Czech literature

Literature in the Czech language, or Czech literature. Bohemia and Moravia, the Czech-speaking territories that together with a portion of Silesia now make up the Czech Republic, were for a long time provinces of the Habsburg Holy Roman and Austrian empires before 1918. There was also no separate Czechoslovak state at the time. As a result, the development of the literary language of the Czech people was historically connected to their attempts to preserve their ethnic identity.

Old Church Slavonic, which was developed by Saints Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century to fight Frankish (German) influence, is linked to the early roots of Czech literature. However, Latin was made the official liturgical language of the Bohemian realm in 1097, and its writing system was adopted for the language that would become Czech. The earliest texts in the Czech language that have survived, primarily hymns, date to the late 13th century and were produced at the courts of the Pémyslid rulers of Bohemia.