After Charles IV´s death a deep crisis ocurred in the whole society, but above all in the Church. The Church was corrupt, the clergymen began to enjoy wealth and luxury, to intervene into wordly politics and to forsake their primary pastorial mission. Besides there was also papal schism in Europe. Jan Hus, a professor and rector of Prague University, was a religious and social reformer. He was preaching to the common people and was writing sermons to them in the language they were using, so that they understood him very well. However, his criticism of the clergy led to a conflict with the church because it caused many disturbances. Hus did not recognize the authority of Church hierarchy, especially the Pope(s). He insisted that only Jesus Christ was the head of the Church. He respected therefore only the regulations of Jesus written down in the New Testament. He wanted the return of the practices of the primary church and was against everything that was not in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. He wanted to clear himself of the accusation of being a heretic at the council in Constance ( see the photo). But soon after his arrival in Constance Hus was arrested and burnt to death at the stake. A year later, Hus´s friend Jerome of Prague died the same death in Constance. Both men were revered as martyrs by their followers, to whom enemies gave the name Hussites. The dishonorable deaths of Hus and Jerome brought tensions in the Czech lands. The stifling atmosphere bubbled over into a revolutionary explosion on 30 July 1419, when Hussite radicals in the New Town of Prague hurled hated members of the Town Council from its windows ( the so called First Defenestration). The Hussite revolution seized the whole kingdom. The Hussites wanted to reform the Church and society in the spirit of God´s law. Unfortunately the Hussites split into a number of streams from the moderates through the centrists to the radicals. Christian Europe considered the Hussites heretics and attempted to break them with military force. From 1520 to 1431 five crusades were organized against Bohemia, but all ended in failure. Finally the moderate Hussites (who were ready to negotiate with Catholic Church) defeated the radical Hussites ( who were ready to carry on the fight) in the battle at Lipany in 1434 (Czechs against Czechs ! Typical !!)

In 1526 the Czech nobility chose Ferdinand I Habsburg (1526-1564) for their king and thus the Czech Kingdom became a part of the large Habsburg monarchy ( from 1526 to 1918). The tension between the Habsburgs, who were Catholics and for strong central power, and the Czech noblemen, who were mostly Protestants and for constitutional government, started very soon. At the beginning of the 17th century the Catholics ceased to have the leading position and finally the tensions between the Protestants and the Catholics climaxed on 23 May 1618, when a group of opposition nobles (afraid of losing their privileges) threw two pro-Habsburg governors and a clerk out of the windows of Prague Castle (the so called Second Defenestration of Prague/ see the photo). Though they all survived the fall ( they safely fell on a heap of litter and muck), a conflict flared up in full force between non-Catholic estates of Bohemia and the Habsburgs, and due to the intertangling of power interests of the Evangelics and the Catholics, overgrew into a longterm European conflict called the Thirty Years´ War (1618-1648).

The Bohemian estates entered into it quite isolated, which held fateful consequences for them. They elected Imperial Duke Frederick Palatine,son-in-law of the King of England, to the Bohemian throne, but that was all. The situation soon changed. The Estate Army, comprised of mercenaries of various origin, who were not paid well and in time, suffered a defeat in the small battle at White Mountain near Prague on 8th November 1620, and its commanders did not even try to defend the capital. Frederick fled the country and the Habsburgs triumphed. The King Ferdinand II punished the rebels and began to realize his program of an absolute monarchy.The leaders of the uprising (unless they escaped) were arrested and 27 of them executed as an example on 21st June 1621 at the Old Town Square. The estates of the other uprisers were confiscated and also the systematic process of re-Catholicization began. All the members of the Estate society (nobles and burgesses), who were not willing to be converted to Catholicism, had to quit the Czech lands. For the serfs, there was no choice but to remain and convert. The German language was given equal rights with the Czech language. Tens of thousands of people emigrated from the Czech lands, among whom many intellectuals, including Comenius(1592-1670). When the Thirty Years´ War ended in 1648, members of foreign families now held nearly one half of the property of the nobility in Bohemia.

At the end of the 18^th century the Czech nation had lived long within the multinational Habsburg Empire (since 1526). This circumstance, along with the intensive institution of the German language and the restriction of the Czech independence, instigated arousal of Czech national consciousness and stood at the beginning of the formation of the New-Age Czech nation. The revivalists wanted to elevate the level of Czech language (as it was in a very bad condition) and to create a full-value Czech national culture. There were several generations of revivalists who helped "revive" the nation, its language and culture. Among them Josef Jungmann who acquainted his countrymen with the best works of the West European literature and laid the foundations of the modern Czech language. Jungmann was the first who began to teach the students Czech in 1815, when he became a teacher at the Academic School in Prague. Especially those students, who became priests, spread the Czech language and the Czech national feeling in the whole of Bohemia and Moravia. His greatest work was the compilation of the Czech-German dictionary (finished in 1839), in which he put the words of the contemporary language, as well as the words of other Slavonic languages. Another representative of the Czech revival was František Palacký, who wrote the "History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia".

On one hand we are grateful to the revivalists for their great achievement (resurrection of the nation), on the other hand if it had not been for them,the Czech language would not have existed, our first language would have been German and we would not have to struggle to learn German at school.

In July 1914 the First World War broke out. The Czech lands were still the part of the Habsburg monarchy. The Czech nation already had all the features of a modern, developed society, except independence. The arrival of the WWI helped towards the realization of long-held Czech aspirations.

One of the greatest personalities of the Czech nation, professor of philosophy and sociology at the Czech University in Prague, TomᚠGarrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), had a thoroughly clear program. At the beginning of the war he went abroad with the aim of creating a resistance against the Austrian government. Masaryk bet everything on a victory of the Allies (France, Great Britain, Italy and USA) and in 1915 he spoke out for the shattering of the Habsburg monarchy and the rise of a new state- Czechoslovakia. With the progress of time, Masaryk and his colleagues gained international support, which was also contributed to by the development on the fronts as well as the performance of legions formed from Czech captives who fought against Austro-Hungarian and German forces.The activation of the domestic political scene and the failures of the Germans and the Austrians resulted in proclamation of the independence of Czechoslovakia on October 28th 1918. Two days later representatives of the Slovaks passed a declaration on joint coexistence with the Czechs. The peace coference at Versailles definitively fixed the borders of the new state. Masaryk was elected the president of the state at the first session of the National Assembly on 14th November 1918. For his merits of the breaking of Austria-Hungary and the establishing of Czechoslovakia, President Masaryk received the attribute of the President Liberator. The republic accepted new state symbols, the flag, the emblems, the anthem, the money, and the postage stamps. The constitution was adopted on 29th February 1920. It guaranteed democratic rights and proclaimed that "the people are the source of all might". Prague became the capital city of the republic.