!!!Tschechen

Czechs: The first Czech merchants settled in Vienna in the Middle 
Ages. During the  Thirty Years´ War many Czechs, mainly manual 
workers and servants, came to Vienna to live and work here. In 1761 
the first Czech newspaper was published in Vienna, a second Czech 
newspaper was published between 1813-1818. In the second half of the 
18%%sup th/%  century a large number of Czechs settled in the 
Viennese districts of Wieden and Landstrasse; in 1775 Joseph II 
established a chair for the Czech language at the University of 
Vienna. The church Maria am Gestade in Vienna used to be the Czech 
National Church ("Bohemian Church"). During the reign of 
Francis Joseph a large number of immigrants from Bohemia and Moravia 
came to Lower Austria and especially to Vienna. They were mainly 
workers and craftsmen (tailors, shoemakers, joiners, locksmiths, 
blacksmiths and stove fitters, etc.). About two thirds of all 
immigrants in this area were Czechs. The upper classes in Vienna often 
had a Czech cook or a Czech nanny. In 1862 the "Slav Choral 
Society" (which was later to become the Czech choral society 
"Lumír") was formed, followed in 1863 by the 
theatrical company "Pokrok" (today plays in the Czech 
language are performed by the "Vlastenecká Omladina" 
cultural association, the Slav social association 
"Slovanská Beseda" was founded in 1864 and the 
"Akademischer Verein" in 1868. A school committee was 
established by the "Czech Workers´ Association" in 
1868, out of which developed the  Komensky-Verein, which established 
the first Czech school in the district of Favoriten in Vienna in 1882; 
the school is still in existence. After World War I many Czechs 
(about 150,000) left Austria to go back and settle in the new state of 
Czechoslovakia; in 1923 there were still about 92,000 Czechs in 
Austria. In the following years Vienna had a number of Czech schools: 
2 Mittelschule secondary schools, 1 commercial school, 6 Hauptschule 
secondary schools, 21 elementary schools (15 of which were public 
schools) and 17 kindergartens; in some other Austrian municipalities, 
Czech language courses were introduced. Two new Czech newspapers were 
published ("Vídeńske dělnicke listy" and 
"Vídeńsky deník") in Czech-owned printing 
shops. There were also some weekly journals, specialised magazines and 
a children´s newspaper published in Czech. However, after the 
Anschluss in 1938 all these activities were stopped and in 1942 the 
last Czech schools and associations were dissolved. After 1945 more 
than 10,000 Czechs and Slovaks went back to Czechoslovakia; a small 
number of Czech schools and associations were, however, re-established 
in Austria.

\\
After 1948 and especially after the suppression of the "Prague 
Spring" in 1968/1969 by Soviet troops, large numbers of Czechs 
fled to Austria (162,000 refugees, about 12,000 of whom settled 
permanently). In 1991 19,458 people giving Czech as their mother 
tongue lived in Austria (almost one half of them in Vienna). In 1994 
the Volksgruppenbeirat (board for the ethnic groups of Czechs and 
Slovaks) established itself at the Austrian Federal Chancellery. The 
following associations are represented there: the Council of Czech and 
Slovak Minorities (2 votes), the Czech and Slovak Cultural 
Association and the Jirásek/Nová vlast (1 vote 
each).

\\
The partition of Czechoslovakia in 1993 and the formation of Czechia 
and Slovakia had a certain influence on all the above-mentioned 
associations. These associations still have "Slovak" in 
their names or even have Slovak members (especially the cultural 
association) but they are not acknowledged by the Slovak ethnic group 
as representative and some "purely" Slovak associations have 
been established.

!Literature
F. A. Soukup, Česká menšina v 
Rakousku / Die tschechische Minderheit in Oesterreich, 1928; M. 
Gettler, Die Wiener Tschechen um 1900, 1972; J. Neumann, Tschechische 
Familiennamen in Wien, 1977; K. M. Brousek, Wien und seine 
Tschechen, 1980; A. M. Drabek, T. und Deutsche in den boehmischen 
Laendern, in: E. Zoellner (ed.), Volk, Land und Staat in der 
Geschichte Oesterreich, Schriften des Instituts fuer Oesterreichkunde, 
1984; M. Glettler, Boehmisches Wien, 1985; E. Stanek, Verfolgt, 
verjagt, vertrieben, 1985.


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