a former republic in central Europe: formed after the defeat of Austria-Hungary (1918) as a nation of Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia and Slovaks in Slovakia; occupied by Germany from 1939 until its liberation by the Soviet Union in 1945; became a people's republic under the Communists in 1948; invaded by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, ending Dubček's attempt to liberalize communism; in 1989 popular unrest led to the resignation of the politburo and the formation of a non-Communist government. It consisted of two federal republics, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which separated in 1993
Czech name: Československo. See also Czech Republic, Slovakia
Czechoslovakia in American English
(ˌtʃɛkəsloʊˈvɑkiə)
former country in central Europe, south of Poland and east of Germany: formed (1918) by the merger of Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Silesia and Slovakia, in 1993 it was divided into Czech Republic and Slovakia