Liszka József (szerk.): Az Etnológiai Központ Évkönyve 1999 - Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 1. (Dunaszerdahely-Komárom, 2000)
Tanulmányok - Vareka, Josef: Az Osztrák Monarchia "néprajzi" térképe 1856-ból és Csehország lakosságának mai etnikai alapú önmeghatározása
in the east, that is, those Czech Moravians and Germans living in both the southern and northern parts of that region as well as on various small lingustic islands including a number of towns, as in the case of Bohemia. Southern Moravia also includes Croats. He considered the Wallachians to be mountain shepherds. In his text, Czoemig also points to the Moravianized Slovak in the Moravian valley and to the people living by the foothills of the mountains in western Moravia - Podhoráci (Czoemig 1,1856,74—76; II, 148-149). He also referred to the number of inhabitants as groups that would be currently described as ethnographic groups. As for Silesia, he did not use the term Silesian but referred to the number of Moravians residing in Silesia (Czoemig I, 1857,76). According to Czoemig’s mid 19th century map, the Tešín area of Silesia was inhabited by the so-called Wasserpolaken. The author did not mention the Jews whom he obviously included among the German population nor the Gypsies who were probably not mentioned in the statistics due to their nomadic way of life. In describing the Slav population in Moravia, K. Czoemig based his findings on the official practice of that time. In 1848, the government authorities described the Czechs in Moravia from political cases mostly as Moravians but also as inhabitants of the Hand region, Slovaks, Mountaineers, the Foothill inhabitants, Wallachians and so on (also, refer to Kolejka 1972, 102-103). They even quoted the numbers that Czoemig also published (Czoemig 1, 1856, 76). Prior to 1848, the generally recognized term „Moravian” had not yet been adopted by the rural population. And in their everyday lives they continued to describe each other according to the various ethnographic groups as was still the custom. Sometimes, they would even nickname the various groups (Frolec 1991, 244).In this respect to a considerable extent Czoemig’s map portrays the contemporary reality. However, in pointing to the various ethnographic groups, he chose to refer only to the largest, most common and most stable ones. On the other hand, however, the map depicting the territory of Bohemia does not mention any ethnographic groups considering that their description, should there be any kind of general description, tended to be created artificially, especially during the 19th century (i. e., the inhabitants of the Chodsko region residing in the villages of south-western Bohemia near the Bavarian border as well as the Blata inhabitants residing in the Blata region of Southern Bohemia etc.). Should we compare Czoemig’s mid 19th century „ethnographic map” with the results of the 1991 population, home and apartment census that took place in the former Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, dramatic demographic shifts may then be perceived: The number of inhabitants in the Czech lands almost doubled within less than 150 years. However, the Jewish inhabitants had nearly dropped out of the statistics in practical terms. Furthermore, a number amounting to more than a million inhabitants representing the German „Sudeten tribe” was down to less than 50 thousand. However, the Polish nationals remained (amounting to a total of58.573 inhabitants in 1991). A total of308.269 Slovak nationals were added to the statistics as well as 20.143 Hungarians and 33.489 (in fact around 300.000 Romanies-Gipsies (these were inquired upon for the first time since 1930). Also, there were 1.711 Ruthenians (until that time, these nationals had been described as Ukrainians). Added to those were 6.807 Ukrainians, 4.306 Russians and 19.245 other nationalities. Those nationals who were not included in the statistics amounted to 25.459 inhabitants (Czoemig 1, 1857, 74; Zap 1, 1846, 146-148; Srb 1992); according to the latest statistics of the Czech Republic, the hitherto unified Czech nationality has been split up into „Czechs”, „Moravians” and „Silesians”, an act carried out by the subjects’own form of selfidentification. Those inhabitants who claimed „Moravian” and „Silesian” nationality in the Czech Republic amount to 13,6% of the population: In the two former Moravian-Silesian regions they come to 35,7% and in the rest of the country they number a mere 0,8% of the population (Srb 1992). Naturally, the majority of the population claimed Czech nationality. Moravia and Silesia are both an inseparable part of the Czech Sate from the historical, liguistic and economic points of view. Although certain historians speak of Moravia’s own history, this 52
