117-693: The Pinkas Synagogue ( Czech : Pinkasova synagoga ) is a former Jewish congregation and synagogue , located at Široká 3, in the Jewish Town of Prague , in the Czech Republic . Completed in 1535, the synagogue the second oldest surviving synagogue in Prague and was completed in the Gothic style. Its origins date from the 15th century and are connected with the Horowitz family, a renowned Jewish family in Prague. Today,
234-518: A Warsaw Pact country if a bourgeois system was ever established. After the Bratislava conference, Soviet troops left Czechoslovak territory but remained along Czechoslovak borders. As these talks proved unsatisfactory, the USSR began to consider a military alternative. The Soviet Union's policy of compelling the socialist governments of its satellite states to subordinate their national interests to those of
351-570: A clear majority of support, he refused. Instead, he and Gustáv Husák traveled to Moscow on 23 August to insist Dubček and Černík should be included in a solution to the conflict. After days of negotiations, all members of the Czechoslovak delegation (including all the highest-ranked officials President Svoboda, First Secretary Dubček, Prime Minister Černík and Chairman of the National Assembly Smrkovský) but one (František Kriegel) accepted
468-638: A committee in April 1968, headed by the poet Jaroslav Seifert , to investigate the persecution of writers after the Communist takeover in February 1948 and rehabilitate the literary figures into the Union, bookstores and libraries, and the literary world. Discussions on the current state of communism and abstract ideas such as freedom and identity were also becoming more common; soon, non-party publications began appearing, such as
585-617: 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
702-501: 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/ ;
819-549: A loosening of restrictions on the media , speech and travel . After national discussion of dividing the country into a federation of three republics, Bohemia , Moravia – Silesia and Slovakia , Dubček oversaw the decision to split into two, the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic . Leonid Brezhnev and the leadership of the Warsaw Pact countries were worried that the unfolding liberalizations in Czechoslovakia, including
936-534: A majority consensus rather than unanimity. According to Soviet politician Konstantin Katushev , "our allies were even more worried than we were by what was going on in Prague. Gomulka, Ulbricht, Bulgarian First Secretary Todor Zhivkov , even Hungarian First Secretary János Kádár , all assessed the Prague Spring very negatively." In addition, part of Czechoslovakia bordered Austria and West Germany , which were on
1053-467: A majority of the Presidium (six of eleven voting members) to side with them against Alexander Dubček's reformists, they asked the USSR to launch a military invasion. The USSR leadership was even considering waiting until the 26 August Slovak Party Congress, but the Czechoslovak conspirators "specifically requested the night of the 20th". The plan was to unfold as follows. A debate would unfold in response to
1170-561: 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
1287-525: A potential invasion, despite ominous troop movements by the Warsaw Pact. The Czechoslovak leadership believed that the Soviet Union and its allies would not invade, having believed that the summit at Čierna nad Tisou had smoothed out the differences between the two sides. They also believed that any invasion would be too costly, both because of domestic support for the reforms and because the international political outcry would be too significant, especially with
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#17330933895061404-460: A radical step was taken to solve the problem of floods – the floor level of the synagogue was raised by 1,5 m. The Baroque bimah disappeared, the arrangement of the seats was modernized (seats surrounding the walls as in Old-New Synagogue were replaced by the church-like rows) and pseudo-Romanesque style dominated the space. However, less than century later, during reconstruction in 1950–1954,
1521-514: 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
1638-605: A repository of monuments, which it collected from Czech and Moravian communities, but also as a conservation office. Although the Jewish Central Museum considered at the beginning of 1943 moving the pre-war exposition of the Prague Jewish Museum to the Pinkas Synagogue, less than a year later it abandoned this idea due to various difficulties and the Pinkas Synagogue remained a warehouse. In following five years,
1755-501: A request for Soviet assistance in preventing a counterrevolution . It was this formal request, drafted in Moscow, which was published in Pravda on 22 August without the signatories. All the USSR needed to do was suppress the Czechoslovak military and any violent resistance. With this plan in mind, the 16 to 17 August Soviet Politburo meeting unanimously passed a resolution to "provide help to
1872-484: 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
1989-473: A small fraction of the Czech writer's union sympathized with radical socialists, specifically Ludvík Vaculík , Milan Kundera , Jan Procházka , Antonín Jaroslav Liehm , Pavel Kohout and Ivan Klíma . A few months later, at a party meeting, it was decided that administrative actions against the writers who openly expressed support of reformation would be taken. Since only a small part of the union held these beliefs,
2106-527: A speech explaining the need for change following the triumph of socialism. He emphasized the need to "enforce the leading role of the party more effectively" and acknowledged that, despite Klement Gottwald 's urgings for better relations with society, the Party had too often made heavy-handed rulings on trivial issues. Dubček declared the party's mission was "to build an advanced socialist society on sound economic foundations ... a socialism that corresponds to
2223-474: 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
2340-684: 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
2457-612: 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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#17330933895062574-615: 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
2691-422: 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
2808-538: Is an exhibition of pictures drawn by children in the Theresienstadt Ghetto . Children drew them during lessons led by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898–1944), a painter, who studied at Bauhaus , Weimar . Dicker-Brandeis's experience from Bauhaus influenced the conception of her drawing lessons in Theresienstadt. She encouraged children to express themselves in drawing, to grapple with their grim experiences from
2925-432: 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
3042-622: 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
3159-523: Is pure Renaissance. Between 1607 and 1625 an annex in Renaissance style was added and so the synagogue was extended with a vestibule , a women's section and a balcony . The architectural plan of the annex was designed by Juda Coref de Herz (also the architect of the Maisel Synagogue ). The floor of the synagogue is below the ground level so it was repeatedly afflicted by floods and moisture . In
3276-575: 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
3393-499: 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
3510-403: Is variable with regard to the time of sunset throughout the year. It lasts 2.5 hours in the winter months, but is shortened to 45 minutes in the summer (due to later sunset times). The digital extension of the exhibition is available through an information kiosk inside the synagogue and a web interface. The electronic database contains the names of individual victims, including their portraits, if
3627-547: The German occupation . The invasion was well planned and coordinated; simultaneously with the border crossing by ground forces, a Soviet spetsnaz task force of the GRU ( Spetsnaz GRU ) captured Ruzyne International Airport in the early hours of the invasion. It began with a flight from Moscow which carried more than 100 agents in plain clothes and requested an emergency landing at the airport due to "engine failure". They quickly secured
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3744-658: 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
3861-603: 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
3978-469: The People's Republic of China and People's Republic of Albania condemned the attack. Many other communist parties also lost influence, denounced the USSR, or split up or dissolved due to conflicting opinions. The invasion started a series of events that would ultimately pressure Brezhnev to establish a state of détente with U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972 just months after the latter's historic visit to
4095-753: The Silesian Military District . Brezhnev wanted the operation to appear multilateral (unlike the Soviet intervention in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 ). Nevertheless, the invasion was decidedly dominated by troops from the Soviet Union, which outnumbered other participants five to one, and the Soviet High Command was in charge of the invading armies at all times. The non-Soviet forces took no part in combat. All invading Hungarian troops were withdrawn by 31 October. Romania did not take part in
4212-580: The Slovak-Soviet border . The meeting was the first time the Soviet Presidium met outside Soviet territory. However, the main agreements were reached at the meetings of the “fours” - Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin , Nikolai Podgorny, Mikhail Suslov - Dubček, Ludvík Svoboda, Oldřich Černík and Josef Smrkovský. At the meeting Dubček defended the program of the reformist wing of the KSČ while pledging commitment to
4329-671: The Soviet Union , the Polish People's Republic , the People's Republic of Bulgaria , and the Hungarian People's Republic . The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček 's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). About 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops (afterwards rising to about 500,000), supported by thousands of tanks and hundreds of aircraft, participated in
4446-641: The Soviet Union's censorship . As President Antonín Novotný was losing support, Alexander Dubček, First Secretary of the regional Communist Party of Slovakia , and economist Ota Šik challenged him at a meeting of the Central Committee. Novotný then invited Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev to Prague that December, seeking support; but Brezhnev was surprised at the extent of the opposition to Novotný and thus supported his removal as Czechoslovakia's leader. Dubček replaced Novotný as First Secretary on 5 January 1968. On 22 March 1968, Novotný resigned his presidency and
4563-571: The ghetto , as well as to capture their memories from home and dreams about the future. Their pictures therefore offer wide-ranged testimony about the daily reality of the ghetto and about individual children. Most of the children, as well as Friedl Dicker-Brandeis , were murdered in Auschwitz . The only witnesses of their lives, their drawings, "survived" because Dicker-Brandeis hid them in Theresienstadt before her deportation to Auschwitz . After
4680-727: 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
4797-406: 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 ,
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4914-497: The " Moscow Protocol ", and signed their commitment to its fifteen points. The Protocol demanded the suppression of opposition groups, the full reinstatement of censorship, and the dismissal of specific reformist officials. It did not, however, refer to the situation in the ČSSR as " counterrevolutionary " nor did it demand a reversal of the post-January course. Popular opposition was expressed in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance . In Prague and other cities throughout
5031-515: 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
5148-506: The August Bratislava conference "in a lavatory rendezvous arranged through the KGB station chief". This letter was signed by the same five as Kapek's letter, mentioned above. Long before the invasion, planning for a coup was undertaken by Indra, Kolder and Biľak, among others, often at the Soviet embassy and at the Party recreation centre at Orlík Dam . When these men had managed to convince
5265-532: The Communist Party and people of Czechoslovakia through military force". At an 18 August Warsaw Pact meeting, Brezhnev announced that the intervention would go ahead on the night of 20 August, and asked for "fraternal support", which the national leaders of Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland duly offered. The coup, however, did not go according to plan. Kolder intended to review the Kašpar report early on in
5382-533: The Eastern Bloc (through military force if needed) became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine . The United States and NATO largely ignored the situation in Czechoslovakia. Whilst the Soviet Union was concerned about the possibility of losing a regional ally and buffer state , the United States did not publicly seek an alliance with the Czechoslovak government. President Lyndon B. Johnson had already involved
5499-672: The Fourteenth Party Congress would convene in an early session on 9 September. The congress would incorporate the Action Programme into the party statutes, draft a federalization law, and elect a new Central Committee. Dubček's reforms guaranteed freedom of the press and political commentary was allowed for the first time in mainstream media. At the time of the Prague Spring, Czechoslovak exports were declining in competitiveness, and Dubček's reforms planned to solve these troubles by mixing planned and market economies . Within
5616-464: The KSČ and so-called "foreign" forces. Vaculík called on the people to take the initiative in implementing the reform programme. Dubček, the party Presidium, the National Front, and the cabinet denounced this manifesto. Dubček's relaxation of censorship ushered in a brief period of freedom of speech and the press. The first tangible manifestation of this new policy of openness was the production of
5733-452: The Kašpar report on the state of the country, during which conservative members would insist that Dubček present two letters he had received from the USSR; letters which listed promises he had made at the Čierna and Tisou talks but had failed to keep. Dubček's concealment of such important letters, and his unwillingness to keep his promises would lead to a vote of confidence which the now conservative majority would win, seizing power, and issue
5850-585: The PRC . The process of de-Stalinization in Czechoslovakia had begun under Antonín Novotný in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but had progressed more slowly than in most other states of the Eastern Bloc . Following the lead of Nikita Khrushchev , Novotný proclaimed the completion of socialism, and the new constitution , accordingly, adopted the name Czechoslovak Socialist Republic . The pace of change, however,
5967-452: The Prague Spring. At approximately 11 pm on 20 August 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from four Warsaw Pact countries – the Soviet Union , Bulgaria , Poland and Hungary – invaded Czechoslovakia. That night, 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country. The total number of invading troops eventually reached 500,000, including 28,000 soldiers of the Polish 2nd Army from
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#17330933895066084-452: The Soviet model mainly took into account less developed economies. Novotný's attempt at restructuring the economy, the 1965 New Economic Model, spurred increased demand for political reform as well. As the strict government eased its rules, the Union of Czechoslovak Writers cautiously began to air discontent, and in the union's gazette, Literární noviny , members suggested that literature should be independent of Party doctrine. In June 1967,
6201-708: The Soviets to "lend support and assistance with all means at your disposal" to save the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic "from the imminent danger of counterrevolution". A 1992 Izvestia article claimed that candidate Presidium member Antonin Kapek gave Brezhnev a letter at the Soviet-Czechoslovak Čierna and Tisou talks in late July which appealed for "fraternal help". A second letter was supposedly delivered by Biľak to Ukrainian Party leader Petro Shelest during
6318-608: The Ukrainian Archives, compiled by Mark Kramer, KGB chairman Yuri Andropov and Communist Party of Ukraine leaders Petro Shelest and Nikolai Podgorny were the most vehement proponents of military intervention. The other version says that the initiative for the invasion came originally from Poland as the Polish First Secretary Władysław Gomułka and later his collaborator, East German First Secretary Walter Ulbricht , pressured Brezhnev to agree on
6435-512: The United States in the Vietnam War and was unlikely to be able to drum up support for a conflict in Czechoslovakia. Also, he wanted to pursue an arms control treaty with the Soviets, SALT . He needed a willing partner in Moscow in order to reach such an agreement, and he did not wish to risk that treaty over what was ultimately a minor conflict in Czechoslovakia. For these reasons, the United States stated that it would not intervene on behalf of
6552-517: The Warsaw Letter and on ensued military involvement. Gomułka accused Brezhnev of being blind and looking at the situation in Czechoslovakia with too much of emotion. Ulbricht, in turn, insisted upon the necessity to enact military action in Czechoslovakia while Brezhnev was still doubting. Poland's foreign policy on the issue is still unknown. The deliberation that took place in Warsaw meeting, resulted in
6669-462: The Warsaw Pact and Comecon . The KSČ leadership, however, was divided between vigorous reformers (Josef Smrkovský, Oldřich Černík, Josef Špaček and František Kriegel ) who supported Dubček, and conservatives ( Vasil Biľak , Drahomír Kolder, and Oldřich Švestka) who represented an anti-reformist stance. Brezhnev decided on compromise. The KSČ delegates reaffirmed their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and promised to curb " anti-socialist " tendencies, prevent
6786-467: The Warsaw Pact armies, 137 Czechs and Slovaks were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Alexander Dubček called upon his people not to resist. The Central Committee, including Dubček, hunkered down at its headquarters as Soviet forces seized control of Prague. Eventually, paratroopers cut the building's telephone lines and stormed the building. Dubček was promptly arrested by the KGB and taken to Moscow along with several of his colleagues. Dubček and most of
6903-587: The Warsaw Pact. On 3 August, representatives from the Soviet Union, East Germany, People's Republic of Poland , the Hungarian People's Republic , the People's Republic of Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia met in Bratislava and signed the Bratislava Declaration . The declaration affirmed unshakable fidelity to Marxism–Leninism and proletarian internationalism and declared an implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology and all "antisocialist" forces. The Soviet Union expressed its intention to intervene in
7020-436: The World Communist Conference coming up in November of that year. Czechoslovakia could have raised the costs of such an invasion by drumming up international support or making military preparations such as blocking roads and ramping up security of their airports, but they decided not to, paving the way for the invasion. Although on the night of the invasion, the Czechoslovak Presidium declared that Warsaw Pact troops had crossed
7137-427: The airport and prepared the way for the huge forthcoming airlift, in which Antonov An-12 transport aircraft began arriving and unloading Soviet Airborne Forces equipped with artillery and light tanks . As the operation at the airport continued, columns of tanks and motorized rifle troops headed toward Prague and other major centers, meeting almost no resistance. Despite the fact that the Czechoslovak People's Army
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#17330933895067254-628: The border at midnight. When the news arrived, the solidarity of the conservative coalition crumbled. When the Presidium proposed a declaration condemning the invasion, two key members of the conspiracy, Jan Pillar and František Barbírek, switched sides to support Dubček. With their help, the declaration against the invasion won with a 7:4 majority. By the morning of 21 August, Dubček and other prominent reformists had been arrested and were later flown to Moscow. There they were held in secret and interrogated for days. The conservatives asked Svoboda to create an "emergency government" but since they had not won
7371-410: The border without the knowledge of the ČSSR Government, the Eastern Bloc press printed an unsigned request, allegedly by Czechoslovak party and state leaders, for "immediate assistance, including assistance with armed forces". At the 14th KSČ Party Congress (conducted secretly, immediately following the intervention), it was emphasized that no member of the leadership had invited the intervention. At
7488-530: The communist leaders from the secret police or prisons where they were held. Most importantly, this new freedom of the press and the introduction of television into the lives of everyday Czechoslovak citizens moved the political dialogue from the intellectual to the popular sphere. The Soviet leadership at first tried to stop or limit the impact of Dubček's initiatives through a series of negotiations. The Czechoslovak and Soviet Presidiums agreed to bilateral meeting to be held in July 1968 at Čierna nad Tisou , near
7605-434: 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
7722-427: 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
7839-405: 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
7956-475: The ending of censorship and political surveillance by the secret police , would be detrimental to their interests. The first such fear was that Czechoslovakia would defect from the Eastern Bloc, injuring the Soviet Union's position in a possible Third World War with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Not only would the loss result in a lack of strategic depth for the USSR, but it would also mean that it could not tap Czechoslovakia's industrial base in
8073-400: The event of war. Czechoslovak leaders had no intention of leaving the Warsaw Pact, but Moscow felt it could not be certain exactly of Prague's intentions. However, the Soviet government was initially hesitant to approve an invasion, due to Czechoslovakia's continued loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union's recent diplomatic gains with the West as détente began. Other fears included
8190-408: The family members, Aharon Meshulam Horowitz, decided to replace the house by a synagogue for his family. There are competing accounts about whether the synagogue was named after a previous owner, a brother, or a grandson. The building mixes Gothic and Renaissance styles – for example, the reticulated vault is made in the late Gothic style but its ornaments have Renaissance features and the portal
8307-477: 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
8424-410: The historical democratic traditions of Czechoslovakia, in accordance with the experience of other communist parties ..." In April, Dubček launched an " Action Programme " of liberalizations, which included increasing freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of movement, with economic emphasis on consumer goods and the possibility of a multiparty government . The programme was based on
8541-509: The images are available to the museum. The database also makes it possible to search for the location of the names of individual victims on the walls of the synagogue. [REDACTED] Media related to Pinkas Synagogue at Wikimedia Commons 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 ),
8658-702: The immediate post-war situation had required "centralist and directive-administrative methods" to fight against the "remnants of the bourgeoisie ." Since the "antagonistic classes" were said to have been defeated with the achievement of socialism, these methods were no longer necessary. Reform was needed, for the Czechoslovak economy to join the "scientific-technical revolution in the world" rather than relying on Stalinist -era heavy industry , labour power, and raw materials. Furthermore, since internal class conflict had been overcome, workers could now be duly rewarded for their qualifications and technical skills without contravening Marxism-Leninism . The Programme suggested it
8775-582: The instrument of criticism of the regime. Freedom of the press also opened the door for the first honest look at Czechoslovakia's past by Czechoslovakia's people. Many of the investigations centered on the country's history under communism, especially the Joseph Stalin -period. In another television appearance, Goldstucker presented both doctored and undoctored photographs of former communist leaders who had been purged, imprisoned, or executed and thus erased from communist history. The Writer's Union also formed
8892-430: The invaders, the Soviet leaders, and suspected collaborationists . Pictures of Dubček and Svoboda appeared in the streets. Citizens gave wrong directions to soldiers and even removed street signs (except for those giving the direction back to Moscow). Initially, some civilians tried to argue with the invading troops, but this met with little or no success. After the USSR used photographs of these discussions as proof that
9009-475: The invasion troops were being greeted amicably , secret Czechoslovak broadcasting stations discouraged the practice, reminding the people that "pictures are silent". The protests in reaction to the invasion lasted only about seven days. Explanations for the fizzling of these public outbursts mostly centre on demoralisation of the population, whether from the intimidation of all the enemy troops and tanks or from being abandoned by their leaders. Many Czechoslovaks saw
9126-579: The invasion, nor did Albania, which subsequently withdrew from the Warsaw Pact over the matter the following month. The participation of East Germany was cancelled just hours before the invasion. The decision for the non-participation of the East German National People's Army in the invasion was made on short notice by Brezhnev at the request of high-ranking Czechoslovak opponents of Dubček who feared much larger Czechoslovak resistance if German troops were present, due to previous experience with
9243-487: 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
9360-844: 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
9477-500: 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/
9594-498: The maintenance of good relations with Western countries and cooperation with the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc nations. It spoke of a ten-year transition through which democratic elections would be made possible and a new form of democratic socialism would replace the status quo. Those who drafted the Action Programme were careful not to criticize the actions of the post-war Communist regime, only to point out policies that they felt had outlived their usefulness. For instance,
9711-616: The meeting, but Dubček and Špaček, suspicious of Kolder, adjusted the agenda so the upcoming 14th Party Congress could be covered before any discussion on recent reforms or Kašpar's report. Discussion of the Congress dragged on, and before the conspirators had a chance to request a confidence vote, early news of the invasion reached the Presidium. An anonymous warning was transmitted by the Czechoslovak Ambassador to Hungary, Jozef Púčik, approximately six hours before Soviet troops crossed
9828-483: 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 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia On 20–21 August 1968, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four fellow Warsaw Pact countries:
9945-410: The original floor-level as well as the appearance of the synagogue were restored. During World War II , the Pinkas Synagogue served as a storehouse of Jewish liturgical utensils, which, after the ban on Jewish services in the autumn of 1941, could no longer be commonly used in Prague synagogues. When the Jewish Central Museum was established in the second half of 1942, the synagogue was also to serve as
10062-504: The other side of the Iron Curtain . This meant both that foreign agents could slip into Czechoslovakia and into any member of the Eastern Bloc and that defectors could slip out to the West. The final concern emerged directly from the lack of censorship ; writers whose work had been censored in the Soviet Union could simply go to Prague or Bratislava and air their grievances there, circumventing
10179-422: The overnight operation, which was code-named Operation Danube . The Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic of Albania refused to participate. East German forces, except for a small number of specialists, were ordered by Moscow not to cross the Czechoslovak border just hours before the invasion, because of fears of greater resistance if German troops were involved, due to public perception of
10296-455: The party, there were varying opinions on how this should proceed; certain economists wished for a more mixed economy while others wanted the economy to remain mostly socialist. Dubček continued to stress the importance of economic reform proceeding under Communist Party rule. On 27 June, Ludvík Vaculík a leading author and journalist, published a manifesto titled The Two Thousand Words . It expressed concern about conservative elements within
10413-439: The previous German occupation three decades earlier. 137 Czechoslovaks were killed and 500 seriously wounded during the occupation. Public reaction to the invasion was widespread and divided, including within the communist world. Although the majority of the Warsaw Pact supported the invasion along with several other communist parties worldwide, Western nations, along with socialist countries such as Romania , and particularly
10530-450: The previously hard-line communist weekly Literarni noviny , renamed Literarni listy . The reduction and later complete abolition of the censorship on 4 March 1968 was one of the most important steps towards the reforms. It was for the first time in Czech history the censorship was abolished and it was probably the only reform fully implemented, albeit only for a short period. From the instrument of Party's propaganda media quickly became
10647-412: The provision of food and water, was denied to the invaders. In an opposite case of subterfuge, Rezun recalled how local townspeople quietly opened the gates of the Czech breweries and spirit factories for the enlisted Soviet soldiers, making entire units inebriated and causing significant disruptions to the fury of the Soviet commanders. Signs, placards, and graffiti drawn on walls and pavements denounced
10764-569: The reformers were returned to Prague on 27 August, and Dubček retained his post as the party's first secretary until he was forced to resign in April 1969 following the Czechoslovak Hockey Riots . The invasion was followed by a wave of emigration , largely of highly qualified people, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total). Western countries allowed these people to immigrate without complications. The Dubček regime took no steps to forestall
10881-542: The remaining members were relied upon to discipline their colleagues. Control over Literární noviny and several other publishing houses was transferred to the Ministry of Culture, and even members of the party who later became significant reformers, including Dubček, endorsed these moves. The Prague Spring ( Czech : Pražské jaro , Slovak : Pražská jar ) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia that began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček
10998-487: The republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun , then a junior officer who led a Soviet Tank column during the invasion, was given absurd information from his commanders about how the people of Czechoslovakia would welcome them as their "Liberators", and were instead attacked by angry crowds of people who threw stones, eggs, tomatoes, and apples upon crossing into Slovakia. Every form of assistance, including
11115-564: 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
11232-528: The revival of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, and control the press by the re-imposition of a higher level of censorship. In return the USSR agreed to withdraw their troops (still stationed in Czechoslovakia since the June 1968 maneuvers) and permit 9 September party congress. Dubček appeared on television shortly afterwards reaffirming Czechoslovakia's alliance with the Soviet Union and
11349-536: The second half of 18th century it was necessary to restore aron-ha-kodesh and bimah damaged by flood and so they were changed to the Baroque style. About the same time (in 1793) successful businessman and communal leader Joachim von Popper donated the synagogue with a wrought-iron Rococo grille which adorns the bimah. The grille is decorated with the Magen David , with a Middle-Age Jewish hat . In 1860,
11466-517: The signing of the Moscow Protocol as treasonous. Another common explanation is that, due to the fact that most of Czech society was middle class, the cost of continued resistance meant giving up a comfortable lifestyle, which was too high a price to pay. The generalised resistance caused the Soviet Union to abandon its original plan to oust the First Secretary. Dubček, who had been arrested on
11583-441: 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
11700-674: The spread of liberalization and unrest elsewhere in Eastern Europe . The Warsaw Pact countries feared that if the Prague Spring reforms went unchecked, then those ideals might very well spread to Poland and East Germany , upsetting the status quo there as well. Within the Soviet Union, nationalism in the republics of Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania , and Ukraine was already causing problems, and many were worried that events in Prague might exacerbate those problems. According to documents from
11817-461: 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
11934-483: The synagogue is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague and commemorates approximately 80,000 Czech Jewish victims of The Shoah . An archaeological excavation showed that in 15th century in the area of present Pinkas Synagogue there were wells, a mikveh and inhabited houses. By 1492 in one of those houses there was a private oratory belonging to a distinguished Prague Jewish family of Horowitz. In 1535 one of
12051-549: The time, a number of commentators believed the letter was fake or non-existent. In the early 1990s, however, the Russian government gave the new Czechoslovak President, Václav Havel, a copy of a letter of invitation addressed to Soviet authorities and signed by KSČ members Biľak, Švestka, Kolder, Indra, and Kapek. It claimed that " right-wing " media were "fomenting a wave of nationalism and chauvinism , and are provoking an anti-communist and anti-Soviet psychosis". It formally asked
12168-818: The trade union daily Práce (Labour). This was also helped by the Journalists Union, which by March 1968 had already convinced the Central Publication Board, the government censor, to allow editors to receive uncensored subscriptions for foreign papers, allowing for a more international dialogue around the news. The press, the radio, and the television also contributed to these discussions by hosting meetings where students and young workers could ask questions of writers such as Goldstucker, Pavel Kohout and Jan Procházka and political victims such as Josef Smrkovský, Zdeněk Hejzlar and Gustáv Husák . Television also broadcast meetings between former political prisoners and
12285-424: 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
12402-405: The view that "Socialism cannot mean only liberation of the working people from the domination of exploiting class relations, but must make more provisions for a fuller life of the personality than any bourgeois democracy." It would limit the power of the secret police and provide for the federalization of the ČSSR into two equal nations. The programme also covered foreign policy , including both
12519-537: The walls of the synagogue were covered with names of 77,297 Bohemian and Moravian Jewish victims of the Shoah. The names are arranged by communities where the victims came from and complemented with their birth and death date. The memorial was designed by painters Václav Boštík and Jiří John. In 1960 it was opened to public, but it was closed after less than a decade, in 1968, after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia . It
12636-400: The war about 4,500 pictures were handed over to the Jewish Museum in Prague . Beside activities of the museum, Pinkas Synagogue serves also the religious community. Projection of photographs of Shoah victims in the form of video mapping onto the mikveh of the synagogue is freely visible every evening except Fridays and Jewish holidays from Široká Street. The start and end of the projection
12753-659: 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
12870-487: Was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms. The Prague Spring reforms were a strong attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms granted included
12987-495: Was formally confirmed by law of 26 June 1968), the Social Democrats began to form a separate party, and new unaffiliated political clubs were created. Party conservatives urged repressive measures, but Dubček counselled moderation and re-emphasized KSČ leadership. At the Presidium of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in April, Dubček announced a political programme of "socialism with a human face". In May, he announced that
13104-529: 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
13221-399: Was now necessary to ensure important positions were "filled by capable, educated socialist expert cadres" in order to compete with capitalism. Although it was stipulated that reform must proceed under KSČ direction, popular pressure mounted to implement reforms immediately. Radical elements became more vocal: anti-Soviet polemics appeared in the press (after the abolishment of censorship
13338-465: Was one of the most advanced militaries in the Eastern Bloc, it failed to effectively resist the invasion due to its lack of an independent chain of command and the government's fears that it would side with the invaders as the Hungarian People's Army did during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The Czechoslovak People's Army was utterly defeated by the Warsaw Pact armies. During the attack of
13455-559: Was replaced by Ludvík Svoboda , who later gave consent to the reforms. When the KSČ Presidium member Josef Smrkovský was interviewed in a Rudé Právo article, entitled "What Lies Ahead", he insisted that Dubček's appointment at the January Plenum would further the goals of socialism and maintain the working class nature of the Communist Party. On the 20th anniversary of Czechoslovakia's " Victorious February ", Dubček delivered
13572-418: Was said that the reason for closing was moisture. After the fall of communist regime in 1989 the synagogue was reconstructed for three years and then opened to public, but it took another three years to restore the inscriptions of the names on the walls that were damaged by moisture. Moreover, in 2002, as a result of more flooding, the inscriptions were again restored. On the first floor of the synagogue there
13689-449: Was sluggish; the rehabilitation of Stalinist-era victims, such as those convicted in the Slánský trials , may have been considered as early as 1963, but did not take place until 1967. In the early 1960s, Czechoslovakia underwent an economic downturn. The Soviet model of industrialization applied unsuccessfully since Czechoslovakia was already entirely industrialized before World War II , and
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