Plan established UN controlled (UNPA) zones for Serbs in the territory which was claimed by the Serbian rebels as the self-proclaimed proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) and brought an end to major military operations, but sporadic artillery attacks on Croatian cities and occasional intrusions into UNPA zones by Croatian forces continued until 1995. The majority of Croatian population in RSK suffered heavily, fleeing or evicted with numerous killings, leading to ethnic cleansing . The fighting in Croatia ended in mid-1995, after Operation Flash and Operation Storm . At
16650-504: The letter ř (capital Ř ) is very rare among languages and often claimed to be unique to Czech, though it also occurs in some dialects of Kashubian , and formerly occurred in Polish. It represents the raised alveolar non-sonorant trill ( IPA : [r̝] ), a sound somewhere between Czech r and ž (example: "řeka" (river) ), and is present in Dvořák . In unvoiced environments, /r̝/
16800-469: The majority voted in favour of the independence of Croatia. Croatia declared independence and dissolved its association with Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991. Due to the Brioni Agreement , a three-month moratorium was placed on the implementation of the decision that ended on 8 October. The armed incidents of early 1991 escalated into an all-out war during the summer, with fronts being formed around
16950-657: The middle of the 1993 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships , which took place in Sweden . The team representing Czechoslovakia was renamed "Czech–Slovak" on January 1. In international ice hockey tournaments, the Czech Republic took over Czechoslovakia's place in the A-groups, and Slovakia had to start in the lower divisions. During the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1993 in Falun , Sweden,
17100-660: The military protection of the Kosovo Force (KFOR). The 15-month war had left thousands of civilians killed on both sides and over a million displaced. The Insurgency in the Preševo Valley was an armed conflict between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and ethnic-Albanian insurgents of the Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (UÇPMB), beginning in June 1999. There were instances during
17250-438: The name RCS, which stood for "Representation of Czechs and Slovaks". In their last game as "Representation of Czechs and Slovaks", the team failed to qualify after it got only a draw in its final match against Belgium , a match that it had to win to qualify. It was afterward that it was officially split up into Czech and Slovak national teams, with both being declared successors to Czechoslovakia. The mutual encounters between
17400-614: The national teams of both countries in many sports are followed by most of the populations, and the number of players and coaches active in the other republic is significant. Martin Lipták, a Slovak handball coach, successfully led the Czech national team to the EHF 2010 Handball European Championship in Austria. A Slovak team under his coaching, Tatran Prešov, won the Czech national league in 2008 and 2009. Czech ice hockey coach Vladimír Vůjtek led
17550-536: The new countries, which fueled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region. During the initial stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) sought to preserve the unity of the Yugoslav nation by eradicating all republic governments. However, it increasingly came under
17700-761: The new country between Czechoslovakists and those seeking greater autonomy for the Slovaks in particular. In March 1939, with pressure from Adolf Hitler , the First Slovak Republic was created as a satellite state of Germany with limited sovereignty. The alignment with the Soviet Union after World War II oversaw the reunification into the Third Czechoslovak Republic . In 1968, the Constitutional Law of Federation reinstated an official federal structure of
17850-484: The new school year beginning in September 1991, forcing students to study at home. In the 1990s, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was formed. They started carrying out attacks on Serb civilians. By the early 1990s, there were attacks on Serbian police forces and secret-service officials in retaliation for the abuse and murder of Albanian civilians. A Serbian policeman was killed in 1995, allegedly by
18000-442: The noun they modify. The following is a glossed example: Chc-i want- 1SG navštív-it visit- INF universit-u, university- SG . ACC , na on kter-ou which- SG . F . ACC chod-í attend- 3SG Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts , wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been
18150-476: The outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, numerous anti-war movements developed in Serbia. Protests were held against the actions of the Yugoslav People's Army, while protesters demanded the referendum on a declaration of war and disruption of military conscription , resulting in numerous desertions and emigrations. With the escalation of the Yugoslav crisis, the JNA became heavily dominated by Serbs. According to
18300-482: The past, were stopped in January 1991. Many Czechs and Slovaks desired the continued existence of a federal Czechoslovakia. Some major Slovak parties, however, advocated a looser form of coexistence and the Slovak National Party sought complete independence and sovereignty . For a few years, political parties re-emerged, but Czech parties had little or no presence in Slovakia and vice versa. To have
18450-657: The peacekeepers by force, using this refusal to justify the bombings. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia followed, an intervention against Serbian forces with a mainly bombing campaign, under the command of General Wesley Clark . Hostilities ended 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 months later with the Kumanovo Agreement . Kosovo was placed under the governmental control of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and
18600-449: The policies throughout the entire socialist period of Yugoslavia seemed to have been the same (namely that all Serbs should live in one state), political scientist Dejan Guzina argues that "different contexts in each of the subperiods of socialist Serbia and Yugoslavia yielded entirely different results (e.g., in favour of Yugoslavia, or in favour of a Greater Serbia )". He assumes that the Serbian policy changed from conservative–socialist at
18750-463: The prime minister of the presiding country, the Czech Republic, naturally in his native language, but the other guest speakers used English. The Czech Republic continues to use the Czech koruna, or crown, but are bound to switch to the Euro in the future. Neither the Czech Republic nor Slovakia sought recognition as the sole successor state to Czechoslovakia. This can be contrasted to the dissolution of
18900-582: The return of the language to high culture . This period is known as the Czech National Revival (or Renaissance). During the national revival, in 1809 linguist and historian Josef Dobrovský released a German-language grammar of Old Czech entitled Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der böhmischen Sprache ('Comprehensive Doctrine of the Bohemian Language'). Dobrovský had intended his book to be descriptive , and did not think Czech had
19050-419: The secession of Czechoslovakia into two entities as of December 31, 1992. The partition occurred without violence and so was thus said to be " velvet ", much like the " Velvet Revolution ", which had preceded it and had been accomplished by massive peaceful demonstrations and actions. In contrast, other post-communist breakups (such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia ) involved violent conflict. Czechoslovakia
19200-565: The single-party system. However, Slobodan Milošević, the head of the Serbian Party branch ( League of Communists of Serbia ) used his influence to block and vote down all other proposals from the Croatian and Slovene party delegates. This prompted the Croatian and Slovene delegations to walk out and thus the break-up of the party, a symbolic event representing the end of " brotherhood and unity ". The survey of Yugoslav citizens that
19350-486: The ski jumping team competed as a combined Czech–Slovakia team in the team large hill event and won silver. The team had been selected before the dissolution. Jaroslav Sakala won two medals in the individual hill events for the Czech Republic at those games along with his silver in the team event. In their qualifying section for the 1994 FIFA World Cup , the Czechoslovakia national football team competed under
19500-441: The spoken language. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century. In the 16th century, the division between Czech and Slovak becomes apparent, marking the confessional division between Lutheran Protestants in Slovakia using Czech orthography and Catholics, especially Slovak Jesuits, beginning to use a separate Slovak orthography based on Western Slovak dialects. The publication of
19650-457: The state in the Czech lands , its failure in the Slovak lands that still resulted in the adoption of communism since the Czechs were more influential in the running of the state than Slovaks, and the 1968 constitution with its minority veto. Those who argue that events between 1989 and 1992 led to the dissolution point to international factors such as the breakaway of the Soviet satellite nations,
19800-465: The states of Texas , Nebraska and Wisconsin . In the 2000 United States Census , Czech was reported as the most common language spoken at home (besides English ) in Valley , Butler and Saunders Counties , Nebraska and Republic County, Kansas . With the exception of Spanish (the non-English language most commonly spoken at home nationwide), Czech was the most common home language in more than
19950-451: The television news there, but foreign films and television series were almost exclusively dubbed into Czech, for example. That and the great similarity of the two languages made almost all people of both nations passively bilingual : they could understand but not necessarily speak the other language. After the dissolution in 1990s, the new television channels in the Czech Republic practically stopped using Slovak, and young Czech people now have
20100-402: The term "ethnic cleansing" itself a euphemism for genocide denial created by Slobodan Milošević and Serbian propagandists. In its report published on 1 January 1993, Helsinki Watch was one of the first civil rights organisations that warned that "the extent of the violence and its selective nature along ethnic and religious lines suggest crimes of genocidal character against Muslim and, to
20250-477: The traditional Croatian flag and coat of arms , and removed the term "Socialist" from the title of the republic. The new Croatian government implemented policies that were openly nationalistic and anti-Serbian in nature, such as the removal of the Serbian Cyrillic script from correspondence in public offices. In an attempt to counter changes made to the constitution, local Serb politicians organized
20400-510: The two sides. Yugoslavia refused to sign the Rambouillet Accords , which among other things called for 30,000 NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory; immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law; and the right to use local roads, ports, railways, and airports without payment and requisition public facilities for its use free of cost. NATO then prepared to install
20550-424: The upper classes. Modern standard Czech originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. By then the language had developed a literary tradition, and since then it has changed little; journals from that period contain no substantial differences from modern standard Czech, and contemporary Czechs can understand them with little difficulty. At some point before the 18th century, the Czech language abandoned
20700-519: The use of Czech in Slovakia to persons with Czech as their mother tongue. The same is true about using Slovak in the Czech Republic under the Administration Procedure Act of 2004. Gustáv Slamečka , a Slovak citizen who was the Czech transport minister (2009–2010), used only Slovak exclusively during his official communication. See also differences between Slovak and Czech languages . The official breakup occurred right in
20850-672: The war in Bosnia. The war ended with the signing of the Dayton Agreement on 14 December 1995, with the formation of Republika Srpska as an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Along with ending the war, the Dayton Agreement also established the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The constitution is consociational in nature and describes Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs as "constituent peoples," giving each ethnic group far reaching veto powers in government. In 2000,
21000-508: The warring factions. In 2012, Chile convicted nine people, including two retired generals, for their part in arms sales. It is widely believed that mass murders against Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina escalated into genocide. On 18 December 1992, the United Nations General Assembly issued resolution 47/121 condemning "aggressive acts by the Serbian and Montenegrin forces to acquire more territories by force" and called such ethnic cleansing "a form of genocide ". Genocide scholars consider
21150-758: The years-long Sarajevo siege and the Srebrenica genocide , was by far the bloodiest and most widely covered of the Yugoslav wars. The Bosnian Serb faction led by ultra-nationalist Radovan Karadžić promised independence for all Serb areas of Bosnia from the majority-Bosniak government of Bosnia. To link the disjointed parts of territories populated by Serbs and areas claimed by Serbs, Karadžić pursued an agenda of systematic ethnic cleansing primarily against Bosnians through massacre and forced removal of Bosniak populations. Prijedor ethnic cleansing , Višegrad massacres , Foča ethnic cleansing , Doboj massacre , Zvornik massacre , siege of Goražde and others were reported. At
21300-552: Was able to heavily influence decision-making at the federal level, since all the other Yugoslav republics only had one vote. While Slovenia and Croatia wanted to allow a multi-party system, Serbia, led by Milošević, demanded an even more centralized federation and Serbia's dominant role in it. At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, the Serbian -dominated assembly agreed to abolish
21450-409: Was conducted in 1990 showed that ethnic animosity existed on a small scale. Compared to the results from 25 years before, there was a significant increase in ethnic distance among Serbs and Montenegrins toward Croats and Slovenes and vice versa. Upon Croatia and Slovenia's declarations of independence in 1991, the Yugoslav federal government attempted to forcibly halt the impending breakup of
21600-495: Was created in the aftermath of World War I , and its population was mostly composed of South Slavic Christians , though the nation also had a substantial Muslim minority. Clear ethnic conflict between the Yugoslav peoples only became prominent in the 20th century, beginning with tensions over the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in the early 1920s and escalating into violence between Serbs and Croats in
21750-686: Was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620, the Protestant intellectuals had to leave the country. This emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years' War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, especially among
21900-529: Was killed by Peter" the order of subject and object is inverted: Petr zabil Pavla ("Peter killed Paul") becomes "Paul, Peter killed" ( Pavla zabil Petr ). Pavla is in the accusative case , the grammatical object of the verb. A word at the end of a clause is typically emphasized, unless an upward intonation indicates that the sentence is a question: In parts of Bohemia (including Prague ), questions such as Jí pes bagetu? without an interrogative word (such as co , "what" or kdo , "who") are intoned in
22050-497: Was no effective authority at the federal level. The Federal Presidency consisted of the representatives of the six republics, two provinces and the Yugoslav People's Army, and the communist leadership was divided along national lines. The representatives of Vojvodina , Kosovo and Montenegro were replaced with loyalists of the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević . Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes and
22200-401: Was no solution that was agreeable to all parties, Slovenia and Croatia moved towards independence . Although tensions in Yugoslavia had been mounting since the early 1980s, events in 1990 proved to be decisive. In the midst of economic hardship and the fall of communism in eastern Europe in 1989, Yugoslavia was facing rising nationalism among its various ethnic groups. By the early 1990s, there
22350-441: Was ratified in December 1990, and the Serb National Council formed SAO Krajina , a self-proclaimed Serbian autonomous region. Ethnic tensions rose, fueled by propaganda in both Croatia and Serbia. On 2 May 1991, one of the first armed clashes between Serb paramilitaries and Croatian police occurred in the Battle of Borovo Selo . On 19 May an independence referendum was held, which was largely boycotted by Croatian Serbs , and
22500-495: Was to give greater rights and autonomy to the country's Albanian minority, who made up 25.2% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia (54.7% in Tetovo). There were also claims that the group ultimately wished to see Albanian-majority areas secede from the country, although high-ranking NLA members have denied this. The United Nations Security Council had imposed an arms embargo in September 1991. Nevertheless, various states had been engaged in, or facilitated, arms sales to
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