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Please think over: The statement 'Emil Ritter von Skoda (1839-1900) was a czech engineer' might be wrong.

Since the state of the (former) czechoslovak socialist republic (CSSR) was founded in 1918 (independance from Austria-Hungary), Emil von Skoda could be called as an engineer of (the former) Austria-Hungary. In 1918 he was already 18 years dead.

Regards, F. Dittrich, Germany

Okay, thinking over ... done. :-) The term Czech does not denote only state entity of Czechoslovakia or Czech Republic, but ethnos as well. Existence of the Czech nation is of course independent of the existence of any Czech state. There is no problem to be Czech before 1918. Cheers, Pavel --80.95.254.1 13:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Pavel,

the official Webside of the Czech Republic says that he was of Austrian origin

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheiron1312 (talk • contribs) 09:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your claim isn't true! The official website of Czechia listed Emil Škoda among the other Famous Czechs from history. (Of course, on this list are named some persons which were of German (or Jewish, Italian, French) origin and were in some way (birth; sojourn and creation – for part or most of life) linked with history of the Czech lands: Rudolph II, Jehuda Liva ben Becalel, Matthias of Arras, Petr Parléř, Matthias Bernard Braun, Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Debureau, Johan Gregor Mendel, Sigmund Freud, Ernst Mach, Franz Kafka. Except these all others tens of persons – including E. Škoda and his father – were (either full or half) Czech (Slavic) nationality as their names prove!) --Iaroslavvs (talk) 20:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The origin of the name doesn't prove anything. It tells the origin of the father line, but if the name comes from generations back, you can't speak about ethnic origin. But the ethnic origin of Emil von Škoda is unknown to me. We can't use the word "Czech" in this context. Word "czech" is derived from the word Čechy, which means Bohemia. But the modern Czech Republic also contains Moravia and a small part of Silesia. Therefore, "Czech" is not a suitable word in English to describe the ethnical background of any Austro-Hungarian. If he has got a Slavic origin, we can say he was Bohemian / Moravian / Silesian. But ethnic identity is highly subjective; it depends how does the person define himselves. And this is extremely difficult when talking about citizens of the former Austria-Hungary. Many of the non-German people had a German "alternative" name which was used in the German area. Sometimes the name was just transliterated (like Ignác Šustala -> Ignaz Schustala) or the given name was translated and the non-German alphabets were changed (like Pál Járay -> Paul Jaray). Logically thinking the original (ethnic) name should be preferred but this is not always obvious.

Another matter is the signs of nobility. Any signs of nobility are not allowed in names in Czech Republic (like the German von and zu). In some cases even the Czech history writing drops these signs off. The question is, should this article be titled Emil Škoda, as it currently is, or Emil von Škoda? --Gwafton (talk) 18:29, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The question is, should this article be titled Emil Škoda, or Emil von Škoda?" well he died in 1900 at that time the Austrian-Hungary Empire still existed and neither Czechoslovakia nor the Czech Republic exited yet...46.5.184.215 (talk) 13:41, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]