Gymnazists (Czech: Gymnazisté) is an official term used to describe citizens of the Gymnasium State. Despite not being the official denonym, term Students (Czech: Studenti) is also commonly used, mostly by Gymnazists themselves.
Due to geography of the Gymnasium State, Gymnazists don't reside on its claimed territory, and are shattered in towns and villages around the territory. Despite the Gymnazists were for a long time compromised of people with very similar or even identical ethnicity, language, religion or geographical location, it is described as civic nationalism rather than ethnic one. As a result, many Gymnazists do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship and allegiance. Currently, there are no people labeled as ethnic Gymnazists.
Etymology
The term Gymnazist was derived from the Czech word gymnazista, meaning the student of an gymnasium. It was adopted as the official demonym to replace Gymnasians, which can be still used in English. The term Gymnasians was in turn derived from the adjective form Gymnasian (gymnaziální). It was replaced as the denonym because of the Czech form, Gymnazijec, was a new word in the language, and was not used even between the Gymnazists themselves. The term developed to originally differentiate Czech people of Gymnasium State from Czech people of Czechia.
