Bohemia (For Want of a Telegram)

Bohemia, officially the Republic of Bohemia, and alternatively the Czech Republic (Czech: Česká republika) or the shortened name Czechia (Czech: Česko), is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the north and west, Austria to the south, Hungary to the southeast and Poland to the northeast. Bohemia's climate is mostly temperate continental climate and oceanic climate. It is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic, has over 19 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is, with over 1.2 million residents.

The Bohemian state was formed in the late 9th century as the under the. After the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the, becoming the in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Besides Bohemia itself, the king of Bohemia ruled the lands of the Bohemian Crown, he had a vote in the election of the, and Prague was the imperial seat in periods between the 14th and 17th century. In the of the 15th century driven by the, the kingdom faced economic embargoes and defeated five consecutive crusades proclaimed by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.

Following the in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the  and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Protestant (1618–20) against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the. After the, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Roman Catholicism, and adopted a policy of gradual Germanization. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Kingdom became part of the and the Czech language experienced a revival as a consequence of widespread romantic nationalism. In the 19th century, the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy, and after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary following World War I, Bohemia was absorbed into the German Empire as an autonomous kingdom under German rule.

Bohemia was among those territories granted independence upon the surrender of Germany at the end of World War II, becoming the Bohemian Nationalist Republic, a satellite state of the Russian Nationalist Republic under Alexander Kolchak. Bohemia became a one-party state under the rule of the Russian-backed Nationalist Party. In 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Russian-led invasion. Bohemia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the nationalist regime collapsed and a democracy and federalisation was deepened. On 6 March 1990, the Bohemian Nationalist Republic was renamed to the Bohemian Republic, or the Czech Republic (the former name is more common in Anglophone countries, while the latter is a translation of the name more commonly used inside Bohemia itself).

Bohemia joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004; it is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe. It is a developed country, with an advanced, high-income economy and high living standards. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development. Bohemia also ranks as the 6th most peaceful country, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union.