Corona Regni Bohemiae. The Integration of Central Europe as Conceived by the Luxembourgs and their Successors
Abstract
The study presents the Bohemian Crown as an example of political-territorial integration tendencies in Central Europe. King John of Bohemia and his son Charles IV built the late medieval Bohemian state as a union of several countries, which they annexed to the Bohemian Kingdom.
The term Bohemian Crown referred to an abstract state that existed permanently, with only its representatives, the Bohemian kings, changing. The Bohemian Crown went through several crises in the 15th century, but it always overcame them, among other things because the Czech Estates took up the demand for its preservation and the annexed countries also had an interest in it.
Although the Bohemian Crown gradually shrank territorially, it did not cease to exist de jure until the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918.