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Moravians ( or Colloquialism Moraváci, outdated Moravci) are a Czech people ethnographic group from the Moravia region of the Czech Republic, who speak the Moravian dialects of Czech language or Common Czech or a mixed form of both. Along with the Silesians of the Czech Republic, a part of the population to identify ethnically as Moravian has registered in Czech censuses since 1991. The figure has fluctuated and in the 2011 census, 6.01% of the Czech population declared Moravian as their ethnicity. Smaller pockets of people declaring Moravian ethnicity are also native to neighboring Slovakia.
In the 9th century, Moravians settled mainly around the historic Region of Moravia and Western Slovakia, but also in parts of central-southern Poland, and Lower Austria (up to the Danube) The first known mention of the Moravians was in the Annales Regni Francorum in 822 AD. The tribe was located by the Bavarian Geographer between the tribe of the Bohemians and the tribe of the Nitrans.
In the 9th century, Moravians gained control over neighbouring Nitra and founded the Realm of Great Moravia, ruled by the Mojmír dynasty until the 10th century. At times, the empire controlled even other neighboring regions, including Bohemia and parts of present-day Hungary, Poland and Ukraine. It emerged into one of the most powerful states in Central Europe.
After the breakup of the Moravian Realm, the Moravian tribe was under the rule of the new state of Bohemia.Moravians were assimilated by the Czechs and presently identify as Czechs. The modern nation of the Slovaks was formed out of the nitran tribe within the Kingdom of Hungary.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Moravia publicly identified themselves as Moravians, not Czechs. Then, for fear of Germanization, Moravians would begin to publicly refer to themselves as Moravian Czechs — joining a stronger neighbour. But internally they still felt their nationality (for example, here). Slovaks were considered as Czechs by politicians, too. In the Czechoslovak and communist eras, Moravian nationality would be banned, so for the first time since the fall of the dangers of Germanization (1945), Moravian nationality appeared in the 1991 census.
After the Velvet Revolution a strong political movement to reinstate the Moravian-Silesian land (země Moravskoslezská in Czech, since it was one of the four lands of Czechoslovakia between 1928 and 1939, was active in Moravia. Accordingly, the officially-united Czech ethnicity was split in line with the historical division of the Czech Republic into Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia (the Czech lands). Some of the Czech-speaking inhabitants of Moravia declared Moravian ethnicity, and some of the Czech speaking inhabitants of Czech Silesia declared Silesian ethnicity.
There were 1,363,000 citizens of the Czech Republic who declared Moravian ethnicity in 1991. However, the number dropped to 380,474 in the 2001 census: many persons previously declaring themselves as Moravians declared themselves again as Czechs in this census. In 2011, the number increased again to 630 897. The strongest sense of patriotism towards Moravia is found in the environs of Brno, the former capital of Moravia. However, the results of the census are skewed by the fact that most Moravians do not know that they can sign up for the Moravian nationality, but would use the option, according to a 2011 survey.
Only in the first years after the Velvet Revolution in 1989 did a few Moravian political parties seem to be able to gain some success in elections. However, they lost much of their strength around the time of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 when Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.
According to the 2011 census, the percentage of people without religion was the lowest in the Moravian Zlín Region, followed by the partly-Bohemian, partly-Moravian, Vysočina Region; the South Moravian Region; the Moravian-Silesian Region; and the predominantly-Moravian Olomouc Region.Czech Statistical Office: Percentage of population without religious faith as of 26/3/2011, results by permanent residence
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