Czech ǀ Central European
Photo: Marta Jandová, Czech musician and actress, lead singer of the German alternative rock band Die Happy.
The Czech Republic is home to an ethnic group known as the Czech people and is located in Central Europe, between Germany, Austria, Poland and Slovakia. Czechs’ gene pool is strongly affected by Celts, Germans and a perceptible influence of Jews and Arabic nations.
The country has been traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia (Čechy) in the west, Moravia (Morava) in the east, and Czech Silesia (Slezsko; the smaller, south-eastern part of historical Silesia, most of which is located within modern Poland) in the northeast. Known as the lands of the Bohemian Crown since the 14th century, a number of other names for the country have been used, including Czech/Bohemian lands, Bohemian Crown, Czechia and the lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas.
Following the First World War, the closely related Czechs and Slovaks of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire merged to form Czechoslovakia. After World War II, a truncated Czechoslovakia fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. With the collapse of Soviet authority in 1989, Czechoslovakia regained its freedom through a peaceful “Velvet Revolution.” On 1 January 1993, the country underwent a “velvet divorce” into its two national components, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Music is the most popular form of art in the Czech Republic and there is even a saying, “Co Cech, to muzikant”, which means “Every Czech is a musician”. Probably the most famous Czech composer is Antonín Dvořák, 1841-1904. All of Dvořák’s nine operas, except his first, have librettos in Czech and were intended to convey the Czech national spirit, as were some of his choral works. By far the most successful of the operas is Rusalka. Among his smaller works, the seventh Humoresque and the song “Songs My Mother Taught Me” are also widely performed and recorded. He has been described as “arguably the most versatile… composer of his time.”
The Czech Republic population data represent DNA samples from 200 randomly selected individuals from Czech Republic. STR frequencies were reported in the most recent European database release of the Working Group of the European Network of Forensic Institutes STRbase Project (http://strbase.org/frequencies).
Source Publication: ENFSI DNA WG STR Population Database v. 2. (strbase.org).
The Czech population data represent DNA samples from 1411 randomly selected unrelated individuals from all regions of the Czech Republic. No ethnic minorities were included. DNA was extracted using the Chelex method and amplified using PowerPlex16.
Source Publication: Forensic Science International, January 2009
[Population 401, 436]
