Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was a country in Central Europe. The country was bordered by Austria and Hungary to the south, Germany to the west and northwest, Poland to the northeast, and Ukraine to the southeast. Czechoslovakia had a hilly and mostly mountainous landscape that covered an area of 127,906 square kilometers (49,385 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental and oceanic climate. The capital and largest city was Prague; other major cities and urban areas include Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň, Liberec, Bratislava and Košice. Championed by nationalists and first presidents Tomáš Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, Czechoslovakia declared independence in 1918 amid the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and had its sovereignty affirmed in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, the Sudetenland was annexed by Nazi Germany while the Second Czechoslovak Republic was formed as a client state. In 1939, the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed while the Slovak Republic was administered separately and Carpathian Ruthenia was annexed by Hungary. Although the state thus ceased to exist, following the outbreak of World War II, Beneš formed a government-in-exile that was recognised by the Allies. Following liberation by the Red Army in 1944 and 1945, Czechoslovakia was re-established under its pre-1938 borders, with the exception of Carpathian Ruthenia, which became part of the Ukrainian SSR (a republic of the Soviet Union). The Communist Party seized power in a coup in 1948 and afterward, Czechoslovakia was part of the Eastern Bloc with a planned economy. Its economic status was formalized in membership of Comecon from 1949 and its defense status in the Warsaw Pact of 1955. A period of political liberalization in 1968, the Prague Spring, ended when the Soviet Union, assisted by other Warsaw Pact countries, invaded Czechoslovakia. In 1989, as Marxist–Leninist governments and communism were ending all over Central...