They're a small country. Perhaps 10 million when I was there. Say you're studying Czech and you get two reactions: The first and most common is incredulity, "We're all learning German or English, why on Earth would *you* be learning Czech?" The second is nationalistic, "Thank you for learning our proud and great language."
They've been invaded, carved up and occupied for most of their past. Mostly with the connivance, agreement, or by larger powers.
During this time their indigenous variety of Xianity was persecuted and marginalized in favor of whatever the ideology of the occupation favored: Now Catholicism, now atheism.
Their language was well-nigh extincted (to verb a noun) by German and for a century there were puristic movements in society trying not just to preserve but to upgrade and purify Czech from all the outside influences. This went hand in hand with a "national resurgence". Now we'd call that sort of defense of the indigenous, threatened culture "fascism"; 20 years ago when some other "indigenous cultures" were being swamped by Western or American cultural traits, though, it was really fashionable to support the maintenance and official spread of the indigenous cultures, and I still find plenty of progressives insistent on the idea that immigrant communities have their cultures supported, maintained, appreciated.
(For the same kind of thing, look at either First Languages policies or even the French in Canada or Galician and Catalan-friendly policies in Spain versus the vituperation unleashed on Latvia when it instituted Latvian-first policies. Had a postal carrier friend from Victoria, BC who was outraged that he had to pass a French test and maintain minimum levels of French in spite of the fact he was no where near Quebec in order to keep his job. Yet requiring Russian-speakers to learn Latvian was humiliating and ethnocentrist.)
But the result of all that agitation in the Czech lands? After 20 years they wound up occupied by the Nazis, then by the Russians, then by proxies for the Russians. And when they liberalized a bit they had tanks in Vaclav namesti in Prague and the Zeli trh in Brno. And you know, for all the bloviating on the part of the West they were in the same position before: persecuted and marginalized with the consent or approval of the great powers. Because the West said, "Yeah, Czechs, your Russian occupation is part of our agreement. But really, we support you." Well, not even: At times there were Westerners denying the idea of Eastern Europe's occupation by the Soviets.
So on the one hand they accommodate so that if the great power most likely to stomp on them tries to do so, the great power will have no reason to stomp hard. They could be behaving reasonably neutrally; it could be ingratiating.
And on the other hand they fight for their cultural and linguistic survival because they almost were destroyed as an ethnicity.
They're also not a wealthy country; they were in decent shape in the '90s, compared to other Eastern European countries. That advantage, whatever it was, was lost. Now they have NATO and EU obligations that they have trouble affording, with most of the EU subsidies held over their heads really just going to achieve compliance with EU regulations. And they're being told that the practices that got them surviving this long are somehow immoral.
It's like any other country. Politics there are also local, and some people are more focused on short-term interests than on long-term ones. But when I was there and the West was helping the Czechs and all "go Eastern Europe!" people asked if we were going to stick with the Czechs this time and my only response was, "For now. But in 10 years? You have no reason to trust America, so you shouldn't. And look out for the EU. They're deeply into control--the kind of people who go into government to regulate others always believe they know best."
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