Czechia or Czech Republic? Eastern Europe or Central Europe? Expat or immigrant?
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- čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
- Is the Czech Republic in Eastern Europe or Central Europe? Should we call it Czechia, Czech Republic, or just Czech? Am I an expat or an immigrant? In this video, I address some common questions that people have brought up in the comments. Some beautiful views of St. Vitus Cathedral and Pražský Hrad (Prague Castle) and a walk down the Zlatá Ulička (Golden Lane) on a sunny August afternoon in Prague as a bonus.
**I'm doing a digital hangout/meetup this weekend!**
Join me for a Twitch stream on Sunday, August 8 from 6-10 pm. I'll be playing Final Fantasy XIV for the first time as a total newbie. If you're interested in gaming, Final Fantasy XIV, or just hanging out with me while I learn something new, come say hi. My Twitch channel:
/ skeletonkeysprague
It's actually pretty easy:
- We were part of Western Europe since cca the 9th century until 1948.
- Then we were part of Eastern Europe since 1948 until 1989.
- Geographically, we've always been Central Europe.
- Mentally, right now, this nation is split roughly 50/50 between Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
Most accurate summarization in the entire comment section so far.
Prague center : Central europe all the way
Prague outskirts : Deepest of eastern europe
Villages : eastern europe all the way
some random place in middle of nowhere with extremly expensive huge villas/mansions : Western Europe ( because the western europeans live there, being only ones who can afford it here mostly)
Czech Republic and Central Europe for me. ✌️
Good on you. I agree.
Do you know the Austrian republic is also a part of Central Europe? Some even include the Republic of Slovenia and the Federal Republic of Germany. However the geographic center of Europe is in the Republic of Poland.
I am half Czechoslovakian American, so Czech Republic and Central Europe and my family is really corrupt and hacked me.
Thank you for your thoughtful and articulate sharing of experiences while living in this country. Although I have been living here for about 15 years (as an immigrant from the US), I always learn something from you. It also gives me an opportunity to reflect on the evolution of my own experiences here. I look forward to your continued explorations.
I would like to here more from you about that..I am czech working in UK and my perception of US evolved as well.. Although in my eyes we took opposite direction..
Thank you, I’m so glad to hear that :)
No, there aren't really any legitimate reasons to call this country Eastern European, just like there aren't any to call Poland, Slovakia or Hungary that.
I realize history is an impossible concept to grasp for Americans, but it didn't start 72 years ago.
What do we have in common, historically, with Russia, Ukraine or Belarus? The script is we use is Latin, not Cyrillic.
The religion is Catholic or Protestant, not Eastern Orthodox. Bohemia was a crown land of the Holy Roman Empire, not the Russian Empire.
For 700 years the ties were clearly towards the West, but now we're supposed to be Eastern because Americans can't grasp a place can exist for more than a century?
Very well written, thank you very much in the name of proud Czechs ...
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Oh come on! Can't you give your counter-point with some respect?
@@petrmaresu No
I am from Slovakia and I clicked like because: We don´t call USA south and North America just because there was war in the past. We don´t describe europe just west and eastern europe just because there was conflict in the past. In the school we learned there is also central south and north , so Finland is part of northern europe, Greece part of southern europe and Czechia and Slovakia are part of central Europe.
Fair points. In retrospect I shouldn’t have used the word “legitimate” because it implies that I myself think there are valid reasons to call the Czech Republic Eastern Europe, which I don’t. I agree with you completely that English-speaking nations should try to develop a broader and deeper perspective on history. What I really meant to say is that it’s not exactly surprising that these misconceptions and misnomers continue to exist, considering the way most people understand history and considering how long it takes for stereotypes to change. As I said in the video, it will take some time for the English-speaking world to catch up to the reality.
Thank you for your content! Regarding the history of Czech Republic, I would like to point out, there is a deep sense of history among central and eastern european countries. You can witness heated debates about grievances, which were caused by battles fought hundreds of years ago. I guess there is a bit of self-pity as well. "If were not for those major player, we might have been a great nation." It might be true, but mostly I think it is an excuse for sitting in pub, drinking beer and ranting about everything :D Still, it is very nice to hear somebody, who is actually listening to what we have to say. Thank you for bringing in this perspective!
When it comes to history we czechs have long and hard history though its really interesting and full of legends and interesting facts. I think this rant we czechs have is mainly caused by injustice and self pitty. Even today our government seems to be unjust and sometimes seems corrupt and some of our policies doesnt make any sense. I think states of the former eastern block in general have this PTSD about the 20th century and thanks to this i dont think we will be socialist at least for a long time again. We sold vast numbers of state owned bussineses and manufacturers after the fall of communism. Overall and in general we are based, traditional but liberal and we are fair and kind people and we can be glad that we are living in central europe not in the west where it seems another idiotical marxism clones are awakening.
In the last part of the video you said that recently the official name was changed to Czechia, but that's not true. Czechia is not official name of the country. That wasn't changed. What changed was it's official short name. Czech Republic is the official name and Czechia is the official short name. Both are correct and valid names you can use.
I'm Czech and I have no problem with the name Czechia. I think it's great that we finally aligned ourselves with the rest of Europe regarding the official and short name. Until then the official short name for Czech Republic was Czech Republic which is stupid. And in my opinion I think that the debate whether it's Czech Republic or Czechia is a bit stupid and pointless, because both are correct. It's like if the Germans were protesting that it's not Germany because the official name is Federal Republic of Germany.
Everything you said is true and I fully agree with it.
Naprostý souhlas ve všem. Já například příští týden letím do "Norského Království" a přesto peferuji nazývat tu zemi Norskem. Stejně tak bych mohl mluvit o mé nedávné návštěvě "Polské republiky", "Maďarské a Finské republiky" :-)
I don't think there is an unconditional need for a short name. Let's say Dominican Republic - doesn't have one and I don't think anybody minds or cares. For me, the short name requires some getting used to, both in Czech and English, but no doubt I can do it. I just think it is a bit confusing for foreigners to adapt to yet another name within couple of decades. Makes us look like we don't know what we want (which is sort of true).
Hey, thanks for bringing up these points. If you can search the comments, read my responses to JohnnyRobbie and Michal Lepíček on these issues. :)
@@petrmaresu 1/Forigners usually tend to shorten the Czech Republic to mere Czech. Thus we certainly need a short name 2/the Dominican Republic and the Central African Republic are only two independent countries in the World without any short, geografical name.
I prefer Czech Republic for aesthetics reasons and because it was in use for quite a while so why making everybody to get used to yet another new name.
I don't care too much about the Western/Central/Eastern Europe. If people think, we are a third-world country, me insisting on Western Europe won't fix that. In the nineties, a Salvation Army officers couple came in here. They later said they had not been sure they could expect showers, and brought an ax with them (into Prague), just in case. Well without internet back then, who can really blame them. In the early 00's, while on a church-trip to Germany, I was accommodated with an elderly couple. They showed me how they can turn on the TV using a remote, expecting I would consider it magic. Well, that was pretty humiliating. But what can you do. People just tend to be wrong about other people in the world all the time and we are not any different.
Že se na to politici vymrdali ještě neznamená, že je to dobře :-D
Yes World is Bunch of bubbles an America is in double one
Actually name Czech Republic is only 30 years old, it has even shorter history than name Czechia. Czechia is name which is used in latin, in greek and in little different form in many other langauges, it actually is historical name.
@@Pidalin You're right. My point was not really about the technical age of the names but rather the general public's familiarity with them.
@@Pidalin Czechia reminds me more of "Čechy" than "Česko". So it sounds to me like Bohemia and leaving out Moravia a little bit. So this time I felt like choosing Moravian nacionality in counting europian people this year
You walking around Prague really makes me miss it. I studied there for 6 years and havent been able to go back and visit in almost two years now due to me being chronically ill and not having the energy to travel even tho I live only two hours away. Thank you for making these videos so i can live vicariously through you!
I'm very grateful to hear that, thank you so much. I have suffered from chronic illness myself in the past, many years ago, and the story of my life is in many ways the story of how I overcame that illness. So I know how incapacitating it can be and how frustrating it is to be incapable of managing simple things that you once loved to do. It gives me a better sense of purpose to know that my videos might be useful in this way, to share an experience with people who would otherwise be unable to access that experience for whatever reason. So I'm very sorry to hear that you're suffering, but I'm happy that this video gave you some comfort. Cheers and good luck :)
@AnnaThe Newt:
How funny (or sad)! My story is pretty much the same - except for that I didn’t study in Prague for 6 years, but lived there for the first 6 happy years of my live. Then the year 1968 came and everything changed… My parents moved to the Netherlands. Now I’m looking at those beautiful pictures of Prague and I wish so much I could be there too, but I can’t. According to Brandon’s story, however, there is hope…
@@skeletonkeysprague21 I didnt know you also dealt chronic illness but its awesome hear that you can relate! and Im glad you got better!
You are putting yourself out there and doing great work. That is awesome! Trolls have no content and only feast on the negative. Keep on Keeping on doing great videos!! Thank you.
Thanks for the encouragement!
In the topic of western - eastern - central Europe, it would be appropriate to mention something from ancient history, for example, that the Czech king was one of the 7 electors (sometimes even emperor) of the Holly Roman Empire, and thus the Czech kingdom was for about 800 years part of this (western European ?) whole.
Excellent point, thank you.
The King(dom) of Bohemia. The Czech kingdom is nonsence.
@@petrkarafiat1707 Well, as you probably know, the difference in "Czech" and "Bohemian" is something only non-czech languages use.(distinction between ethnic and territorial). Interesting point is that pre mid--19th century, this was the case in czech and non-Czech languages as well!:)
Look it up- up till mid-19th century, word 'bohemian' was used in non-czech languages for both ethnic and territorial. So there were "Bohmish-Deutsch" dictionaries, "Bohmische sprache" etc. Meaning (ethnic)Czech or course, but not clearly leaving space for distinct identification of German-bohemian ethnicity. So on the bacgkround of czech-german 'issues' and political struggle in Bohemia in the 19th century, NEW word "Czech/Tschechish" strated to be used in German from mid-19th century.
The word "Czech/Tschechish" is relatively new (mid-19th century) invention in German! Basically to distinguish 'ethnic Czech' and 'ethnic German' in Bohemia.
Note that in 19th century (first half at least), even Czech speakers and polititians struggled to make sure there is distinction that does not exist in czech language: that is why you see names of clubs and parties from that era(in Czech language) like 'Ceskoslovanska XYZ'(.... meaning 'Czech/Bohemian-Slavic'-to make sure everybody understood that Bohemian Germans(non-Slavs) are 'not inckluded')
And this terminology shift with separation of ethnic Czech'/'Tschechish' from 'Bohemian' spread from German to English and other foreign languages after mid-19th century.
So its quite and interesting linguistics history;)
@@petrkarafiat1707 neumím dobře anglicky, takže jsem použil překladač, tedy stížnost pošlete na DeepL ;-) (že je to rozdíl vím, ale nechtěl jsem se rozepisovat, aby to nebylo tak dlouhé, jako třeba vysvětlení co následuje od uživatele letecmig)
This is probably the most important reason, we were part of western catholic civilisation for 1000 years so we just don't understand why someone call us eastern europe or say we are some kind of Russians.
I think, that this cold war clasification should be finally dropped alltogether. I also really dislike for example moniker "post - communist", it has no real meaning 30 yaers after fall of communism. In comparison did anyone call Germany in 1970s post Nazi, or Spain in 2000s post Francoist? Just nice label to demonstrate some sort of alleged superiority of western europeans. And also very comfortable excuse of us, when we something mess up.
Second that , no reference for genocide of Native Americans by English protestants, how we should call that in American News
We were pure Russian collony during 1945~1989, because Czechoslovakia was given to Stalin's Russia during 1945 Jalta Conference. So called "communistic country" was only a way how to mask Russian collonialism of Czechoslovakia !!!
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@@tomastezky89 For disclosure I am a Slovakian, and maybe I will start little flame here, but would you be so kind and check results of parliamentary elections of 1946, especially check in which part of Czechoslovakia got communist party majority? My point is, that it was not so clear cut, as you stated. But bygones are bygones
@@AB8511 Thank you very much. The results of 1946 have been counted by NKVD / they arrived in 1945. Have you ever heard names like Zorin, Berja, Džugašvili ... By the way, who has given order to execute Rudolf Slánský ... ?
Have you ever heard about the 1945 Jalta Conference ... ?
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@@tomastezky89 Would you be so kind to link the document of 1945 Jalta Conference which contains agreement on post-war Czechoslovakia? I shall not thank you in advance because I think there will be nothing to thank for - but you can give it a try... ;)
What you don't take into account regarding eastern/central Europe history argument is all the history BEFORE communism. The first Czechoslovak Republic? Western Europe. The Austrian/Austro-Hungarian empire? Western/central Europe. The Holy Roman Empire? Central Europe. 40 years don't define a nation.
Bohemia were never part of Roman Empire, only the edge of South Moravia.
@@frantiseknovotny2674 That's why I said Holy Roman Empire. Although I agree with Voltaire that it wasn't holy, Roman, nor an empire, that's its official name ;)
Love your comments. Funny thing- I think that we look down at anyone who is from the “ east “ just like they look down at someone else.. ..
Czechia is not the one and only name of our country. This shortened designation has only recently been officialized and can be used as the name of our country in offical affairs. The name Czech republic is still in use, Czechia is just another possibility. It is quite handy sometimes for example on the jerseys of athletes
Czechia is a name of the country and Czech Republic is a name of the republic in the country.
@@breznik1197 Czechia is non-sense introcuded by globalists ... nothing more ...
@@seriousjan5655 By the 17th-19th century globalists. :--). Btw. , in your opinion, which is the noun from which the adjective Czech is derived? Why don't we have "Bohemian Republic" (just like we had the "Bohemian Kingdom"), but the non-sense globalist "Czech Republic"? :-))) (Btw., the only republic that has such hang-up that the word "republic" must be stuffed everywhere.) Blic, blic, blic, blink...
I am definitely an expat. I have been living in the States for forty years, I have dual citizenship, and I am still a proud Czech.
1) já používám označení Česko. Nevadí mi ten název.
2) Tisíc let jsme byli součástí Západní sféry vlivu, ale jen čtyřicet let jsme byli součástí Východu. Pokud jsme pro někoho stále Východ, pak touto logikou by dodnes měla být i část Německa, která byla také po 40 let ve Východním bloku. Já si myslím, že je to tím, že stále žije mnoho lidí, kteří pamatují Studenou válku a mají to tak zafixované dodnes. Geograficky jsme byli a jsme stále střední Evropa. Tím je i Německo, Rakousko, Švýcarsko, Slovensko, Polsko....
Napsal jsem to česky, aby jste si procvičil náš jazyk. :-)
Great video! Regarding the "historical" argument that the CZ belongs to the Eeastern Europe: Ever since this country was founded it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Czech kings were often also Roman Emperors or at least had a vote when the question of a succession to the Holy Roman throne was discussed. Long story short we have been part of the West/Central Europe for centuries, then miserable 40 years came and all of the other history gets ignored for the sake of those 40 years. I conclude that if there is a strong argument for considering the CZ as a western or central European country, it is actually the historical factor. Also consider this - I was born 30km away from our border with Germany but according to some American/English people I am culturally more similar to someone from Moscow rather than to someone who was born 15 mins long drive from my home town...
During the middle ages the Czech king was one of the seven people in the whole Europe who had a say in who would become the next Holy Roman Emperor. I don't know about you but that doesn't sound very eastern European to me.
The Czech lands are geographically a part of the central Europe. Politically the inhabitants of said area were always focused on cooperating with the west rather than east. This lasted many centuries. Fifty years of communism can't change anything about that. That's simply too short of a time.
Yes. History of this area is old (Samo´s Empire at 7th century or Great Moravia in 9th), we were always in the middle or more to the west oriented. There were always tryout to connect whole Europe since then. We were one of initiators to establish the United Nations also. We just have the bad luck when they made the line where both those armies had to meet themself, it went across us. And because they don´t cut us like Germany, US army went back and left us to sphere of Russia. We were betrayed by France and UK before the war and than by US after. And they just call us "Eastern Europe" because of those bad 40 years of communism. It´s funny but in reality is not. It is very sad. :(
Hey, your friendly neighbourhood central European Slovak here ;D. Here is some of my rant.
1. I don't see the whole trolling as negative; quite the opposite. I like to be trolled because trolls are not my colleagues or me, they are not my fans and clients, so they bring 3rd party point of view, something completely new. I believe trolls always showed me my flaws that I could improve if I agreed, and they can bring a lot of ideas for content, art, business, etc. I think that trolling in the world is helpful, and it's a mistake to take trolls (or anything for that matter on the internet) personally or even waste time and emotions on purely aggressive and disgraceful outcries.
2. The Eastern/central problem. Some people would like to call eastern Europe only the area around Vladivostok (next to North Korea and Japan xd) and the rest should be central Europe. I wish to see the world where Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary are known as Central Europe. But as it isn't something to be declared, signed and used in a month, it is people's decision (or ignorance maybe) to label the V4 as eastern, historically only because of the abduction from Soviet Government and those people who were "more equal" in those times. As for the Czech Republic, it's clearly Western, Slovakia less so indeed. My preference is to label V4 as Central Europe if we look at it in the full picture. It's only when you zoom in and look at the cold war it would be Eastern Europe.
Anyway, everyone, have a beautiful day and let's not be enemies because of some definitions. How about we all grab some good Czech beer, Plzničku or Budvar, and focus on the positives ey?
you are deffinitively correct about naming... Especially in the way, how it was conquered after WW2 ;-)
Loving your confidence! :)
Thank you!
Honestly when it comes to this Cold war era rubbish like west/east thats just that. Old era rubbish. As the Czech lands were always connected to west and in aliance with France or Germany or later part of the Austrian empire... this country became 'east' by being 'sold' by western allies and with a little help from russian tanks. I mean we don't call France a nazi state either don't we? Even though the southern part was one during the war. So why should we call Czechia east when we became part of the eastern block the same way? Culturally we are as central as it can be. Similar customs, food, traditions, beliefs, music like Austria and Bavaria. Honestly the only reason why westerners call us as eastern europe is because we speak a slavic language thus we are inferior in their mind. Little fun fact: Austrians and Czechs are almost identical geneticaly. After all, Austria was inhabited by the Czech tribe and later germanized. And later both lands were part of the same empires. So almost every czech has some Austrian/German ancestry.
So all that can connect us to the east are 44 years of terror, language group and the deal between USA and USSR at the end of the war.
Excellent points, thank you so much. Actually, while filming, I brought up the point that a huge part of the reason for the "Eastern Europe" moniker is simply the fact that Czech is a Slavic language, which connects it in the Western mind with Russia, the Soviet Union, and now the former Soviet states. I cut out this part because it was getting too long, but I'm glad you brought it up because I think it's important. As an anecdote, Berliners still have an amazingly distorted view of the Czech Republic. When I visited Berlin last year and told people I lived in Prague, the reactions I got were usually some form of condescension or absurd stereotyping rooted in Cold War mythologies.
@@skeletonkeysprague21 you are correct. It all shows how dangerous can political agenda be. Before the war Czechoslovakia was only democracy in central Europe and very prosperous and rich. We survived war practically undamaged so actually our headstart as a rich democracy with allies in USA and France were great. Thats what Stalin didnt like. It was a war of politic believes. Soviets wanted to influence the rest of the world and wanted the hold of east germany. Rich democratic and capitalistic country with USA as allies in the middle of their influence was the last thing Stalin wanted. Also they wanted our industry and money. And look at that only few decades of their leeching left our country in ruins. To add: I once read somewhere tbe Germany was supposed to be divided in half so Bavaria would also go to Soviets. But they negotiated and gave us in exchange as both sides wanted control over Germany and we were in the way after all.
But I believe once the old generation passes away things will return to normal. After all it took some time until Germans werent looked upon as nazis after the war.
Thank you for bringing up the topic. I could write you some summary of history if you want. As an historian and an archaeologist I have no problem with that.
Actually, I would appreciate that very much. Send me an email at skeletonkeysvlog@gmail.com if you feel like it. No obligation at all obviously, but I would read and study such a summary with great interest. :)
@@skeletonkeysprague21 hah you bet I will. I enjoy torturing my friends and family with history all the time. It would be nice to have somebody willing to listen for once XD
@@elssir1537 Looking forward to it, thanks again!
Xcellent explanation of he difference of expat and immigrants Thank you !!
Thanks, glad it was helpful!
Actually I think your explanation is not correct. Especially in 21st century there are many immigrants whose goal is not integration into new society but taking advantage of it...
I hate people sticking to Czech Republic name. Both terms are legally correct now, there is no top down change of name against people's will.
After the split with Slovakia our legislators were slow to implement the new short name officially and then it got forgotten about for 30 years so we got stuck with the full name as the only European country. Historically, we have always used a shortened name. Czech Republic is a pretty recent term used since the split in about 92. Back then in 1960-1992 we didn't call it Czechoslovak socialist republic or Czech and Slovak federative republic, it has always been the short name - Czechoslovakia. And even in Czech it's Česko and we mean all the parts not just Bohemia so I don't understand the reason to use the short one in Czech but the long one in English.
Czech people not even understanding what was changed (actually just added) and the history and reasoning behind it, yet violently struggling to stick to the old (actually not even so old) ways of calling us Czech Republic make us all look like backwards idiots to be honest.
Czechia ♥ People just need time to get used to it.
Your description of Czech Republic vs Czechia problem was not on point. You can read below from others' comments why (Vojta Tomek for example).
But I would like to point out another thing connected. Pronunciation of Czechia. While I heard the word Czechia with CH (using czech phonetics), it actually logically should be K (again, czech phonetics). Just take the word Czech and append "ia" suffix.
Also, afaik, Czech is a person of our nationality or an adjective, it is not a name for our country. It is just a common mistake that Czechs speaking English do.
I see your and Vojta’s point and I appreciate the clarification, but it doesn’t really change my conclusion. My point was that I plan to call this country whatever the majority of its people seem to want it to be called. Based on my informal poll of Czech people, they still seem to mostly prefer the longer name. The arguments for using Czechia make sense, they’re good arguments, and I agree that it would be more reasonable for the majority of Czech people to accept the short name. But many of them still object to it, so I refrain from using it out of respect.
Using “Czech” as a name for the country...I agree it’s weird and grammatically nonsensical, and the first few times I heard it I cringed. But it’s surprisingly common, and after hearing it several dozen times I’ve gotten used to it and I occasionally use it myself. For better or worse, that’s how language evolves, and English has an especially rich tradition of turning adjectives into nouns and vice versa, or generally just allowing the meaning and usage of words to morph over time. I don’t see why we can’t allow the word “Czech” to change its function in the same way.
Speaking even some basic level Czech will literally open doors for you. I once went to castle and spoke with a guard and he was so happy to hear a foreigner 'trying Czech language', that he opened some secret door and led me through a maze of corridors to the room where the crown jewels were. Incredible..
As a Czech person myself I am just glad that Czechia is finally not the only country on the planet that doesn't have an official short version of their name in English. I found saying the Czech Republic all the time very annoying. Saying just Czech is completely out of question, since Czech is not a noun, it's an adjective and it sounds incredibly dumb to use an adjective as a name for a place. However most Czech people who speak some English don't know it and keep saying Czech because they don't speak English well enough. They also think that the name is now simply changed to Czechia, which is not the case. Czechia is now the official short name while Czech Republic remains the official formal name. I think all foreigners should ignore Czech people who dislike the word Czechia and just use it. Luckily as far as English is concerned, their opinion doesn't matter.
Czechia is correct. Bohemia would be correct to, because of former name for our fatherland Kingdom of Bohemia ...
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To be precise, "Czech" as in a national or the language, used as a standalone word, is a noun.
@@Zheeraffa1 Czech as "language" or "person from Czechia" is a noun. Czech as in "Czech Republic" is an adjective therefore saying only the first half of Czech Republic when you mean the country itself sounds like saying the adjective alone, because that's exactly what you do there. It sounds horrible.
@@tomastezky89 It wouldn't since it doesn't include Moravia and Silesia. These used to be lands that belonged to the Bohemian Crown, but they were still it's own entities. That's why to this day Bohemia just means "Čechy" (a historical region), not the entire country - Česko (Czechia).
@@adamhradil7923 Sorry about the confusion. When I first read "completely out of question, since Czech is not a noun" I thought you meant that the word "Czech" in general isn't / can't be a noun. Your intended context has escaped me.
I fully agree that in this particular case using Czech as if it were a noun is terrible.
This video has my like just fot the overture. I love your insights to our/eu culture and I still cannot beileve how much you are able to nailed it just after one year here
Thank you for your helpful observations about living abroad. You are doing an awesome job.
And thank you for greats and really interesting videos ;-)
Even "the first republic" before the WWII was quite western oriented with lot of english slang used in the movies etc. We actually never had much common with Russia before 20th century. Plus quite big part of the country was freed by Americans which was never forgotten by the nation. Nowadays some feel even like US could come to Prague much before soviets and save thousands of lifes, just they were not allowed by the division line.
US Army actually was in Prague before soviets, but it was secret and illegal by their deals with soviets, they were looking for some papers and important nazis. They could easily free Prague few days before Soviets if it was allowed.
Thanks for sharing!! You always give great content ~~ can’t wait to move there. 😆🤎
Great talk. I appreciate your soft-spoken demeanor. Sophisticated and on point non the less. Benjamin G.S.
Nice video mate. Just to correct you...and not i am not a troll, i like your videos ;) Official name of my country is still Czech republic, but official short name is Czechia. Its like Federal Republic of Germany and just Germany or Republic of Italy and Italy. So actualy both names are correct and official. ;) And to use just Czech as name of the country is absolutely wrong, because of the word Czech is adjective, its used as nominativ only if you speak about the member of the nation. So you can say "He is a Czech." but you can´t say "He is from Czech." because of it doesn´t make sense. Its the same like to say "He is from Italian." ;)
Thanks for bringing up some interesting points. If you can search the comments, read my responses to JohnnyRobbie and Michal Lepíček on these issues. :)
Great video, thank you
To me as a Czech person the Central vs Eastern debate is more about the cultural nuance. Within the slavic nations you essentially have three major cultural groups, "the Balkans", "Russians and all their immediate neighbors" and then the further removed central block of Czechia, Slovakia and Poland. The big distinction being that we (central) and Balkans do not really have a Russian speaking culture over here, besides Commies trying to impose it on the generation of our parents. On the grander time scale, ever since about the 19th century there has been a big push by the Russians for a concept called "panslavism" essentially claiming that all Slavs are one people and should be united into a.... union. Naturally, that's a power play by the Russians to legitimize their imperialist tendencies and despite the fact that the Union collapsed the Russians are still slithering their tendrils around the whole eastern block as evidenced by the Georgian, Crimean and Ukrainian wars in recent years. I think most non-russian nations are tired of having their culture erased by decades of Western anti-soviet propaganda painting them as one uniform enemy unit with their own oppressors (Russians) and for us specifically insisting on being called Central European is a way to take a stance against that. If you said that the Spanish, French and Italians are all the same, because they are all roman/latin ethnicity you would look like an uneducated idiot, yet noone hesitates to tell you "you sound Russian" in the English speaking world if you are a slav. And naturally Prague people are more sensitive to this, since Prague is the bastion of pro-western parties and voters.
What an excellent comment. Educated, well-written, and extremely informative for a Westerner like me. Thank you very much for contributing.
This is the ultimate reason! Great comment!
actually we call latin countries "siesta" countries very often :-D it's probably product of financial crisis and constant speaking about how bad economical situation is in those countries, so I guess people from France really don't want to be part of this "siesta group" same like we don't wanna be part of some eastern europe
Another reason for prefering Czech Republic is that it is more inclusive , considering the history of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia as an integral part of the Holy Roman Empire for more than 1000 years. Czechia sounds like a soccer team from Central Bohemia, a very differrent story from Slovakia.
Dobry Den, nice to see you doinf vlogs also here in Prague, looking forward to have a collaboration vlog with you
Jsem Pražák, ale ze se ženou jsme se z Prahy uklidili do nevelkého města východně od Prahy , do Pardubic. Je to necelou hodinu vlakem z Prahy. Rád by Ti to město ukázal, protože je zase úplně jiné, než města, která jsi poznal. A mluvil bys česky ale neboj, padnout bych Tě nenechal
Great explanation. Beautiful
Thanks!!
I think we are Central Europe in both the geographical and the economic meaning of the term. I mean, geographically, it's like saying the south pole is not located in Antarctica, it's a fact that it is :D but more importantly, economically, I know that people from e.g. Ukraine, which is even geograhically considered to be an Eastern European country, come here to make more money than they would in their home country, and I also know that many Czechs go to countries like Germany or the UK to make more money than they would make here, so from this perspective it looks to me quite logical to say that we actually are in the centre of Europe no matter how you look at it :)
Haha I love the troll menu, 👏👏 smorgasbord of Troll food 😄😄 anyway great video as always mate always fair always on point and always makes me glad I still live here 😁🥳
All good topics. As for this country’s short name, the natives themselves keep struggling, some like Česko and others hate it; some care about Czechia and others don’t (very few make the Chechen connection); Czech Republic is most correct and official, but indeed it is not short.
Part of the problem is that the Czech Republic is composed of several rather distinct regions, in some of which people would never call themselves a Czech or any of its versions: They are Silesians, Slovaks (yes, many Czech citizens are in fact Slovaks), Roma or Romani or Romanies (whom almost all others call Gypsies or Cigáni), and foremost Moravians. Do not ever call a Brno citizen a Czech!
These regions - Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia (sorry, no Romanestan) have been separate regions for centuries. Not unlike Swabia, Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria across the mountains. It will take a while to come up with a neutral name combining them all, and to be accepted by all. America was named after some Italian guy, of all nations, after few attempts labeling parts of it as “New” something, tied to a home country in Europe. I am affraid something similar will be needed here for this assembly of these diverse Central-European cultural groups.
Czechia was invented by the government and blessed by the linguists. This top-down process unfortunately does not reflect the feelings of the majority of people. But even if a referendum were to be conducted, it would not result in a clear outcome.
So , not short ... United States of America, should we called them Americana ? or Church Inc. How about WWW as Wide Wild West based on unprecedented amount of gun related violence which is promoted as freedom and liberty in their second amendment. Oh .... that will blow somebodies gasket ! I like official name Czech Republic or personally and intimate Cesko, ....... even Im from Morava DAHHHHHH ( and Im not consider this as TROLING , it is an oppinion, ant if is stabbing, there might be some truth in it)
Czechia was not invented by the government. It was "invented" by Czech scholars some 500 years ago and was supposed to be an alternative to Bohemia. Both Bohemia and Czechia have been used as the names of both the region (Bohemia/Czechia proper) and the country ever since. BTW, every country in Europe is composed of distinct historical regions. Czechia is no exception.
@@Gosudar Czechia was invented by globalist and have only one purpose: degrade and blur The Czech Republic to GEUrmany region ...
Just call the country Czechia - it's more comfortable to use. The term of Czech republic is rather for some more formal occasions.
And yes, we are NOT Eastern Europe.
Nice vid. Have a good times in Czech
Czech is adjective. We are Czechia :)
Serving a Troll Banquet...I love it...you do you and you're a wonderful service. Be safe!
Thank you!
I am sharing your video on my FB's status.
You are very articulate with rich vocabulary.
For us, young people, communism was only very short part of our history and it just history for us, we don't remember it. It was only 40 years and it's gone another 30 years, so calling us eastern europe only because of this little short period of time is weird. You see gothic cathedrals and other things around you which clearly tell you that we were part of same civilisation and part of same whole as countries in central or western europe. It's 1000 years vs 40 years, that's why we are so confused when someone calls us eastern europe, for us, it's more political term, it literally says you are part of some communist block which even doesn't exist anymore for almost same time like it existed.
In next 30 years, people forget about some weird communism time, but they will be still called eastern europe because of that.
Czechia is not so new name as people think, we are not kingdom anymore, so call it Czech lands would be weird, but those regions were under Bohemian crown, so it's logical that name Czech/Bohemian will be somehow composed into name, but it's not same name as for region Bohemia/Čechy, si it's obvious that it means whole country. Mostly people from Moravia and Silesia have problem with name Czechia, they are very anti-czech and anti-prague, calling country Czechia is same like calling us eastern europe for them, they just don't want to be part of anything Czech, they identify themselves as Moravians, not Czechs.
Second problem is pronunciation, as you mentioned. Since there is no CH sound in English, it should be probably written Czekhia, but that looks really weird, so maybe writte it Czekia would be better. But that would look completely alien for most of people because there is no "czech" in the name which people knows from czechoslovakia and from history like czech lands.
Don't listen people who say you should call country just "Czech," I really don't like it, it means nothing, it's just adjective a problem is as I mentioned, it doesn't refer to whole country, it's just Czech, so it's gonna be even worse for Moravians. :-) Using full political name Czech Republic is annoying and we just don't have anything better than Czechia, we we must give it some time and people get used to it.
PS: Name Czechia is historical, because it's used in Latin, in Greek, little differently in German and in many other langauges, we just took it from Latin and made it official now.
well, comments have spoken again but to point it out more... history of our country started hundreds of years before WWII ... and our culture and society has actually way more in common with Germany and Austria than with Russia etc. ... also ethnically speaking Czechs are members of Western Slavic branch sooo...
Good and important points, thank you.
That’s true, the nations of Czechia, Austria and Germany are fairly intertwined
if I understand correctly SOME foreigners mispronounce Chechia, they pronounce „ch” in the last syllable instead of „k” - che-ki-ya. Hence, someone MIGHT confuse it with Chechnya... why don’t you just OFFICIALLY change the spelling.. like Chekia or Czekia? Or use „Chesko”? or just use the shortened English version - Czech. In Polish we call our neighbouring country - „Czechy” (Čehy), the full name „Republika Czeska” is only used in very formal language and simply sounds grandiosely..
The concept of Eastern / Central / Western Europe can be perceived differently. Geographically, culturally and politically. Geographically, the countries of Central Europe are Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Culturally and historically, only the division into east and west is correct. All the countries I have named culturally and historically belong to the Western cultural circle. This cultural circle is defined by religion and scripture. The Latin alphabet and the Catholic religion, which also resulted in the Protestant movement. The political division is more complex, but today most post-communist countries are part of western structures. So it is difficult, because sometimes we ourselves use the term Eastern Europe ourselves to differentiate ourselves from the old EU countries.
The logic lies in the fact that some citizens of the Czech Republic live in the part of it that is called Bohemia, others in Moravia and still others in Silesia. So, when someone asks where you are from, just say I'm from the Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, or the Czech Republic. That suits me. Simple.
"Expat" and "immigrant" are not mutually exclusive. You can be an expat without being and immigrant, but you can't be an immigrant, without also being an expat. I'm definitely an immigrant in the Czech Republic.
I would cut it short as follows: CZECH REPUBLIC (the official name), CZECHIA (the official short name); geographically, the country is located in CENTRAL EUROPE, there is no doubt about it.
(And, as far as the use of a „name“ CZECH is concerned, it is naturally a nonsense.)
A someone already pointed out, the correct pronunciation of Czechia is "checkia" (basically Czech+ia). I think it really makes a difference because it sounds less weird and is just one standard suffix used for country names away from Czech. Which should never EVER be used as the short name of the country no matter how popular it is among Czechs today. They started to use it only because they didn't know that the name Czechia even existed. I have been using Czechia since 1993 when it was selected as the official short name of the country by the expert committee (BTW, the name itself is almost 500 years old.). Unfortunately, our incompetent political leadership at that time decided that we didn't need the short names Czechia and Česko (apparently some prominent figures "didn't like the sound of it" or maybe they were too short or something), and both names were pretty much blacklisted for the next 23 years. They were officially "pardoned" in 2016, but the government is still using the long names almost exclusively anyway and is doing nothing to promote the short ones (see the Olympics). In the meantime, generations of Czechs grew up not knowing the correct short names (both Czech and English) of their own country. How crazy is that?!
Dont ignore Moravsko and Slezsko. ;-) Maybe , it will makes you that a sense, why word Czechia is wrong ;-) Its not only about the how it sound, but what does it means ;-)
As a Czech, my personal opinion why calling our country Eastern European annoys us so much is that it is most of the time, and often thanks to movies (but not only) used not as much as a simple geographical location but rather as that "desolate poor post communist space where there is not much to see or expect". Many times you hear or read phrases like "poor Eastern European country". In movies, many times you only hear someone referring to someone else as Eastern European without even mentionning their true nationality. Because that's just enough, all wrong comes from Eastern Europe so it's enough to label it like that probably:D or they just show a city on the screen without indicating the name and just put Eastern Europe as a description, because it's unimportant, it's all the same russian-like language speaking wasteland. You NEVER hear someone say "western european guy/woman" in a movie but Eastern Europe is far too often used as a "sufficient description" in popular culture and very often not in a flattering way. E.g. You see a prostitute in a movie, she speaks Czech but they only mention she is an Eastern European girl because why does it matter. It's all like Russia anyway, right? It never happpens with Western European nations. And the sad thing is that for too many people not interested in geography on any way this is the only way they ever hear about the Czech Republic. So in summary, the reasons are not by far geographical but rather that the label "Eastern Europe" is mostly perceived as something negative in the West.
I think people from Denmark or other smaller nations in western europe has similar problem when everyone confused their langauge for German or Swedish or something, that's our revenge. :-D But Danish at least really sounds like Swedish, Czech doesn't sound like Russian, it has completely different accent.
I learnt new stuff today.. so 👍bonus question, ppl ve zlate ulicce reacted on those houses with words: byli to krpatci tehda, would you gues what he meant?🤣 my grandma used to say that with slight negative conotation..
Krpatec ... probably meant "dwarf", partly as a misunderstanding for the height of the doors to such buildings (in fact, the level of the street is a bit higher than in the time of building the houses. There were also safety concerns about criminals.
I am from Slovakia which is east to Czechia and Slovakia is not part of eastern Europe too. Europe can be split from east to west or from north to south just like each country but each country has also a midpoint. I would say that V4 countries (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Czechia) are central Europe but I am not going to argue, because I am not 100% sure.
Some grasp of why we were part of the eastern block are nicely explained in Madleine Albright 's Prague winter. Along with other parts of czech history in the 20th century. It is a bit czech worshiping, but overall nice summary I encourage you to read.
As a refugee from communist Czechoslovakia and now potential expat ... I had a good chuckle.
Regarding the Eastern/Western/Central Europe debate I define Eastern Europe roughly as:
1. Predominantly Orthodox Catholic or Muslim in religion
2. Formerly part of the Russian (including Soviet), Byzantine, Ottoman etc Eastern. Empires (hence point 1.)
3. Predominantly Slavic
4. Use Cyrilic script (because of point 2.)
5. In Eastern Europe
So, Czech(ia) is traditionally Roman Catholic (in the Holy Roman Empire for most it's existence, or trying to reform it),
never was in an Eastern Empire of any sort - except for the 40 year stint as aSoviet satellite 30 years ago,
is using a Slavic language written in Roman letters, with a lot of German genes in the pool the Slav-dom, however, is less certain, genetically speaking,
the Timezone is indeed Central Europe.... Vienna, Munich, Prague, Berlin form a triangle with Prague in the middle.
I leave that to the reader to sort out ;-)
Imagine you are in Paris - would you call the country around The French Republic or just France?
And its the same here in Prague, Czechia was coined in 1500s for land of Czechs in latin. Czech Republic (the) is formal designation for political entity that appeared on January 1th 1993, Czechia can describe Czech lands in all of its periods since forefather Czech climbed to the mountain Říp to far distant future when we may not be a republic..
We don't like being called a part of Eastern Europe because geographically speaking it's incorrect and from the historical/political standpoint it's been only true for 41 years during the communist era which was a direct result of political changes during and after WW2 (the Munich Agreement started it all, which undermined our trust in the former western powers and our former ally France, it then continued with British unwillingness to revoke the Munich Agreement and their unwillingness to recognize pre-war borders of Czechoslovakia. Followed by other difficulties in further negotiations with the British, and also mixed with a fear that history would repeat itself and the western powers would betray us again. On the other hand, the Soviets were pretty eager to help or support us in any way we wanted, at a high price ofc, which wasn't largely known, at least not to the full extent, at the time). By contrast, Czechoslovakia was a democratic country before WW2, with a lot of similarities to the US and French democracies and with fairly similar GDP to Germany, Italy, and Austria, and a lot higher than USSR at the time. And before Czechoslovakia had existed, its direct predecessor, the Kingdom of Bohemia had been part of Central and Western Europe (depending on the viewpoint) for centuries. Just consider that it was part of HRE since 1002 (if we consider The Duchy of Bohemia) and one of the Imperial electors until the dissolution of HRE in 1806, and part of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary till 1918 when Czechoslovakia was founded. It also had a lot closer ties to Austria and Germany (german states), Poland and Hungary. And very little to do with the Russian Empire thorough history until WWI, when Czechoslovak soldiers left the Austro-Hungarian Empire and formed the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia in order to fight the Central Powers and win the support of the Allied Powers for the independence of Czechoslovakia (Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia). And it's been almost 32 years since the Velvet Revolution, 22 years since joining NATO, and 17 years since joining the EU. So pardon me if I think it's silly calling the Czech Republic (or Czechia) as a part of Eastern Europe when you consider all the past AND the recent history, and also its culture, economy and last but not least its geography. :)
I hope that didn't sound too harsh - just to make it more clear I really enjoy your videos so far and I appreciate your thoughts and opinions, I think they're always well thought out and spoken :)
Yes, the one of the eternal topics to discuss with expats :) Eastern Europe.
I think younger people will react mildly and more often than not try to explain our view on the matter.
However, some may react more negatively, as in extreme, it can be historically insulting, dismissing over a thousand years of our history because some "greater than us" nations decided to. And no one asked us. Again. But those are rare.
Most of my arguments for Central Europe side were already written in other comments, but I would sum it up in: for most of the history, Czech Republic (Czech State, Kingdom, Great Moravia) was culturaly inclined towards west. Only at the end and after the WWII we were put under Soviet sphere of influence and deemed as "Eastern Europe". This period lasted "only" 44 years, and at the end, we immediately shifted again towards west. Geographicaly, we are in Central Europe. Only UN as a large organization counts us under eastern Europe and with this explanation: "The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories". Most other organizations, including CIA, National Geographic (they know nature stuff, right?), recognize Central European region.
We can also look directly at physical geography, where we belong to "Central Uplands" region of Europe.
If we are talking about geo-political regions during the Cold War, term "Former Eastern Block country", or similiar, is least volatile.
At the end, I think it is more about some subconscious trigger in most Czechs, reminding us the old betrayal, than about "the Prague is more west than Vienna"
Je úplně jedno, jak budete tuto zemi nazývat, protože se vždycky najde někdo, kdo vám to bude vyčítat. My jsme se nebyli za třicet let schopni dohodnout
- geographically, we're definitely central/western Europe, depends on if you acknowledge the "central part" or not.
- economically, don't wanna brag too much but we're quite far from where e.g. Romania, Ukraine etc. are
- historically, it's slightly more complicated because it depends on which era you look at:
- Great Moravia ---> west Slavs moved to Central Europe = Central Europe
- Holy Roman Empire ---> complex of territories in Western, Central and Southern Europe = Western/Central Europe
- Austria-Hungary ---> constitutional monarchy in Central Europe = Central Europe
- First Czechoslovak Republic ---> new republic after Austro-Hungarian Empire collapse = Central Europe
- Eastern Block ---> well... surprise motherfrickers, you're part of *Eastern Europe* now
So if the only thing people know about the Czech Republic is the last era... then it's understandable that people will call it an Eastern European country. But as it's clear from the list above, we've been part of Eastern Europe only from 1948 to 1989. And it's sad and weird that people judge us only by this unfortunate era.
If you want your Czech audience to respect you, I reccomend you to play mafia or kcd on stream (Just not mafia 3 please :D)
Thanks for the recommendations...I'll probably try these later, but Final Fantasy came highly recommended by a good Czech friend of mine, so I'm gonna start with that one and see how it goes :)
Don't over explain yourself man. It doesn't matter really how you identify yourself. You are what you are. You're all right.
hi im interested in teaching english abroad! To teach in prague is it expected you to know and talk czech when teaching english?
For me (Czech from Prague):
Czechia (Especially after my time on Erasmus in Bulgaria where I had to introduce myslef too many times...and I quickly started to use Czechia instead of Czech Republic)
&
Central Europe (Especially cause we have so much common with Austria,Bavaria, we used to be Holy Roman Empire, we used to be Austrian Empire and cause we are protestants/catolics/atheits and we never had something to do with ortodox church which is on the East - the only thing we have in common with the East is communist history and ancestors in Slavic groups...)
I really like your video. It was great. Please forgive me for being a troll, but I do have to take issue with something you said regarding the difference between an expat and an immigrant. Frankly, I don’t know which one I am. I have lived here for twenty years, but I’m still holding my U.S. citizenship. I don’t intend to return, but I can’t say what will or won’t happen. I’m from a Black American single parent family, and my mother was a very industrious hard worker, who taught us not to depend on government handouts. Me being the history lover that I am, got encouragement in high school to check out other cultures, and my first trip to Europe was in the mid eighties after I finished school. So, whichever one I am, I’m not from a ‘privileged’ class. But no real offense taken. About Czechia, I don’t like that name either, and living in Brno, most wouldn’t like it either because it is in Moravia, and they would tell you that refers more to Bohemia. But again, I enjoyed the video and your honesty and work o it, and the tour of Prague Castle which I haven’t seen in about ten years.
Geographically central, culturally and linguistically eastern Europe.
Well, technically, you are an "emigrant" from the US standpoint. I am not trolling, I swear :-)). I would agree that "expat" sounds somewhat temporary to me, whereas an emigrant leaves for good.
I mean we've been part of the western world for just about a thousand years, thus its completely normal to to call us eastern Europe.
For thousands years we have been West and we are West. During Jalta 1945 conference the WWII winners gave us to Stalin's and Berja's Russia and thanks to it we become their collony for 44 years. They built in Czechia Russian concentration camps, where they tortured to death our 8000 best people, nevertheless, we still were West ...
By the way, in the past our Kingdom Bohemia was one of the largest European states ...
👍👍👍👍👍
@@tomastezky89 Why are you guys so prejudiced against Eastern Europe.
Czech Republic is eastern Europe in ethnic and cultural sense. On a map it is somewhat central Europe. But in no way it is western Europe.
You are as eastern as Ukraine, Belarus or Russia. Just like them you are also Slavs. And you are completely different people compared to western Europeans.
Therefore, just by calling yourself western, you don't become one. You are basically Eastern European.
@@asmirann3636 Austria below Czechia and Germany above Czechia are also typical states of Eastern Europe ... ???
🤔🤔🤔
@@tomastezky89 Geographically they are in central Europe. But culturally, socially, ethnically they are western Europe.
Czech Republic is also geographically in central Europe but culture, ethnicity, social systems and even mindset is Eastern European.
One more important thing is that there is nothing called central Europe. It is either western or eastern in broader sense, or there is also Northern and southern Europe. And each of these represent a common mindset, culture and value system. But central Europe represents nothing.
@@asmirann3636 For thousands years Kingdom of Bohemia was one of the biggest empires of Europe.
44 years of 1945~1989 of Russian occupation means more than 1000 years ? Are you serious ? Austria and part of Germany has belonged to the Kingdom of Bohemia = Czech Kingdom. The first Czech king was crowned in 1085. Are you really serious, that 44 years long Russian occupation is more than 2000 years old history of Bohemia = Great Moravia = Samo's Empire = Czech state ... ? Czech DNA is mostly Viking and Germanic. Have you ever check a map of the Czech Kingdom under Charles IV. or Premysl Otakar II.
44 years of Russian occupation can NOT change thousands years long history !!! Czechia was given by Britain and the by the USA to Stalin's and Berja's Russia at Jalta 1945 Conference !!! Such a step is not able to change THOUSANDS years long history of the Czech state / more Bohemia and Kingdom of Bohemia, plus Great Moravia, plus Celts in Bohemia !!!
🤔🙄🙄🙄🤔😡
The Czech Republic definitely for me
"To be honest as far as I know Czech Republic or Czechia was actually located at Central Europe and it's much better to live there in comparsion from all the places here in the Philippines .?!"
Btw, hand in hand with the term Czech Republic you could also use (for foreigners) the term Bohemia as in Rex Bohemorum (King of Bohemia, part of our kings of old titles in Latin documents and on coins, etc.).
I also really like the term Bohemia, but some Moravians and Silesians might object to using that term to describe the entire country.
@@skeletonkeysprague21 It is possible, but in fact, Rex Bohemorum was the overlord not of the above-described parts of the Kingdom, but also of say Opavia Dukedom and some other alods.
@@skeletonkeysprague21 Btw, are you American or Oregonian?
@@morriganmhor5078 I'm American, from the state of Colorado originally.
@@morriganmhor5078 Interesting. I just know that Moravians and Silesians have their own distinct sense of regional identity and pride. One reason, I guess, why it's so hard to settle on a name that represents everyone in the country to their satisfaction.
"Czech" is an adjective, adverb, and the name of the language. Do you want to hear about my holiday in Scottish? Or my trip to Italian?
Czech republic is the long name, Czechia is the short one, both are correct. The former is too long, the latter one sounds bad. You can't win.
HOWEVER - I used to hate "Czechia", but I got used to it over time, also in Czech (they're Česká republika and Česko, respectively) That word is created according to proper language rules and perhaps we could get used to it.
As long as the US doesn't confuse Prague with Grozny, I'm fine.
(by the way - your pronunciation is good, man!)
In addition, I would like to comment, that even during the so called Socialist past, then Czechoslovakia was called the heart of Europe, eventhough it was a part of the so called Eastern block, controlled by the Soviet union. So the location of the Czech republic still should be called Central Europe, because , where it lies.........
Hey. I just came across your channel today. I like how you notice lots of little details about the Czech Republic and stuff. I wonder what you think of Czech girls. Do you like them? How different are they (in appearance) to you than American girls? :)
Great vid, mate. we just say -8th of August 😃😃😃
We actually say both (8th of August and August 8th)...I'm never sure which one to use 😃
Well, the Czech Republic is literally called "the heart of Europe", which I think really puts the country in the central position. But the main reason why I think we should be called Central Europe is this. We are a bridge. A bridge between socialism and capitalism. A bridge between Eastern and Western Europe. Our country contains both because we took what we wanted to from both and mixed it together. As result, we don´t fit anywhere and maybe that´s the reason why we play neutral zone and why we try to not take any side. :) But thanks a lot for thinking about us this way and for saying pretty nice words (in this video and the others). :)
As always very interresting points of your view. Many people here refer our country as middle european, what is geographicaly very true and I use this too. Some say we are west Europe, but I think that's only because they want to be that way. Economicaly and culturaly speaking. And that is connected to second thing. Our country was literaly ocupied by Soviests and we couldn't decide to cooperate with east countries. Many people don't know this fact, instead they think we were "simps" with Soviet regime. Sadly we had no choice.
And I still don't understand how did our authorities and "geniuos" leaders mange to incorporate this term Czechia. Yuk! Many of us (myself included) are proud of our whole nation and state, so we are happy for official The Czech Republic. But we keep in minds that it means Czechs, Moravians and Silesians together. And I'm sorry for my written english, maybe I should wrote this in czech to train you more ;-)
I don't mind people calling czech republic eastern europe. I have much more in common with an ukranian person than with austrian. But maybe that's just me, i love eastern europe, it's wild and the people are lovely and helpful whenever i visit. I guess people take eastern europe and slavic people as the same thing, that's maybe why they say that. But there isn't a reason for people to be butthurt about it like some are. It doesn't really matter if you live on east or west
How many Ukrainians or Austrians have you met? Ukrainians are very different culture, ofcourse all people are unique, but you can't tell Czechs are generally more similar to Ukrainians than to Austrians, because it's not true. Look on history. Ukrainians lived in wooden cottages until half of 20th century and they were part of east orthodox church, you can think we have something common, but when it comes tom some talk about history or traditions, I guess you will be totaly lost, you know definitely much more about Austria than about Ukraine. What exactly you know about Ukraine? Maybe that it's slavic country and they have Chernobyl, that's not a lot.
me as an czechian i consider our country as eastern europe (my opinion some people think its western some people think its central but i consider it as eastern)
In particular, the Czech Republic is the least Slavic of all Slavic nations. This is due to the fact that the Czechia is in the middle of Europe and in the Middle Ages many nations, whether Germans, Swedes or others, they have been here and they made some offspring here. That is the only reason why we cannot take the Czechia as one of the classical Slavic nations, because we have never been and never will be. Geographically, we are definitely Central Europe, but given the economy and other things, I would not be afraid to compare us to Western Europe as the most prosperous post communist country. Although it may seem very controversial.
Well, historically, we have always been part of the "west", certainly in terms of religion. We´ve had Celts, Germanic people and then Slavic people. In the middle ages we became part of the Holy Roman Empire since like the 11th century. We were always under that influence, than the Habsburg monarchy, which is Austria, Bohemia and Hugary. The Eastern part of our history is just 40 years during the communist era. Forty years against hundreds of years is really not that much.
I was recently mailing a package from the United States, and in the computer at the post office did not recognize Czech Republic as a possible choice for the country of destination. Czechia was the only option given.
On the other hand my American passport has as the country of my birth Czech Republic, strictly speaking that’s not completely true, since I was born in the 50´s.
Are we eastern or central europe? In a nutshell
Eastern europe: Cyrillic alphabet, orthodox church, culture influenced by Russia or by being part of Russia
Central europe: Latin alphabet, Roman Catholic Church, culture influenced by Austria-Hungary or by other german speaking kingdoms.
So even when we are Slavs, we are culturaly more related to Germans or Austrian then to the Russian or Ukranians for example, so I would say that the argument why dont we like being called eastern europe is more than just "Dont call us eastern Europe, we are still pissed at them because comunism."
Anyway interesting content, keep on a good work.
My two cents on topic of Eastern vs Central - this is all about context. There are contexts in which it is perfectly legitimate to identify Czech Republic as East Europe. But the thing is from my experience most of the foreigners from "western" countries are totally ignorant to context. Some of them are even straight condescending towards Czechs as "eastern europeans". This is effectively same level of ignorance as if someone called Americans "racist slavers" or Germans "nazis".
Small correction about Czechia vs Czech Republic - country name was not really changed, it is still Czech Republic. Only thing that was done was that there has been officialy acknowledged "unofficial" shorter name - just like United States of America can be called just America. I am not sure about name Czechia either, but for sure I am glad that our country finally chose some. Because generally only unstable, short lived third world countries enforce general usage of full country name including word "Republic".
Name Czechia was used in latin, greek and in similar shape in many other langauges, it actually is historical name.
@@Pidalin I am not questioning that. I am just saying there were also other legitimate options. But it doesn't really matter anyway, important thing is that Czech Republic after nearly thirty years finally decided on something.
Hey! Really cool video, I didn't know the difference expat/immigrant and I think I get it. That's quite similar when a lot of Czech for example go study abroad, not? Well, it is common in the EU that people from different countries live abroad (better wages f.e.) and at some time they come back. Cool to know this is called expat.
Thank you! Yes, obviously expats can be from any country, not only the US or UK :)
In Russian language the Czech Republic is officially called Чехия (Czechia, pronounced the right way), so for me, it's basically a second nature to call it as Chechia :) Actually, I didn't know that there are people that are calling it like this in English.
I'm Czech but I've started using the term Czechia a couple of months ago because after reading a couple of arguments for and against it. In a nutshell, Czech is an adjective or the citizen of Czechia, thus not grammatically correct to call the country the same. Czech Republic, using the full name in non-official communication puts it in the similar bracket like the totalitarian regimes accentuating the "republic" or "people" or "democratic" bits of their names. Czechia sounds close to Slovakia, which, following the logic, is officially called the Slovak Republic, but going with Slovakia in the common speech. Thus I'm trying to normalize the usage of Czechia, even if it's an uphill struggle :D
Interesting point about the language of totalitarian regimes. I don’t necessarily agree in the specific case of the Czech Republic, though. I just think people are more used to it and they like the sound of it better. I agree that there are good arguments for using the word Czechia, it makes sense and is probably more logically and grammatically correct. But correctness doesn’t always matter when it comes to how language is used. For better or worse, it seems most Czech people are going to resist accepting “Czechia” for some time.
@@skeletonkeysprague21 I absolutely agree there's some pushback. But I think in the two years you could have noticed the people here tend to resist any change.
It’s going to take a while for the new name to catch on. Many people in the US still call the country “Czechoslovakia”.
@@richbulena8847 Most people I know back home have used the term "Czechoslovakia" many times and I've had to correct them. People in the USA just aren't aware that anything has changed since the 80s.
An expat is not just someone on a temporary work permit planning to repatriate soon, like you. Here, in Amsterdam, following Brexit, thousands of English have come here, or resident English, have now taken up EU citizenship for mobility. They call themselves expats. They are British immigrants. I myself emigrated to Australia, worked there as an academic with indefinite work permit, but ultimately decided to come home. No-one in Australia called me "expat". Haha. And when I worked & lived in the US or Canada under university contracts, I never once heard this word expat. Where is it used in the US to describe temporary workers (eg B2 visa)?
It is curious that only immigrants in the EU from Anglophone countries call themselves expats. People who come from non-English speaking countries, with no idea of the future, are still immigrants to The Netherlands, or foreigners with work-permits to stay.
You can call anyone who disagrees with you a troll, if you like - shoot the messenger, but the facts don't change.
Having been part of Ostblock, I believe there is good reason to include us into Eastern Europe in 20th century perspective. From 19th century perspective, we were part of the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary (Cisleithania), so that is quite clearly Central Europe. Still earlier, being part of the HRE, we probably were eastern edge of Central Europe. The notion of Central Europe is strongly influenced by German perspective, who traditionally consider thenselves Central Europe, between the West (England, France, Holland) and the East (Slavs). This German perspective was cultural, they see Central Europe where German culture was dominant, which includes Bohemian Lands, but only as long as the German culture was dominant here.
I like how countries are moving over europe every time when political regime changes, it's really magic. :-D btw, we are still part of german-like culture, we are not like eastern slavs, that's different culture. Try to go to pub with Russians and then try it with Germans or Austrians, guess who will be more comfortable for you to sit with? I don't say Russians are worse or something, I'm just saying they are different culture.
I would really like us to use the name Czechia more. That "republic", only we have, and then dubious dictatorships. :-) As for the term "Eastern Europe", it doesn't bother me in any particular way, because I understand that it's still about a position in front of and behind the Iron Curtain. It is true that before that, our history was always tied to Germany, Austria and not to real Eastern Europe. But such a history is probably too far away. Otherwise, unfortunately, we still have the same tendencies here as others former "lidodemo" states around us (the desire for a strong leader, a substantial part of the population admires various dictatorships, we tighten the screws in the area of various freedoms, although not as strongly as Poland or Hungary). It's just like that...
Do we belong to east or west? When you see the architecture around, most of the valuable and beautiful examples are from the past, when we where part of the west. But, we also have very long history of opposing the west, especially Germans and Austrians. This goes back as far as to Cyril and Metoděj who were invited to counter the latin influence. So we were strugling for centuries against the west basically in effort to keep our identity. But what came from the east in form the Soviet union and communism was terribly destructive. But we allways made it through... Even from genetic perspective we are even mix of slavs and germans. So we use a lot the term Central Europe, which probably means nothing. For me it represents our place, but just us. Not any group of nations around.
Czechia is the official short name I think, the official name is still the Czech Republic. But the situation is kind of unclear. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_the_Czech_Republic
Czehia was introduced by globalists to UN list of short names. Because there is long term war against nation states, they couldn't have used just known "Czech" but needed to come with something humiliating or disconnected from the nation.
I'm turkish and I do masters in prague. I always considered myself as an expat but now that I look back I realize I'm not a true expat neither an immigrant. I guess I stuck somewhere in between, is there any word for my situation? 🙃
So because of 40 years of russian occupation, you are forgeting 1000 years of history? Bohemian kingdom was important part of Holy Roman Empire, even our kings were Emperors of HRE... Man, I think you are missing a large part of our history... We were always part of western europe... in middle ages most of our connections were with western countries, not eastern... it was our scholars who saved ideas of John Wycliffe and prepared way for protestantism, and more and more... and no connection to east...
In my opinion, Czechia should not be confused with the Czech republic, because the Czech republic includes Moravia. In other words, Czechia was in the past called Bohemia , and that didn't include Moravia. Just as Slovakia was always called Slovakia ( or in the Slovak language - Slovensko ) I'm originally from Slovakia, but I still think, that when people say Czechia they mean Bohemia , and that excludes Moravia, and the the Czech republic includes Czechia and Moravia.. So this is my opinion, thanks.....
Czechia is equivalent for Česko, it includes all parts of republic. There is no better single word English name for our country. Čechy in English is Bohemia, so Czechia is not Čechy.