page_title: History of Czechs in Baltimore
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: History of Czechs in Baltimore / Culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Pittsburgh Area Slovak Ensemble at the twenty-eighth annual Czech and Slovak Heritage Festival, Parkville, Maryland.
context_page_description: The history of Czechs in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. Thousands of Czechs immigrated to East Baltimore during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, becoming an important component of Baltimore's ethnic and cultural heritage. The Czech community has founded a number of cultural institutions to preserve the city's Czech heritage, including a Roman Catholic church, a heritage association, a gymnastics association, an annual festival, a language school, and a cemetery. During the height of the Czech community in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Baltimore was home to 12,000 to 15,000 people of Czech birth or heritage. The population began to decline during the mid-to-late 20th century, as the community assimilated and aged and many Czech Americans moved to the suburbs of Baltimore. By the 1980s and early 1990s, the former Czech community in East Baltimore had been almost entirely dispersed, though a few remnants of the city's Czech cultural legacy still remain.
context_section_description: The annual Czech and Slovak Heritage Festival still exists and is held in Baltimore's suburb of Parkville.
  In Ellicott City, located not far from Baltimore, there was a Czech-style pastry shop named Kolache Kreations that offered Czech cuisine, such as kolache. It was the only kolache shop in Maryland. The shop was founded by Ileana Fernandez, a Hispanic woman from Texas who was surprised that no kolache shops existed in Maryland. Texas is home to hundreds of kolache shops, due to the rich history of Czech immigration to Texas.
  As of 2014 there were only 1,000 screen paintings left.
  The American Visionary Art Museum features a permanent exhibition on screen paintings, including a re-creation of a row house and a documentary titled "The Screen Painters" made by Elaine Eff, a folklorist who serves as the president of the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore. Eff is the author of "The Painted Screens of Baltimore: An Urban Folk Art Revealed", having researched the tradition of screen painting since 1974.
  Historically, there was a strong connection between the Czech and Slovak communities in Baltimore and the Czech and Slovak communities in Prince George County, Virginia. The members of the two communities would often travel back and forth between Baltimore and Prince George County in order to cooperate on events.
  In 2016, the Baltimore Slavic Heritage Festival was founded by Yvonne Dornic. The festival is held at St. Mary's Assumption Eastern Rite Catholic Church in the Baltimore suburb of Joppa and is the first Pan-Slavic festival in the Baltimore area, bringing together 13 Slavic heritages - Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Montenegrin, Belarusian, Macedonian and Lemko. The Bulgarian Embassy has sent dancers to the festival and a variety of Slavic foods are served, including pierogi, borscht, and holupki.
  The Lemko House, an apartment complex on South Ann Street, provides housing for Eastern European immigrants. Founded in 1983 by Ivan Dornic, an Eastern Rite priest, the complex is named after Dornic's ethnic group, the Lemkos. The Lemkos are a Rusyn ethnic group inhabiting Lemkivshchyna, a part of Transcarpathia that spans parts of Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine. Lemko House has opened its doors to low-income residents of any ethnicity, but is still home to many Slavic and Eastern European immigrants.
  The Pride Center of Maryland offers Czech language services to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clients in the Greater Baltimore region.
  A few reminders of the city's Czech heritage exist in local place names, most notably Moravia Road, the Moravia-Walther neighborhood, Frank C Bocek Park, and Prague Avenue near Rosedale.
caption: Czech and Slovak Heritage Festival, Parkville, Maryland, October 2014.
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