WI Germanised Bohemia

WI the non-Germanic peoples of Bohemia (Czechs basically) were fully Germanised?
How could such been accomplished?
What would be any possible National Identity effects?
 
When are you talking about here?

Because how long the the Czech are Germanized creates what this Germanic Bohemia would look like and its history.
 
For much of its existence Bohemia was called Crown Lands because it was Imperial Territory
Why would any forum in relation to Central Europe have anything to do (directly) with the British Isles?
 
Let Jan Hus die as a kid. No hussite revolution - no reversion a interruption of German settlement in the 15th and 16th centuries. May not suffice, though.
 
You need to start early if you want Czechs to be germanized. Maybe making the Kingdom of Bohemia a firm part of the HRE much earlier could help with that, as well as an intense campaign/effort of discrimating the native tongue in administration, scholarship and literature. Salvador also has a point with Jan Hus, but as he warns, the 15th century's already too late to snuff out a Czech linguistic and cultural identity. Czechs are too ethnically self-aware by that point to tolerate germanisation, especially a large-scale one.

Whatever you do with this POD challenge, don't go the Ill Bethisad route. It's a nice timeline/conworld, but the idea that Czech can be easily supplanted by a Germanic derivative in the early modern era is incredibly ill-informed (practically ASB, even on a logistical level).

All that said, the dialects of OTL Czech are quite germanified when you compare OTL Czech to other western Slavic languages. Not germanified enough to be mistaken for actual German, but there are plenty of German loanwords in the various permutations of the language.
 
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Whatever you do with this POD challenge, don't go the Ill Bethisad route. It's a nice timeline/conworld, but the idea that Czech can be easily supplanted by a Germanic derivative in the early modern era is incredibly ill-informed (practically ASB, even on a logistical level).

But wasn't Bohemia/Moravia about one-third German in the 19/20C?

Is it really ASB to get that 30% jacked up to 50%? That would be enough to make quite a difference.
 
I've always thought it would be interesting if the War of Austrian Succession ended with Austria keeping it's lands, but losing the Imperial Crown, Habsburg being Habsburgs not being able to stand the idea of not being the ones in charge withdraw from the HRE like the Italian state. In the Years after Austrian Emperor's realize just how fractured their lands are and make an attempt to unify their states culturally and linguistically. Hosting certain national festivals, and Building schools that promoted a German language. They couldn't do it everywhere but it some regions they could get away with it like Bohemia, Moravia, Carinthia and perhaps Croatia. Or even meet their subject halfway by incorporating words from both the northern and southern Slavic Language blocs into the language of Austria.

With that sort of set up it maybe possible that we would see a world where there is both an Austrian and a German Language, and when the Austria Empire did collapse it would be more a of a break away of the east rather than a complete loss of territories.
 
Joseph II tried to establish German as the official language of the Habsburg monarchy.

The results were... horrible to say the least.
 

Red Orm

Banned
You need to start early if you want Czechs to be germanized.

Exactly this, Slovenes as another example were under German rule for even longer than the Czechs, and kept their identity and language wholly intact. A barrier I see to Germanization of Czechs is a physical one: Bohemia is a land surrounded by mountains and very hilly besides. Historically there were Slavs residing in what is now Germany from the Elbe river and then East to the Rus, but these Slavs were Germanized rather quickly shortly after Charlemagne. Germans came in with Christianity and generally better military tactics, became lords (as bishops, counts, barons) over large swathes of forest and plain, and the Slavs living there assimilated.

Bohemia, on the other hand, as I said is full of mountains and forested hills, hostile to any enemy army or occupation. In addition, that very geography lends the region to internal unity unlike the loose villages of the Elbe-eastward Slavs, which is why Bohemia was ruled by native Bohemians or Bohemianized foreigners until the 15th century, which is when Germanization was attempted and, as mentioned, the Hussite movement extinguished any chance of the Czechs forgetting their identity.
 
You need to start early if you want Czechs to be germanized. Maybe making the Kingdom of Bohemia a firm part of the HRE much earlier could help with that, as well as an intense campaign/effort of discrimating the native tongue in administration, scholarship and literature. Salvador also has a point with Jan Hus, but as he warns, the 15th century's already too late to snuff out a Czech linguistic and cultural identity. Czechs are too ethnically self-aware by that point to tolerate germanisation, especially a large-scale one.

Whatever you do with this POD challenge, don't go the Ill Bethisad route. It's a nice timeline/conworld, but the idea that Czech can be easily supplanted by a Germanic derivative in the early modern era is incredibly ill-informed (practically ASB, even on a logistical level).

All that said, the dialects of OTL Czech are quite germanified when you compare OTL Czech to other western Slavic languages. Not germanified enough to be mistaken for actual German, but there are plenty of German loanwords in the various permutations of the language.

Exactly this, Slovenes as another example were under German rule for even longer than the Czechs, and kept their identity and language wholly intact. A barrier I see to Germanization of Czechs is a physical one: Bohemia is a land surrounded by mountains and very hilly besides. Historically there were Slavs residing in what is now Germany from the Elbe river and then East to the Rus, but these Slavs were Germanized rather quickly shortly after Charlemagne. Germans came in with Christianity and generally better military tactics, became lords (as bishops, counts, barons) over large swathes of forest and plain, and the Slavs living there assimilated.

Bohemia, on the other hand, as I said is full of mountains and forested hills, hostile to any enemy army or occupation. In addition, that very geography lends the region to internal unity unlike the loose villages of the Elbe-eastward Slavs, which is why Bohemia was ruled by native Bohemians or Bohemianized foreigners until the 15th century, which is when Germanization was attempted and, as mentioned, the Hussite movement extinguished any chance of the Czechs forgetting their identity.

To be honest, I think what you guys are saying is a bit overstated. Ironically, Czech national identity was largely derived from German romantic nationalism, which (by making language the defining aspect of nationality) excluded Slavic peoples from 'Germanness'. A lot of Czechs living in, say, Prague, spoke in German because it was a prestige language, suggesting some desire for assimilation.

I think a big part of it is the rural populations. Germans never replaced rural Czechs, and when nationalism started coming to the fore, rural-urban migrants would've swelled the ranks of Czechs when they went to Prague etc for factory jobs.
 

Red Orm

Banned
To be honest, I think what you guys are saying is a bit overstated. Ironically, Czech national identity was largely derived from German romantic nationalism, which (by making language the defining aspect of nationality) excluded Slavic peoples from 'Germanness'. A lot of Czechs living in, say, Prague, spoke in German because it was a prestige language, suggesting some desire for assimilation.

I think a big part of it is the rural populations. Germans never replaced rural Czechs, and when nationalism started coming to the fore, rural-urban migrants would've swelled the ranks of Czechs when they went to Prague etc for factory jobs.

Didn't German romantic nationalism only begin during and after Napoleon? That's way too late no matter what for any kind of assimilation to occur before today.
 
Didn't German romantic nationalism only begin during and after Napoleon? That's way too late no matter what for any kind of assimilation to occur before today.

Why? I don't see why assimilation couldn't have still occurred with industrialisation. Hell, the Germans assimilated the vast majority of Sorbs in the pre-industrial period, and Bohemia-Moravia was in the HRE at least as long.
 
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