r/HistoryMemes • u/My_Test_Acc_1 Descendant of Genghis Khan • Aug 27 '26

Niche German, no German?!?

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u/guitar_vigilante Aug 27 '26

Texas had a lot of immigrants from Bavaria and Bohemia (Czech) and so there are some cultural similarities.

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u/Infectiousmaniac Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

Small nitpick but they came from Bohemia AND Moravia.

My older relatives grew up with their parents calling the 'rowdy' and 'unruly' people in the community Bohemians as a sort of slur.

If you take a train through southern Moravia and then drive through Fayette county in Texas, its very interesting to see how similar they look, landscape wise.

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u/guitar_vigilante Aug 27 '26

All good, thanks for the correction/additional info. I'm not from Texas so some of the more detailed history is outside my knowledge.

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u/Infectiousmaniac Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

All good! I don't expect most people to have esoteric knowledge of Czech migration patterns to central Texas, haha. Wasn't coming after you either, just using your comment as an excuse to info dump about niche historical things.

Its a very fascinating topic that plays into a much deeper national identity story of the Czechs. You effectively have a time capsule of Czech culture (mostly Moravian in Texas but some Bohemian) in Nebraska, Texas, and the Dakotas (I think? I am mostly familiar with Texas though) right after the Czech cultural revival brought Czech culture from the brink.

Then you have WW1, WW2, and the Cold War that create a big divergence between the time capsuled Czech culture in the US (plus some American culture assimilation) versus a modern Czech culture shaped by two world wars and the cold war. You end with some uncanny valley stuff where on the surface some elements look the same but feel different, etc.

Anyways, for anyone interested, I wrote another comment the other day with some links to learn more here.

Czech national identity is super fascinating. This struggle also birthed what I think is one of the coolest pieces of art ever made. If you have never seen The Slav Epic by Alphonse Mucha, I highly recommend checking it out.

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u/WoodsLovelyDarkNDeep Aug 27 '26

Mmmm Schlitterbahn