Documents for "Czech and Slovak History: Biographies":

• Beneš, Eduard 1884-1948, Czechoslovakian president (1935-38, 1946-48). As a student at Prague Univ. he adopted the political and social philosophy of T. G. Masaryk. Later he studied in France, taught sociology and economics at Prague, and joined (1915) Masaryk in exile in Paris to work for Czechoslovak independence. After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian...

• Boleslav I d. 967, duke of Bohemia (929-67). He became duke by assassinating his elder brother, Duke Wenceslaus (see Wenceslaus, Saint ). Although Boleslav was involved in constant warfare against the encroaching Germans, he was able to create a Bohemian state. He built fortresses to control restless tribes, conquered Moravia and...

• Boleslav II d. 999, duke of Bohemia (967-99), son and successor of Boleslav I. Continuing his father's policies, he largely completed the Christianization of Bohemia. In 973 he agreed to the establishment of the bishopric of Prague under the archbishop of Mainz, and in 993...

• Dubček, Alexander 1921-92, Czechoslovakian political leader. A member of the Slovakian national minority, he was active in the Communist underground in World War II and rose in the party hierarchy after the war,...

• Elizabeth 1596-1662, queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I of England. Her beauty attracted most of the royal suitors of Europe (she was nicknamed the "Queen of Hearts" ), but she was married (1613) to Frederick V, elector palatine (see Frederick the Winter King ) in order to cement an alliance between English and German Protestantism. She became queen of Bohemia in 1619, when her husband accepted the crown offered by the Bohemian diet. After Frederick was...

• Frederick the Winter King 1596-1632, king of Bohemia (1619-20), elector palatine (1610-20) as Frederick V. The Protestant diet of Bohemia deposed the Roman Catholic King Ferdinand (Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II ) and chose Frederick as king. Influenced by his minister Christian of Anhalt , Frederick accepted but did not receive the aid expected from his father-in-law, James I of England, and from the Protestant Union against Ferdinand. After initial success, his supporters were routed at White Mt. (1620). Frederick thus lost Bohemia; from his short tenure came the derisive name, the Winter King. He was put...

• George of Podebrad 1420-71, king of Bohemia (1458-71). A Bohemian nobleman, he became leader of the Utraquists, or the moderate Hussites, in the wars between Hussites and Catholics. He seized Prague (1448) during the minority of King Ladislaus V , was elected (1452) governor by the Bohemian diet, and continued to rule the country after the formal accession (1453) of Ladislaus. His relations with Ladislaus were friendly. In Ladislaus's...

• Gottwald, Klement 1896-1953, Czechoslovak Communist leader, b. Moravia. After World War I he helped found the Czechoslovak Communist party and served on the party's central committee from 1925. From 1928 to 1943 he...

• Havel, Václav 1936-, Czech dramatist and essayist, president of Czechoslovakia (1989-92) and the Czech Republic (1993-2003). The most original Czech dramatist to emerge in the 1960s, Havel soon antagonized the political power structure by focusing on the senselessness and absurdity of mechanized,...

• Husák, Gustav 1913-91, Czechoslovakian political leader. A member of the Communist party from 1933, he helped to lead the Slovak national uprising against the German occupation in World War II. After the war he...

• John of Luxemburg 1296-1346, king of Bohemia (1310-46). The son of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII , he married Elizabeth, sister of Wenceslaus III of Bohemia, and in 1310 he was chosen king of Bohemia, which had been in virtual anarchy since Wenceslaus's death (1306). As a condition of his...

• Klaus, Václav 1941-, Czech politician. A free-market economist and leader of the Civic Democratic party, he has been one of Eastern Europe's most influential post-Communist leaders. While a member of the Czech...

• Kramař, Charles 1860-1937, Czechoslovakian political leader. Elected (1891) to the Austrian parliament, Kramař soon became leader of the liberal nationalist Young Czech party. An ardent Slavophile, he called...

• Ladislaus I king of Bohemia: see Ladislaus V , king of Hungary.

• Ladislaus II king of Bohemia: see Uladislaus II , king of Hungary.

• Masaryk, Jan 1886-1948, Czechoslovak diplomat, son of Thomas G. Masaryk. He was (1925-38) Czechoslovak minister to Great Britain, and in London he became (1940) foreign minister in the Czechoslovak government...

• Masaryk, Thomas Garrigue 1850-1937, Czechoslovak political leader and philosopher, first president and chief founder of Czechoslovakia. He is revered by most Czechs and was internationally recognized as a great democratic...

• Matthias 1557-1619, Holy Roman emperor (1612-19), king of Bohemia (1611-17) and of Hungary (1608-18), son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. He was appointed governor of Austria (1593) by his brother,...

• Novotný, Antonín 1904-75, Czechoslovakian Communist leader. A founding member (1921) of the Communist party, he participated (1948) in the Communist seizure of power and became first secretary of the party in...

• Ottocar I or Přemysl Ottocar I , d. 1230, duke (1197-98) and king (1198-1230) of Bohemia. The struggle within the Holy Roman Empire for the imperial crown enabled Ottocar to obtain (1198) from Philip of Swabia the royal title. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II confirmed the title (1212) and the election (1216) of Ottocar's son (later Wenceslaus I) as his successor. In 1221, Ottocar was forced to surrender...

• Ottocar II or Přemysl Ottocar II, c.1230-1278, king of Bohemia (1253-78), son and successor of Wenceslaus I. Ottocar shrewdly exploited the disorders of the great interregnum in the Holy Roman Empire to build an empire reaching from Bohemia to the Adriatic. He won (1251) the duchy of Austria by election, marriage, and conquest and became involved in a long war over Styria with Bela IV of Hungary; after defeating (1260) Bela, he added Styria to his possessions and, having procured the annulment of his first marriage, married a Hungarian princess. In 1269 he acquired, through...

• Přemysl earliest dynasty of Bohemia. Its semilegendary founder was the peasant Přemysl, whom the Bohemian Princess (sometimes called Queen) Libussa chose as her husband at some time in the 8th cent. Their successors united Bohemia...

• Palacký, František 1798-1876, Czech nationalist and historian, b. Moravia. Regarded as the father of the modern Czech nation, Palacký played a leading role in the Czech cultural and national revival in the 1820s,...

• Procopius the Great Czech Prokop Holý, d. 1434, Czech Hussite leader. A priest, he joined the Hussite movement (see Hussites ) and distinguished himself as a captain under John Zizka in the Hussite Wars. He succeeded Zizka as head of the radical Hussites or Taborites after Zizka's death (1424) and commanded in the great Hussite victory (1426) against the Saxon forces of the anti-Hussite Crusade at...

• Svoboda, Ludvík 1895-1979, Czechoslovak general and political leader. Svoboda served in the Czech Legion in World War I and became an officer (1922) in the army of the newly founded Czechoslovak republic. He was...

• Wenceslaus I d. 1253, king of Bohemia (1230-53), son and successor of Ottocar I. He invited large numbers of Germans to settle in the villages and towns of Bohemia and Moravia. In some villages peasants of...

• Wenceslaus II 1271-1305, king of Bohemia (1278-1305) and of Poland (1300-1305), son and successor of Ottocar II. From the death (1278) of his father until 1283 the regency was exercised by Otto, margrave of Brandenburg, appointed by the German king Rudolf I of Hapsburg. Otto abused his power, and the...

• Wenceslaus III c.1289-1306, king of Bohemia (1305-6) and of Hungary (1301-5), son and successor of Wenceslaus II. On the death of Andrew III of Hungary, last of the Arpad dynasty, he was elected (1301) king of...

• Wenceslaus IV king of Bohemia: see Wenceslaus , Holy Roman emperor.

• Wenceslaus, Saint d. 929, duke of Bohemia. He was reared in the Christian faith by his grandmother, St. Ludmilla. He became duke at an early age, and during his minority his mother, Drahomira, acted as regent. She,...

• Zizka, John Czech Jan Žižka , d. 1424, Bohemian military leader and head of the Hussite forces during the anti-Hussite crusades of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. Before the Hussite Wars , which gave his military genius the opportunity to develop fully, Zizka served under various lords; he fought (1410) on the Polish side in the battle of Tannenberg, in which the Teutonic Knights were defeated. When the Hussite Wars broke out in 1420, Zizka was about 60 years old and blind in one eye. Having joined the Taborites (the radical Hussite wing), Zizka made Tábor in Bohemia into an almost impregnable fortress and led (July, 1420) the Taborite troops in their victory over Sigismund at Visehrad (now a part of Prague). In the following years he successfully...