Author: Pavel Krejčí
Masaryk University, Brno
Published in: Slavyanski dialozi, VII, 2010, 10-11
Abstract: With the break up of the Czech-Slovak federation and with the emergence of the independent Czechia in 1993 there appeared a need to make difference between the term that designates the whole Czech state (Czech: Česko, English: Czechia, Bulgarian: Чехия etc.) and the term that designates only the central historical territory (Czech: Čechy, English: Bohemia, Bulgarian: Бохемия etc.). The study presents both the past of these two geographical terms and the difference between them from contemporary point of view mainly in Slavonic languages. The Germanic and Romance languages use for making the difference between „Česko“ and „Čechy“ the existing semantic opposition of B-variant (historical territory; Bohemia) and Cz-variant (state; Czechia), in Slavonic languages this opposition is used very marginally, mainly in Eastern Slavonic languages and in Bulgarian. The primary meaning of Cz-variant on the whole Slavonic territory today is surely „state“. For denotating of „historical territory“ in those languages that either don’t have or don’t use the B-variant because of different reasons, should be used either the alternative Cz-variant (Czech, Slovak, Macedonian language) or the only one existing Cz-variant, but with the necessity of using attributes for specification, because with the lack of such specification there will be factual inaccuracy and ambiguity.