Expanding the section on the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Hello, My name is Ivan Benovic, I am a native of Slovakia (former Czechoslovakia) and would like to propose several additions to the section on the Czech Republic and Slovakia. First of all, I suggest adding links to two documents: – https://www.slov-lex.sk/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/1946/54/ (This is an official link to the Czechoslovak Summer Time Act of March 8, 1946 that authorizes the Czechoslovak government to set the exact dates of change to summer time and back to Central European Time. The act also implicitly confirms Central European Time as the official time zone of Czechoslovakia and currently remains in force in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.) – https://www.psp.cz/eknih/1945pns/tisky/t0216_00.htm (This is a link to the original legislative proposal dating back to February 22, 1946. The accompanying memorandum to the proposal says that an advisory committee on European railroad transportation that met in Brussels in October 1945 decided that the change of time should be carried out in all participating countries in a strictly coordinated manner. To that end and in order to make setting the dates of summer time and standard time in Czechoslovakia more flexible, the act authorized the government to set them without parliamentary approval.) Second, I suggest expanding the Rules section. The link https://kalendar.beda.cz/kdy-zacina-a-konci-letni-cas, which is already included in the section, containts the following information that is not yet explicitly included in the rules: Year 1916: According to the excerpt from a contemporary newspaper article, in 1916 summer time started in the Czech lands (part of the then Austria-Hungary) on April 30 at 23:00 (the clock was shifted to May 1, 0:00) and lasted until October 1 at 1:00 (when the clock was shifted back to 0:00). The corresponding rule should thus look as follows: #RuleNAMEFROMTO-INONATSAVELETTER/S RuleCzech1916only-Apr3023:001:00S RuleCzech1916only-Oct11:000- Year 1917: According to the excerpt from another contemporary newspaper article, in 1917 summer time started in the Czech lands on April 16 and ended on September 17, but no exact times are given, so I guess we can’t add any rule. Year 1918: According to the excerpt from a third contemporary newspaper article on the webpage, in 1918 summer time started in the Czech lands (still part of the then Austria-Hungary) on April 15 at 1:00 (the clock was shifted to 2:00) and lasted until September 16 at 2:00 when the clock was shifted back to 1:00. The corresponding rule should thus look as follows: #RuleNAMEFROMTO-INONATSAVELETTER/S RuleCzech1918only-Apr151:001:00S RuleCzech1918only-Sep161:00 0- Afterward, unlike France and the United Kingdom, the First Czechoslovak Republic decided not to adopt summer time in the interwar period due to public opposition. Year 1940: Just like the excerpt mentioning 1917, the corresponding excerpt for 1940 doesn’t contain any exact times of the change either, so I guess I can’t suggest adding any rule, but it says that summer time started on April 1 and ended on October 6 of that year. Should you have any questions or need any clarifications, feel free to contact me. All the best, Ivan Benovic +421 910 557 4114 (WhatsApp/Signal) ivan.benovic@protonmail.com www.linkedin.com/in/benovic

Thanks for the citations and the readings of sources. They agree with what's currently in TZDB except for the 1918 transitions, which TZDB and the main text of "Kdy začíná a končí letní čas" both say occurred at the usual times, whereas the 1918 source cited by "Kdy začíná a končí letní čas" says the transitions occurred an hour earlier than usual. The 1918 source seems to be full of Czech humor so I tend to think it's not as reliable as we'd like. For now I installed the attached patch to the TZDB commentary, to mention the discrepancy but without changing the data proper. We can of course adjust the data later if we find better sources. Admittedly it is hard to find good sources for central Europe in 1918.
participants (2)
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Ivan Benovic
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Paul Eggert