How did inhabitants born in Austrio-Hungarian Bohemia lost their citizenship after 1919?
I am interested in better understanding the concept of citizenship through the shifting political times of 1900's to 1920's in northern Bohemia.
I have read about how northern Bohemia was part of the Austrian Kingdom, then it became par of the Republic of Germanic Austria, and then it became part of Czechoslovakia.
Was inhabitants' citizenship automatically switched due to the shifts on the ongoing state administration? Did inhabitants need to follow any procedure? What were the policies or regulations?
Were there differences in regulations for people being born in northern Bohemia in 1900, in 1918, or in 1920?
Was citizenship considered differently by the pre-war Czechoslovak state than by previous Austrian rule?
Any light on this would be highly appreciated 🙂
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I would assume that Czechoslovak citizenship was automatic at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, but I'm not sure how they handled it exactly. It wouldn't be feasible to make an entire country reapply for citizenship. The birth record formats do change according to the year and the governing power, but they would all be considered legal. This article on Czechoslovakia might help.
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I believe that post-Trianon citizenship was automatically (re-)assigned based on the new jurisdiction of one's birthplace (or of one's husband's, for married women), but people could get it changed in some circumstances, with some difficulty. I'm basing this on a couple of things: one, I've translated multiple documents for people that reinstated the Hungarian citizenship of their female relatives, lost after 1920 due to the birthplace of their husbands, and two, I have family stories about my great-grandfather and family living in a railroad freight car for a time while they applied for Hungarian citizenship. (He was born in what is now Slovakia, but his wife's birthplace is still Hungary.)
Regarding civil registers: some registrars in rural Slovakia were still using the old Hungarian books in the 1930s. They just filled it out in Czech (the language of administration at the time).
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