Talk:Czechoslovakia

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[edit] Munition Plants

what of the munitions manufacturing in Czech before Hitler invaded? I've heard that they were the 2nd largest mftr in east/west Europe (Vienna is EAST of Prague)? It would certainly justify the invasion...proximity of course being important as well...--dgd

The big armament manufacturer in Czechoslovakia was Skoda.

was it very large? was it in operation before WWII? Skoda eh?
It gets a big laugh so you remember it. It was a significant plant in Plzen (Pilsen), it took a couple of 300 bomber raids. Tanks made at the plant were used by the Germans in 1939-40 and it was "a leading producer of German armaments during World War II". The firm was established in the late C19.
-- Well, the Skoda which is now in Wikipedia mostly mentioned is a different factory. Originally, the Skoda company was located in Plzen. It became a huge machine industry factory before WWII. The Skoda in Mlada Boleslav (originally Laurin-Klement) was overtaken by Skoda Plzen. Nowadays, Skoda Plzen produces for example parts for nuclear power plants, locomotives and a lot other stuff, no cars. The cars are made by Skoda Mlada Boleslav, which has a completely different owner now.

RE:COMMENT:There is a paragraph missing which would say information about the first years of Czechoslovakia. Also a few words about minorities (german and hungarian)should be added. It is very important to understand the situation before these two countries joined the common nation of Czechoslovakia.Thanx. Martin

Isn't the intro paragraph mentioning all the names somewhat ridiculous? --seav 13:33, Dec 1, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Public domain resource

Public domain text (dated 1987) on Czechloslovakia can be found at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cstoc.html. --Jiang

Very interesting (although slightly outdated). I will try to incorporate it into Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. --Juro

This page is at its 32kB limit. Consider siphoning some off to individual articles (like the lists...) --Jiang 01:12, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No need to crosspost text - it makes it hard to update. Let's just keep all the history in one place - in the daughter articles. --Jiang 01:28, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The Communist leaders must be together with the presidents and prime ministers (on what ever page), because the Communist leaders were the true leaders (and not the other 2) . That is how Communist countries worked and work. Juro And the short version of history was designed for those who have no time to read the long articles (like with the Brasilia or Rumania articles) or need to find quick info for one of the long articles. Now, nobody will be able to read the history. I will put it back later or create a separate History page if I do not hear a good reason. And where are the presidents now ???????????? Juro

Yes, a history of Czechoslovakia main article should be created, but it should be at most a summary. The history section on this page should be a one page summary, like in wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. A series table needs to be added to the history articles, like in History of Afghanistan, History of Algeria, etc. We could link on the PM and Presidents list pages "See Communist Party of Czechoslovakia for a list of Communist Party leaders". That will be enough. --Jiang 04:00, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral?

What's with this line in is also possible that the Moon landings were staged on a Hollywood sound stage. Beep, anything is possible -- whether it happened is another matter. Without either further elaboration or sourcing on this remark, it appears to be just an attempt at a backhanded slight against the people who were jailed for dissent. dasnyder 05:28, 18 July 2006

I think that taking atheism as a bad thing isn't neutral but even offensive. If you look at the context ("the country was characterized by the absence of democracy, the promotion of atheism, and relative economic backwardness compared to Western Europe"), the issue of the promotion of atheism is between 'bad' factors.

Apart of that, it isn't even necessary to mention the issue of the promotion of atheism. Many conutries promote religions and it is not explicited nor put as a bad thing.

The sentence does not say that atheism is bad or good. It simply says that atheism was promoted. The promotion of atheism is simply a fact, but it is necessary to mention it because it played an important role in the history of that country. Juro 03:11, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Just pay atention to the context, "absence of democracy, the promotion of atheism, and relative economic backwardness". Perhaps you think it is an important fact, but Why then it has to be put between the negative factors?
The text part in question is supposed to be a very quick summary of all the detailed articles, therefore it is written in the simple "X, Y, W" style. If you really have a problem with that, you can put the atheism at the end of the sentence or to a separate sentence. But I still do not see any reason for this. Juro 20:36, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Listen, we have to be realistic. The article is criticizing the communist regime (wether it is explicit or not), and it gives, as one of the "bad" points of Czechoslovakia being communist, the issue with the promotion of atheism.
I believe in any God, and find the reference to atheism not necessary but despective, that's why I'm claiming this article isn't neutral.

[edit] comments...

- Carpathian Ruthenia became part of the Ukraine, not the USSR - the country "came under the influence of the Soviet Union"? This phrase does not appear on the pages regarding Italy, France and so forth, thus it is POV and is removed - absence of democracy? There were elections. Removing. Ruy Lopez 02:45, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you believe this is POV, check Poland, "Poland used to be a communist state, but democracy was restored in 1990, after the country became independent from the Soviet Union's sphere of influence."

[edit] Coats of arms

links to gif files of coats of arms are provided but at a 3rd party server? Are those images sort of (c) protected?

[edit] Slovak version of "Czechoslovakia"

I lived in Czechoslovakia for many years but for the first time when I have seen the "hyphenized" name was in 90's when nationalists were comming to the power in Slovakia. From my point of view, it is quite funny. I don't think that today's Slovaks write it with the hyphen, and I know many Slovaks. It is more a darker and ridiculous short history of this country. It does not seem to me to be very useful information.

You are wrong. It's the codified form since 1990. It must be and is used in newspapers, on TV and at schools when referring to the country in general. Other forms can be used in historical texts only. Also, there is a distinction between československý and česko-slovenský now, the former meaning "referring to Czechoslovakism /anti-Slovakism", the latter meaning "referring to Czechoslovakia" (see for example the Krátky slovník slovenského jazyka of the Academy of sciences on the web) Juro 01:06, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

He is right. The hyphenated version was first used before the creation of Czecho(-)slovakia, but then this use faded away as the country became more and more centralized, and the idea of Czechoslovak ethnicity brought forward. Until the velvet revolution, no one ever thought of using hyphenated version (with the exception of Slovak disidents and WWII years). After the velvet revolutions, as a result of "dash war", hyphenated version was made an official Slovak language name, but the days of Czechoslovakia were already numbered. Today, most Slovaks write (and say) the name without hyphen, since it refers to the historical name, witch was, after all, undoubtedly without hyphen (except of a short period since 1990 etcetera....). Hyphen is used by those people (a lot of them, though) who 1) want to make a point, or 2) try to use "correct" Slovak and use KSSJ as a guide (these are those who refuse to say "hmoždinka" or "kľudne") or 3) have something (whatever) against Czechs.
As for KSSJ, it's trying to be too much prescriptive, not descriptive - I know the authors personally, and believe me, the definitions pertaining to Czecho(-)slovakia are very mild compared with their (linguistic) opinions (now I hope no one of them is reading this :-)).
Some real world evidence (from Slovak National Corpus, as usually): lemma "československý" 5543 times, "česko"+"-"+lemma "slovenský" 2377 times (and a lot of this - I am not going to count how much though - is about Czech-Slovak sport competitions, since most of the texts are from newspapers and there are a lot of sport pages and a lot of matches between Czech Republic and Slovakia).
rado 09:20, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(1) What you are saying about the KSSJ authors applies equally to the authors of the Duden, Larousse etc. (but maybe not to those of Oxford - but there is always a difference between "normative" continental dictionaries and English language ones), (2) Do not forget that the hyphenated form is used by the newspapers, the TV and in schoolbooks too, so it's not only the KSSJ...Juro 02:30, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(1) of course. This is a long quarrel among linguists if their role should be more prescriptive or more descriptive. Bad is when politics come in. (2) in fact, the corpus consists mostly (~80%) of newspaper texts originated between 1993 and 2001. rado 08:00, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Motto

What is the difference between the two mottos?--the Dannycas 22:32, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The first one is in Czech, while the second one is in Latin. I do not know why. Juro 00:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Well I don't know it for sure but there's one possible explanation. Period of 89-92 was period when slovak nationalists came to the power (like "hyphenizing" Czechoslovakia) and "Pravda vítězí" is in czech, in slovak it would probably be "Pravda víťazí". So in latin it would be more neutral.
Because, unlike the name of the country, the motto would not be the same in both languages, and rather then having two mottoes in two languages, the government opted for one latin version. rado 18:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading Intro

First sentence: Czechoslovakia (Czech: Československo, Slovak: Česko-Slovensko/before 1990 Československo) Isn't it strange? From this I understand, that name Česko-Slovensko was oficial name 1990-92 only in Slovak/ia, but it was oficial name of whole Czechoslovakia. I'd propose following sentence: Czechoslovakia (Czech, Slovak: Československo, after 1990 Česko-Slovensko) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.13.78.10 (talk • contribs) 18:51, 19 July 2006.

This is no better since it gives the idea that Česko-Slovensko was official in both Czech and Slovak. I suggest: Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo; after 1990 — Czech: Československo, Slovak: Česko-Slovensko). However, I am not quite sure if there was indeed an official short name after 1990, the relevant laws are burried somewhere here: http://www.nrsr.sk/dk/ and I have no time to search through that. rado 09:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
And I found the relevant laws, from 29 March 1990 here: http://www.mvcr.cz/sbirka/1990/sb019-90.pdf, which mentioned only the change from (ambiguous cs and sk) Československá socialistická republika into (cs) Československá federativní republika and this from 20 April 1990 http://www.mvcr.cz/sbirka/1990/sb021-90.pdf changing (cs) Československá federativní republika into (cs) Česká a Slovenská Federativní Republika and (sk) Česká a Slovenská Federatívna Republika.
No mention about the short name version. There must be some law (perhaps Slovak only from 29 March) I overlooked.... rado 09:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jan Strasky president?

This information is wrong and misleading. Jan Strasky was not a president - he was not elected in presidential election. As prime minister, he was administering some presidential rights, as Vaclav Havel resigned.

[edit] Where is the rest of the history?

It seems bizarre to me that there is no article that covers the history of Czechoslovakia continuously from 1918 to 1992. Or, if there is one, there is no link to it on this page! At the very least Czechoslovakia should redirect to an article that covers the full history of that state, including the various different regimes, not to one that only covers a portion of the history. --Russ (talk) 19:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Domino theory unilaterally divided the old Czechoslovakia, s/he provides a rationale on his/her talk page. The Czechoslovakia redirect itself is likely to become a disambiguation page, as there is no need for duplicates of the History of Czechoslovakia series, which incidentally is the series of articles you are looking for. (or it could redirect to it) The link to First Republic of Czechoslovakia) is plainly obvious at the top of the History section, and that article is a part of the History of Czechoslovakia series. Sorry if I lost coherency a while back, I just woke up. :) +Hexagon1 (t) 22:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Who has done this??? All the recent changes are wrong and should be reverted.Juro 01:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's a bad idea, but it wasn't done very well. Trying to correct things, I've suggested a move at Talk:First Republic of Czechoslovakia. Please voice your opinions there. TheMightyQuill 02:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The Republic of Czechoslovakia was Czechoslovakia's name until 1960, not until 1939 and the name does not correspond to the political system, because Communist rule started after WWII. Also, "Czechoslovakia" is a well-defined country that existed from 1918 to 1992 de-iure without any interruptions as a subject of international law, therefore this division is both technically and "legally" wrong. Juro 17:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not wrong, it's just different. The First Republic lasted until 1939. It certainly did not exist during WWII. France existed as a well defined country as well, but there are still separate articles on the different republics. I'm not arguing that Czechoslovakia should have separate articles for different republics (in fact, I would tend to agree with you), just that, whoever did it was not committing an act of vandalism, and that the idea isn't totally ridiculous, or unworthy of debate. DominoTheory deserve a chance to defend the changes. -- TheMightyQuill 19:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Starting over

OK, I've rolled all of this back to where it stood on November 27th, before the unilateral fork decision. Any page move or fork that major should be discussed here on the article's talk page first. There can be a master article that covers the country's entire history, with sub-articles on major periods of government (as exists for Yugoslavia, for example), but there needs to be a single article that covers the country's entire existence. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The only problem with the comparison between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia articles is that there is no History of Yugoslavia article (it just directs to Yugoslavia. There is, on the other hand, a History of Czechoslovakia article separate from this one. If Czechoslovakia is not going to be a simple disambiguation between the different country articles (Republic of Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (and Czecho-Slovakia?), then it should be merged with History of Czechoslovkia rather than being presented as a country article. It's silly in it's current form, being presented as a country in existence for 75years (when it was broken up for 7 years) and only having 2 heads of state during the whole period. The infobox should be removed either way, since it doesn't seem capable of functioning as a country article. - TheMightyQuill 07:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

By no means was I implying that the cleanup work here is done, and I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was swooping in, calling it "fixed," and bailing. A separate History of Czechoslovakia article is an acceptable content fork, given its length, but then the History section here should be a concise 3-4 paragraph summary of the country's history. We may also need to fold some of those other sub-country articles back into this one, and then fork out other sections as appropriate. You seem to have a good handle on how this information is broken up; could you propose something along these lines? The primary goal should be to make this article a summary of all of the high-level info on the country, with sub-articles as needed. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I wasn't accusing you of anything, in fact, I appreciate the work you put into returning things. I'm just trying to figure out what to do with all this. I don't think History of Czechoslovakia is a good content fork, at least, not unless Czechoslovakia is just a disambiguation page, which doesn't seem like a very popular suggestion. What else can be linked from Czechoslovakia? Most of the normal things you include in a country page are ruled out. eg. there's no sense talking about the economy of Czechoslovakia. It was totally different under communism than under capitalism, and so should be divided up and linked to the appropriate country article Republic of Czechoslovakia or Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. We could try to describe the culture of Czechoslovakia, but it might be a little difficult. In my mind, it would be really nice to have separate country articles for at least each of the following section:
Each of them can clearly identify a separate crest, form of government, etc etc. But then what's left for Czechoslovakia besides history. As I mentioned Yugoslavia is nothing but a disambig and history rolled together. There's not much else to include. -- TheMightyQuill 19:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess I don't understand your objection to History of Czechoslovakia. Do you not approve of the forks to the fork? I would agree with that. In other words, Czechoslovakia should be the master article, with a high-level overview of the country's entire history. Then we could either have one long History of Czechoslovakia fork, xor have a series of articles in a sort of "History of Czechoslovakia" series - forking each subsection of the history section here. Not too many sub-articles, though - perhaps the four or five you mentioned. Does that ease your concern? | Mr. Darcy talk 19:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Why is there a separate page for the Socialist republic but not the Federal one? I've restored Czech and Slovak Federal Republic as there is no reason to have pages for some eras in the nation's history and not others, even as all of them are available. +Hexagon1 (t) 08:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

That content should be folded into Czechoslovakia or History of Czechoslovakia; it's a one-section stub, not likely to become anything longer. You should have discussed it here prior to reverting my edit, BTW. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay then, I think the whole content of History of Czechoslovakia should be in this article, just like this article. Afterall, what is "Czechoslovakia" but a history of several connected states over a long period of time? The "Overview" template should have links to each "state" page (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, etc.) and to each of the pre-existing history sections. It makes sense, as Hexagon mentioned, to have a separate page for each state, to give the statistics, etc, of the country, without the narrative form of a history, even if it covers the same period. I think all the communist-only related material (Society of Communist Czechoslovakia, Resource base of Communist Czechoslovakia, etc) should be trimmed out of this main article as I did already, but Juro recently reverted without discussing (??). - TheMightyQuill 04:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
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