Czech Studies

• Why study Czech? What can I do with Czech?
• Is Czech difficult?
• What's the Czech Republic like?
• Czech activities at Bristol
• Entry Requirements and Programme Structure

Why study Czech? What can I do with Czech?

In recent years Russian graduates who have studied Czech as a part of their degree programme have gone into career areas as diverse as accounting & finance, industry, the media, publishing, travel & tourism, British and international civil services, non-governmental organisations and translating and interpreting.

Articles in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph have highlighted the need for expertise in Czech in the widest range of professions. The Czech Republic joined the European Union in May 2004, cementing its position as an important trading and diplomatic partner of the UK. It is also a member of NATO and fully integrated into a range of other European and international bodies, creating a need for Czech expertise not only in diplomacy-related work, but also in the media, in law and in NGOs.

Located at the heart of Europe, the Czech Republic, and particularly Prague, is a key regional location for a large number of British and multi-national companies, banks and legal firms. Britain is a particularly important trading partner for the Czech Republic.

The Czech Republic is a major venue for international conferences and film, theatre and music festivals, and a popular location for TV and film production.

The Joint degrees with Czech represent the latest addition to the range of universally respected language programmes offered at Bristol. Czech is eye-catching on any CV, and, like Russian, indicates originality, individuality and a willingness to take on a challenge.

Is Czech difficult?

Czech is a thoroughly European language in the way it puts itself together, and is therefore much easier for speakers of other European languages to learn than, say, Arabic or Japanese. Its structures most closely resemble those of German, Greek or Latin. As a Slavonic language, it is related to Russian, and even more closely to Polish and Slovak, which can be easily learnt after learning Czech, and it also reveals the long influence of German, especially in vocabulary. Unlike Russian, it uses the Roman alphabet, making it more instantly accessible to the Western European learner.

Students who have studied Czech find that it demands a lot of hard learning at the beginning, especially of different case endings, verb conjugations and vocabulary. Gradually, however, they develop an "instinct" both for grammar and for vocabulary, and begin to see how endings and roots repeat themselves. It is therefore a language which richly rewards early efforts and contains fewer nasty surprises at higher levels than, say, French or Spanish.

Czech is taught at Bristol by a native speaker in small groups focusing particularly on communication as the best way of internalising language. In oral examinations held at the end of the beginners' year, students are regularly surprised at their own ability to hold conversations and explain their ideas in Czech.

What's the Czech Republic like?

One answer given by our students is that, apart from the enormous suburban housing estates, "It's not like Russia at all!" In both a positive and a negative sense, life in the post-Communist Czech Republic has quickly become like that in Western European consumerist society. Though prices are rising fast, making life difficult for many, for Westerners the Czech Republic remains relatively inexpensive.

Not only the stunning city of Prague, but most towns in the Czech Republic are richly endowed with dramatic and beautiful architecture from the Gothic and the Baroque to twentieth-century Modernism. Unable to celebrate great conquests, the Czech national anthem instead celebrates the woods, mountains, meadows and rivers of the gorgeous Czech countryside.

In recent years, Czechs have celebrated the rejuvenation of the Škoda car (under German ownership), the international renown of their beer (Pilsner Urquell, Staropramen, Budvar, etc), the success of their footballers and ice-hockey players in international tournaments and in foreign leagues, their seemingly endless supply of supermodels like Eva Herzigová and Tereza Maxová and their burgeoning film industry, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film with Kolja in 1996 and continues to prosper. They add these achievements to names like Dvoøák in music and Forman in cinema, and their contributions to European literature from Comenius to Kundera and European thought from Hus to Havel. What is the history of the Czechs?

Throughout history, the Czech lands have been central to Europe's major conflicts, from the Thirty Years' War to Napoleon to the Cold War. Their history is that of a small nation striving to preserve political and cultural autonomy under constant external pressure, while at the same time making fascinating contributions to literature, music, art, philosophy and science.

The Czech Republic has existed since 1993, and has proved arguably the most democratically stable and economically successful of the countries to emerge from the fall of Communism.

From 1918 until 1993, apart from a period during World War II, the Czechs formed a single country with the Slovaks — Czechoslovakia — which between the wars was one of the most economically and industrially successful in the world. In 1948, the Communist Party seized power, supported by Stalin's Soviet Union. The Communists lost power in November 1989.

During World War II, Bohemia and Moravia (the Czech lands) were occupied by Hitler, while Slovakia was an independent puppet state. Part of the Czech resistance was based in London and Czech pilots fought in the Battle of Britain.

From 1620 until 1918 the Czechs formed part of the Habsburg Empire, known after 1867 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the Middle Ages, however, the Kingdom of Bohemia had been a powerful, highly respected and culturally developed realm in Europe. After a long period of German Catholic cultural repression under the Habsburgs, ideas of a Czech national identity developed in the nineteenth century, the Czech language was revived and Czechs gradually began to call for greater autonomy.

Czech Activities at Bristol

The Department has established close links with the Czech Embassy, hosting the Czech Ambassador on two occasions, and with the Czech Centre in London. In recent years the Department has received several Czech writers and has also assisted local arts centres in presentations of Czech films. Czech films are regularly shown in the Department and available to students to borrow, while Czech visitors to Bristol University may be invited to give informal seminars to undergraduates.