Czech Brazilians refer to

Brazilians Brazilians (, ) are the citizens of Brazil. A Brazilian can also be a person born abroad to a Brazilian parent or legal guardian as well as a person who acquired Brazilian nationality law, Brazilian citizenship. Brazil is a multiethnic society, ...

of Czech descent who were born in or who trace their ancestry to the territory of the historic

Czech lands The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands (, ) is a historical-geographical term which denotes the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia out of which Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic and Slovakia, were formed. ...

or succession states, now known as the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

, and are residents or citizens of

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Czech people in Brazil

Although Czech

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

such as Valentin Stansel had been working in Brazil since the 18th century, the first Czech immigrants arrived in 1823. Among these early immigrants was Jan Nepomuk Kubíček, a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenter ...

from

Třeboň Třeboň (; ) is a spa town in Jindřichův Hradec District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 8,300 inhabitants. The historic town centre with the castle complex is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monum ...

and one of the great-grandfathers of

Juscelino Kubitschek Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (; 12 September 1902 – 22 August 1976), also known by his initials JK, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 21st president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961. Kubitschek's government plan, dubbed "50 years i ...

, the 24th President of Brazil (from 1956 to 1961). In the 20th century there were three large waves of Czechs who moved to Brazil: in the 1930s, after the Communist takeover (1948) and after the occupation of

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

by the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...

troops (1968). Most of those immigrants settled down in

Southern Brazil The South Region of Brazil ( ) is one of the five regions of Brazil. It includes the states of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina, and covers , being the smallest region of the country, occupying only about 6.76% of the territory of ...

Southern Brazil

More or less influence of the Czech immigration can be noticed in the three states of Southern Brazil ( Santa Catarina, Paraná, and

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, ; ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative units of Brazil#List, fifth-most populous state and the List of Brazilian s ...

). In such states, the Czechs arrived since the 19th century and were often a minority in areas predominantly settled by

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

.Modernell, Renato
O Vale dos Imigrantes
Revista Terra, São Paulo, v. 63, p. 26 - 33, 01 jul. 1997 In Santa Catarina, the Czech immigrants occupied the regions of

Vale do Itajaí Vale do Itajaí also known as ''Vale Europeu'' (or "European Valley") is a mesoregion located in the Northeastern part of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. It has about 1.3 million inhabitants and comprises four smaller regions: Blumenau, ...

and Northern parts of the state, e.g.

Joinville Joinville () is the largest city in Santa Catarina (state), Santa Catarina, in the Southern Brazil, Southern Region of Brazil. It is the third largest municipality in the southern region of Brazil, after the much larger state capitals of Curitib ...

, São Bento do Sul and Mafra. In Rio Grande do Sul, most Czechs settled down in the Serra Gaúcha (notably in the town of Nova Petrópolis), the North Coast, the area of Missões and the Central Lowlands. In Paraná, the Czech immigration is noticeable in the Northern areas, e.g. Rolândia and

Londrina Londrina (, literally "Little London") is a city located in the north of the state of Paraná (state), Paraná, South Region, Brazil, and is 388 km (241 miles) away from the state capital, Curitiba. It is the second largest city in the state and f ...

, where in 1932-1940s Czechs and Poles used to dispute the available lands for coffee cultivation, particularly in the rural district of ''Warta'' (Northern Londrina).

Central-Western Brazil

In Central-Western Brazil the Czech immigrants arrived mostly in the 1940-1950s led by the entrepreneur

Jan Antonín Baťa Jan Antonín Baťa (7 March 1898 – 23 August 1965) (also known as Jan Antonin Bata or Jan Bata, called the King of Shoes) was a Czech-Brazilian shoe manufacturer from Uherské Hradiště (southeastern Moravia), half-brother of Tomáš Baťa. ...

, a Czech shoe manufacturer who left

after the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

occupation of the

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and ) is a German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohe ...

. The colonization of part of the Southeastern region of the state of

Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul ( ) is one of Federative units of Brazil, Brazil's 27 federal units, located in the southern part of the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West Region, bordering five Brazilian states: Mato Grosso (to the north), Goiás and ...

was made possible thanks to the ''Companhia Viação São Paulo-Mato Grosso'' (São Paulo-Mato Grosso Transport Company) owned by Baťa and managed by another Czech immigrant, Vladimir Kubik.

Institutions and Cultural Organizations

União Cultural Tcheco-Brasileira - Česko-brazilský kulturní svaz - São Paulo, SP

* [http://www.mzv.cz/saopaulo/pt/cultura_compatriotas_e_educacao/compatriotas/contatos_das_associac_es_de_compatriotas/index.html/ Centro de Memória Jindřich Tracha - Centrum památky Jindřicha Trachty - Batayporã, MS]
Associação Cultural Theca-Brasileira - Česko-brazilské kulturní sdružení - Porto Alegre, RS

Notable Czech Brazilians

* Countess Elisabeth Dobržensky de Dobrženicz * František Lorenz * Fred Figner *

* Jan Nepomuk Kubíček *

* Lavínia Vlasak * Otto Richard Gottlieb * Tomas Valdemar Hintnaus * Valentin Stansel * Vilém Flusser * Vladimir Kubik * Walter Smetak

References