First Czechoslovak Republic

Czechoslovak Republic
Československá republika
1918–1938
Motto: Pravda vítězí / Pravda víťazí
"Truth prevails"
Anthem: Kde domov můj (Czech)
’Where my home is’

Nad Tatrou sa blýska (Slovak)
’Lightning Over the Tatras’
The Czechoslovak Republic in 1938
The Czechoslovak Republic in 1938
Capital
and largest city
Prague
Official languagesCzechoslovak[1]
Common languages
Demonym(s)Czechoslovak
GovernmentUnitary parliamentary republic
President 
• 1918–1935
Tomáš Masaryk
• 1935–1938
Edvard Beneš
Prime Minister 
• 1918–1919 (first)
Karel Kramář
• 1938 (last)
Jan Syrový
LegislatureNational Assembly
Senate
Chamber of Deputies
Historical eraInterwar period
18 October 1918
28 October 1918
29 February 1920
30 September 1938
Area
• Total
140,800 km2 (54,400 sq mi)
Population
• 1921
13,410,750
• 1938
14,800,000
CurrencyCzechoslovak koruna
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Austria-Hungary
Second Czechoslovak Republic
Reichsgau Sudetenland
Kingdom of Hungary
Second Polish Republic
Today part of

The First Czechoslovak Republic (Czech: První československá republika, Slovak: Prvá československá republika), often colloquially referred to as the First Republic (Czech: První republika, Slovak: Prvá republika), was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo), a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian (Bohemia, Moravia, a small part of Silesia) and Hungarian territories (mostly Upper Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia).

After 1933, Czechoslovakia remained the only de facto functioning democracy in Central Europe, organized as a parliamentary republic. Under pressure from its Sudeten German minority, supported by neighbouring Nazi Germany, Czechoslovakia was forced to cede its Sudetenland region to Germany on 1 October 1938 as part of the Munich Agreement. It also ceded southern parts of Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary and the Trans-Olza region in Silesia to Poland. This, in effect, ended the First Czechoslovak Republic. It was replaced by the Second Czechoslovak Republic, which lasted less than half a year before Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.

  1. ^ "1920 Czechoslovak Constitution". Wikisource.