Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60) Československá republika Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1960–90) |
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Československá socialistická republika | ||||||||||
Satellite state of the Soviet Union Member of the Warsaw Pact |
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Motto Pravda vítězí / Pravda víťazí "Truth prevails" |
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Anthem
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Capital | Prague | |||||||||
Languages |
Czech Slovak |
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Religion | None (state atheism) | |||||||||
Government |
Unitary people's republic (1948–60) Unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist state (1960–69) Federal Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist state (1969–90) |
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President | ||||||||||
• | 1948–1953 | Klement Gottwald (first) | ||||||||
• | 1975–1989 | Gustáv Husák (last) | ||||||||
General Secretary | ||||||||||
• | 1948–1953 | Klement Gottwald (first) | ||||||||
• | 1989 | Karel Urbánek (last) | ||||||||
Prime Minister | ||||||||||
• | 1948–1953 | (first) | ||||||||
• | 1989–1990 | Marián Čalfa (last) | ||||||||
Historical era | Cold War | |||||||||
• | Coup d'etat | 21–25 February 1948 | ||||||||
• | Ninth-of-May Constitution | 9 May 1948 | ||||||||
• | CSR established | 11 July 1960 | ||||||||
• | CSFR established | 23 April 1990 | ||||||||
Area | ||||||||||
• | 1992 | 127,900 km² (49,382 sq mi) | ||||||||
Population | ||||||||||
• | 1992 est. | 15,600,000 | ||||||||
Density | 122 /km² (315.9 /sq mi) | |||||||||
Currency | Czechoslovak koruna | |||||||||
Internet TLD | .cs | |||||||||
Calling code | +42 | |||||||||
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Today part of |
Czech Republic Slovakia |
Czechoslovakia (Czech/Slovak: Československá), officially the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Czech/Slovak: Československá socialistická republika, ČSSR), refers to the period of Czechoslovakia under communist rule from 11 July 1960 until following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the name was changed on 23 April 1990. It has been regarded as a satellite state of the Soviet Union.
Following the coup d'état of February 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power with the backing of the Soviet Union, the country was declared a people's republic after the Ninth-of-May Constitution became effective. The traditional name Československá republika (Czechoslovak Republic) was changed on 11 July 1960 following implementation of the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia as a symbol of the "final victory of socialism" in the country, and remained so until the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Several other state symbols were changed in 1960.
The official name of the country was the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Conventional wisdom suggested that it would be known as simply the "Czechoslovak Republic"—its official name from 1920 to 1938 and from 1945 to 1960. However, Slovak politicians felt this diminished Slovakia's equal stature, and demanded that the country's name be spelled with a hyphen (i.e. "Czecho-Slovak Republic"), as it was spelled from Czechoslovak independence in 1918 until 1920, and again in 1938 and 1939. President Havel then changed his proposal to "Republic of Czecho-Slovakia"—a proposal that did not sit well with Czech politicians who saw reminders of the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Nazi Germany annexed a part of that territory. The name is also means the "Land of the Czechs and Slovaks" while Latinized from the country's original name – "the Czechoslovak Nation" – upon independence in 1918, from the Czech endonym Češi – via its Polish orthography