Moravians (ethnic group)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Moravians |
|---|
| Total population |
|
373,000 |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Czech Republic: 380,474 (2001) |
| Languages |
| Moravian dialects of the Czech language |
| Religions |
| Related ethnic groups |
| Czechs, other Slavic peoples |
- This article deals with the modern national/ethnic group. For other meanings see Moravian.
Moravians (Moravané or colloquially Moraváci in Czech) are the Slavic inhabitants of modern Moravia, the easternmost part of the Czech Republic. They speak Moravian dialects of the Czech language or Standard Czech and are nowadays mostly considered a branch of the Czechs, though originally closely related also to the Slovaks (they were part of the same state during the time of Great Moravia).
1,363,000 citizens of the Czech Republic declared Moravian nationality in the 1991 census. However, the number dropped to 380,474 in the 2001 census - the persons previously declaring themselves as Moravians declared themselves as Czechs in this census.
The question of whether Moravians do belong to the Czech nation or not is still alive for some groups in Moravia. Some Moravians declare separate ethnicity in polls. However, the problem has almost no political dimension and for most people the question of a 'Moravian language' or a 'Moravian nation' is purely a part of folklore.
A reason for the dispute may be lie in the fact that, for far-off historical reasons, both the Czech expression for a Czech and that for a Bohemian are the same ('Čech'). Then theoretically it may not be clear which category is meant. This leads some people (politicians, etc.) to address Bohemians, Moravians and sometimes even Silesians in their speeches.
Another reason is cultural difference. Southern and central Moravia, the cradle of the Moravians, is cleary more religious than the rest of the Czech Republic and is a bastion of the Roman Catholic Church and the Christian democrats.
Only in the first years after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 did a few Moravian political parties seem to be able to gain some success in elections. However they lost much of their strength around the time of the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia three years later when Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. According to some politologists most people in Moravia were afraid of the possibility of another division of the diminishing country.
To the north of Moravia there lies a historical part of Silesia (Slezsko in Czech, Śląsk in Polish, Schlesien in German); therefore, a Moravian-Silesian Region (Kraj moravskoslezský) was created in the 1990s.
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