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There are a few reasons for the Czech willingness to help the Ukrainian refugees. One of the less apparent ones (from abroad) is that there were about 162K+ Ukrainians living here before this war (census from 12/2020). They are the largest foreign community in Czechia. 1/5
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Foreigner’s country of origin: Ukraine: 165 356 Slovakia: 124 544 Vietnam: 62 842 Russia: 41 692 Germany: 20 861 Poland: 20 733 Romania: 18 396 Bulgaria: 17 917 Mongolia: 10 135 Great Britain: 9 084 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic#Demographics 2/5
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Czechia is known for the homogenity of its society, mostly caused by its isolation during the occupation by the USSR. This is considered one of the main reasons why in 2015 Czechs (together with other post-Communist countries) were reluctant to accept Syrian refugees. 3/5
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Notably, Czechia did not have any colonies. The result of this and the aforementioned isolation is a very inward looking attitude. In other words: proximity matters. 4/5
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Hopefully, part of what we are seeing here is based on reflection from 2015, the fact that integrating Ukrainian citizens seems less daunting (esp. linguistically), and – thanks to covid – a more active civic society. 5/5
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In my opinion, Poland and Slovakia are in a very similar situation. 6/5
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And I forgot an important one! Shared history within USSR (aka CCCP) and first-hand experience with the invasive kind of Russians. 7/5