ABSTRACT
In order to understand specific features of civil society in the contemporary Czech Republic. It is perhaps worthwhile to provide a few facts about the location of the Czech Republic within Europe and the history of Czech society. The contemporary Czech Republic covers territories that have been under the sphere of influence of dukes and kings of Bohemia since the ninth century. The territory was also known as Czech Lands. The history of the Czechs as a Christian nation began in the time of the Great Moravia, when in AD 862 Duke Rastislav requested Emperor Michael III, of Roman Constantinople, send a Christian mission to his lands. At the beginning of the twentieth century, most European countries were governed within constitutional rules of parliamentary democracy based upon the rule of law. This model of corporate quasi-democracy under the personal dictatorship of a strong leader first developed in Italy under the influence of the National Fascist Party.
