A homogeneous population..
The choice in 2016 of the name "Czechia" instead of "Czech Republic" is not insignificant. It was a question of linking the country's history to that of Bohemia, a state formed in Carolingian times, having provided rulers and a capital, for a time, to the Holy Roman Empire, without forgetting that "Bohemia" was long controlled by foreign rulers such as the Celts or the Germans. Problem: the "Czech Republic" historically referred to the reunion of Bohemia and Moravia, while "Czechia" (Čechy) now refers only to Bohemia and not to the whole country, the term usually used to refer to the latter being Czecho (Česko) or Republika. While more than 95% of the population actually speaks Czech, Moravians are increasingly open in claiming their uniqueness, which may explain why the country's very name is defined by an adjective (Czech) and not a proper noun.
... who speaks the same language, or almost
Czech belongs to the West Slavic language group, as does the Slovak of its neighbors. In total, almost 93% of the population speaks Czech, making it an ethnically homogeneous country. Another interesting figure is that more than 90% of the world's Czech speakers live in the Czech Republic. This means that the language is not widely exported, which is why in Prague and in the country's major cities, you will have little trouble making yourself understood in English. It is more difficult for us French people to do the opposite: the Czech language has a rather complex syntax with genders varying according to the position of the noun groups in a given sentence, a bit like in Russian or German. In addition, the accentuation is richer than ours, with numerous accented consonants and sometimes complex pronunciations: one stumbles over certain words, wondering where the vowels have gone... Regional variants exist, but one can only speak of dialects because they remain very close to the mother tongue, except perhaps in Silesia, where regional dialects would have more of a tendency to resemble Polish than Czech, but once again, these two languages belong to the same group.
But each region has its own accent. A Prague native can be recognized by his singing accent and a person from Ostrava (the capital of North Moravia) by his short diction and the use of Polish words; a person from Hana (Central Moravia) turns suffixes normally ending in "e" into "a"; a Pilsenese (West Bohemia) uses the prefix "tu" before pronouns; the people of Brno speak a particular dialect related to German. Don't let this discourage you if you want to learn Czech, we will always make an effort to make it easier for you to understand.A Roma minority struggling to integrate
At the forefront of the country's minorities are the Roma, whose plight regularly makes the headlines in Czech newspapers. The first Gypsies arrived in the Czech Republic in the 14th century. Initially persecuted by the Church for being non-believers, the Gypsies or Roma were later persecuted by the population, as was the case throughout Central Europe. From 1697, an imperial decree declared them outlaws, thus triggering the hunt for Gypsies with the blessing of the religious and secular authorities: killing a Roma was no longer a crime and everyone was encouraged to subject this community to the worst abuses. At the beginning of the 18th century, Empress Maria Theresa made a decision to bridge the gap between the Czech community and the Roma. To this end, she sought to ban the nomadism and language of the Roma, but also to promote their integration by changing their dress habits. Subsequently, the Roma had to ask for permission to stop in every town, which further increased hostility towards them. The peak was reached during the Second World War, when Hitler decreed that the Gypsies constituted an inferior race: several thousand of them were deported to extermination camps, the ultimate goal of the Nazi regime being to simply eliminate this community. The result of this crime against humanity: almost all Czech Roma died. Of the 8,000 pre-war Gypsies, only 600 survived.
The Sudeten Germans
Before the Roma became the country's largest minority, the title was held by the Sudeten Germans, who populated the border regions between the then Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria. At the beginning of the twentieth century, they were not considered a minority, since they constituted a good third of the population of Bohemia. During the first Czechoslovak Republic, in the 1920s and 1930s following the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, tensions were very high between Germans and Czechs, which gave Hitler all the justification he needed to annex the Sudetenland in 1938, following the Munich Agreement. Three million Germans lived in the regions concerned and almost a third of them were sent back to Germany at the end of the conflict. Many others were deported or executed, and only those who could prove that they had never joined the Nazi party remained. Today, there are less than 50,000 Germans in the Czech Republic, all of whom are descendants of the Sudetenlanders.
A renewed population
Other Roma from Hungary and Romania arrived in the Czech Republic, but the authorities soon tightened the laws on nomadism: the obligation to have a fixed abode in 1958 (the last straw for a nomadic population), and the obligation to have "decent", permanent housing in 1965. In 1989, the Gypsy community tried to organize itself to promote its culture: newspapers and other writings were published. Also and above all, the November revolution allowed the Roma to finally have a real recognized status (at least on paper): they acquired the status of national minority, which allows them, among other things, to receive education in their mother tongue, to use this language in official reports, but also to gather according to the national principle. This minority, which makes up 0.3% of the population, finally has rights, but has never managed to improve its image. With more than 70 per cent of the population unemployed, the Roma are often perceived by the Czechs as profiteers and alcoholics who should be distrusted, and political parties of the extreme right and left have not lost the habit of making them their scapegoat. This serious social problem, which was ignored under the old regime, is an embarrassment for the current government, which does not know what policy to adopt, especially "in the face" of the European Union. Especially since the future promises the creation of other ghettos, especially in the big cities. In Prague, the Nusle district is known to be inhabited mainly by Romanian and Ukrainian immigrants.
Vietnamese and Ukrainians welcome
The Czech Republic has long been home to a large Vietnamese population. This population began to settle in the country as a result of the internal cultural mixing of the Eastern bloc in the 1980s, mainly in the form of student programs. Having chosen to stay in Central Europe rather than return to Southeast Asia, an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Vietnamese, thanks to family reunification, now live in the Czech Republic, mostly in Prague, where they work in large numbers in the convenience store and restaurant business. So much so that phở, the Vietnamese national dish, has become a staple in many parts of the capital. Miloš Zeman, president of the republic since 2013, is known for his anti-migration stance. He has repeatedly castigated the Roma but also Islam, while Vietnamese and Ukrainians are generally in the odor of sanctity in his speeches. Ukrainians, the country's largest minority, are mainly present in the construction sector, where they are a cheap source of labour. Since the mid-2000s, they have been fleeing unemployment in Ukraine and taking on difficult jobs in the Czech Republic that Czechs no longer want. The Czech Republic is one of the countries to which Ukrainian refugees quickly turned when the Russian invasion began in February 2022, despite the lack of a common border between the two countries. After a month of conflict, nearly 200,000 Ukrainians had found refuge in the Czech Republic. Most of them arrived in Prague without necessarily having a place to stay, and the government was struggling to cope with such a sudden influx of refugees. Despite the efforts made, housing and caring for all these families is an impossible task for such a small country, which, given the massive destruction in Ukraine, must expect this refugee population to remain, at least in part, and swell the ranks of the Ukrainian national minority.
A gloomy demography
From the point of view of demographic development, the Czech Republic does not appear to be an extraordinarily dynamic country. With just under 11 million inhabitants in 2020, compared with 9.6 million sixty years earlier, the figures give the impression of stagnation, which is reflected in a significant ageing of the population. The birth rate and fertility rate are above the European average, but they do not manage to counterbalance the ageing of the population, which is a factor common to many countries of the former Eastern bloc. It is only since the 2019 census that we have seen a very slight inflection of the demographic curve. This increase is partly due to positive net migration, but it does reflect a rebound in the birth rate, the sustainability of which has yet to be determined.
