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Column Name Czech Michael Binyon on the challenges of renaming a country What’s in a name? Well, for a country, everything – history, identity, loyalty, recognition and a focus for patriotic hymns and anthems. But what if your country doesn’t have a name – at least, not one that the rest of the world knows? Then it is time to invent one. And this is just what the Czech Republic has done. When Czechoslovakia split in 1993, so did the name. Slovakia took its place among the nations of Europe, proud of its independent name though somewhat miffed that most people mixed it up with Slovenia. But the other half, left with Czecho, decided this would not work for their truncated country, and opted instead for the Czech Republic. And so for more than 20 years the country was the only one in the world known only by an adjective. Over the years there were attempts to substitute a name with greater historic resonance. But politics got in the way of the obvious frontrunner, Bohemia. By then the word had taken on other associations – a surreal country peopled by free-spirited, artistic anarchists. Worse, the last time the name had been used was during the Third Reich, when Hitler, having dismantled Czechoslovakia, renamed the rump the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Czechia, the new and now official proposal, at least sounds like a country: almost all Balkan states end in ‘ia’. Will the world accept the change? This may take time. It has taken more than 20 years for the world to accept, grudgingly, that Burma is now called Myanmar. It was not the name that grated, but the fact that it was a military junta, long the target of western disapproval, that decreed the change. And as long as Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest, the West was loath to accept the junta’s name. And Kampuchea, for ever associated with the murderous Khmer Rouge, reverted to Cambodia a decade after the bloodshed was over. At least Myanmar did not provoke the 10 | the world today | june & july 2016 neighbours’ fury. Macedonia ran full-tilt into Greek objections. While the southern province of the former Yugoslavia was simply part of a larger country, Greece could turn a blind eye. But Greece insists that Macedonia is irrefutably linked to Hellenic history. A Slav republic appropriating the legacy of Alexander the Great, his flags and symbols, roused nationalist hackles south of the border. There were boycotts and blockades. Greece insisted its northern neighbour could not use the same name as a neighbouring province of Greece. As long as Skopje maintained its new name, Athens would veto all integration into NATO, the European Union and the United Nations. It took months of intense diplomatic bargaining before a compromise could be found: in 1993 the new country was admitted to the United Nations under the cumbersome title of ‘The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ or FYROM. For other newly created countries, things were easier. All the former Soviet republics used their old names, though modified according to local pronunciation. Belorussia became Belarus. Moldavia became Moldova. Kirghizia became Kyrgyzstan. Some name changes have been gestures to throw off a colonial legacy. The tiny Central American state of British Honduras was renamed Belize, ‘Bohemia was the frontrunner but had taken on other associations – a surreal country peopled by freespirited, artistic anarchists’ even before independence. The Gold Coast, the first African state to gain independence from Britain, became Ghana, and no one minded. Upper Volta continued with its French colonial name for a few years until nationalists opted in 1984 for Burkina Faso – literally ‘Land of Upright Men’. But Congo’s tortuous history has come full circle. The Belgian colony was renamed Zaire after General Mobutu seized power, a name that remained through the decades of his dictatorship. When he was overthrown, the new rulers also threw out the name he had promoted – and went back to Congo, with the addition of ‘the Democratic Republic of’, to distinguish themselves from the neighbour across the river, Congo (Brazzaville). Some countries have had to invent names from scratch. Pakistan was an acronym for the Muslim states that split from India after partition. But East Pakistan, which itself split away 24 years later, then chose the name Bangladesh – originally two words – meaning the land of the Bengalis. Countries that fuse together also have to fuse their names. Hence Tanzania, incorporating the former countries of Tanganika and Zanzibar, and Malaysia, incorporating Malaya and northern Borneo. But what of unions that don’t last? The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed when Communism collapsed, and Russia reverted to its historical name. And just when the West had grudgingly begun to call East Germany by its official name, the German Democratic Republic, the borders and the name vanished in reunification. So, good luck to Czechia. It is short, snappy and doesn’t provoke the neighbours’ wrath. Some Czechs complain it sounds too like Chechnya. But after plenty of good Czech beer the world will soon know the difference. Michael Binyon is former diplomatic editor of The Times