Czech History | All stories

In today’s edition of our miniseries, marking the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Empress Maria Theresa, we look at one of the many novelties she introduced during her reign - the reform of health care. The empress herself initiated some significant changes in the health sector, including obstetrics.

Radio Prague is over the next weeks reporting on aspects of the reign of the Empress Maria Theresa to mark the 300th anniversary of her birth. Actually, her birthday was May 13. She was the one, and only, woman ruler of the Habsburg empire and her 40 year reign usually stirs mixed emotions in one of the key parts of her empire, the then Kingdom of Bohemia.

One rather overlooked corner of history has been the story of Czechs and Slovaks serving with the British army in World War One. In contrast, the details of Czechs and Slovaks serving with the French army and in Russia have been covered quite thoroughly.

A series of eight programmes on public broadcaster Czech Television called Modrá Krev or Blue Blood is already around half way through. The series looks at the modern Czech aristocracy, in many cases families which have returned from exile during the Communist era, with each episode focusing on one particular noble family.

One of the annual milestone events in history is the annual New Year release of British government archives. Most of them become public after a period of 30 years. In the latest haul of documents being made public under a different timetable are papers from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Office from 1989 and 1990. They give a picture of how Margaret Thatcher’s government and officials were struggling to get to grips with the rapid melt down of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the prospects of a united Germany.

Che Guevara is probably one of the most famous revolutionaries of the 20th century. His iconic photograph, one of the best known images in the world. And for a few months between revolutionary episodes in his life, he spent a few months in 1966 at a secret intelligence villa on the outskirts of Prague.

The Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia has had its fair number of top spies before the Second World War, during the conflict as well as in the post war and Cold War era. There is František Moravec, who created one of the most successful espionage networks for Czechoslovakia during the inter-war years and later took his skills into exile in Britain.

The new Czechoslovak state created from the debris of WWI understood one thing from the outset, that a fundamental factor in the prosperity and success of the new state would be winning the confidence of international investors in the country and its currency.

In our last edition of Czech History we showcased the recently published book of US author Kevin J McNamara “Dreams of a Great Small Nation.” The book traces the emergence of an independent Czechoslovakia at the end of WWI and in particular the role played by the Czechoslovak legion fighting along the Siberian railway against the new and fragile Bolshevik regime. In this second part of an interview with the author, we examine how far the fighting helped to seal the creation of the new Czechoslovak nation and Mr. McNamara’s further research and involvement

‘Dreams of a Great Small Nation’ is a book by US scholar and historian Kevin J McNamara. It traces the circumstances surrounding the exploits of the Czechoslovak legion during WWI and in particular their takeover of the Trans-Siberian railway and most of Siberia in 1918. McNamara characterises the legion as “a mutinous army that Threatened a revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe.”