ABSTRACT
CZECH COMMUNITIES The term “Czech” is a general designation for the people of Slavic origin from central Europe who inhabit the lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of southern Silesia. While Protestant Bohemia to the west had historically close ties to German lands and culture, Moravia and southern Silesia to the east were geographically and culturally more influenced by Catholic Austria and its Hapsburg capital of Vienna. Accustomed to being politically controlled by foreign powers such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire for much of their history, Czechs, as they formed communities in locations outside of central Europe, were often intent on preserving their ethnic distinctiveness despite being dominated by a large state. Motivated by a desire to establish communal societies in a more tolerant environment, Moravian Brethren in the eighteenth century established the first permanent Czech communities in the United States. The first Slavs to come to America, Czechs became the nation’s only large Slavic farming population; strong agrarian communities with Czech roots still exist in the American West and Midwest. Many of these communities are clustered in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, and Oklahoma, and bear names such as Pavlik, Iowa; Pilsen, Kansas; and Prague, Nebraska.
