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The Town Jindřichův Hradec
“Jindřichův Hradec surpassed many a royal town, and no matter how many disasters affected it, it rose from them in its previous glory every time.”
F. A. Šubert – Z českého jihu
History:
The earliest history of the town is connected with the rule of the powerful aristocratic family of the Lords of Hradec. Its founder, Jindřich Vítkovec, who was an important Land official in the service of Přemysl Otakar I and Václav I, built a mediaeval castle in the place of the old princely fortified settlement at the beginning of the 13th century and established a market settlement below the castle.
The fact that most contributed to the economic development was the extraordinarily suitable geographical location of the place on the crossroads of long-distance thoroughfares. Jindřichův Hradec was crossed by ways connecting it with the centres of Moravia as well as central and eastern Bohemia and those heading for the Danube region, which enabled the town a very fast and advantageous connection with international trade. Thanks to this, Jindřichův Hradec became a commercial centre of its widespread surroundings, and the regular weekly markets, which were an important privilege of the tributary town, enabled both the exchange of trade products between the local population and the sale of exotic goods.
Jindřichův Hradec was famous for its draper’s trade from as early as the 13th century. The local drapers dominated the whole Bohemian-Moravian Highlands with their production. They sold their goods, via more distant marketplaces and permanent warehouses, in the territory of the whole of Italy, Austria and partly Croatia, too.
In the 16th century, Jindřichův Hradec could be considered, in terms of volume and range of assortment and export, one of the most important production centres in Central Europe, and the volume of its production was second only to Liberec in the kingdom as late as the 18th century.
According to the census of population and houses of 1654, Jindřichův Hradec was with its 405 inhabited houses the 2nd largest town in the Kingdom of Bohemia after Prague.
As suggested by the quotation in the introduction, the town of Jindřichův Hradec went through less fortunate periods, too. The major disasters were two fires, the first of which considerably damaged a large part of the town as well as the castle and chateau in 1773, while the other, on the 19th May 1801, destroyed 318 of the town’s buildings. Still, with its population of 6986 and 643 houses, Hradec remained the eighth largest Bohemian town as late as 1848.
The cultural and economic importance of the town was considerably diminished by the opening of the first South Bohemian steam railway connecting Prague with Vienna, which avoided the town. Jindřichův Hradec was linked to the main track only 16 years later.
The diversion of the main long-distance track, the slow-down of the development of industry, the lack of job opportunities and a lasting decrease of the population in the 1880s and 90s meant a gradual decline of Jindřichův Hradec from its leading positions among the towns in Bohemia.
At present, with the awareness of its centuries-old traditions, a rich legacy of ancestors preserved especially in the architectural and artistic heritage (the town has been a town conservation area since 1961) as well as its traditionally good cultural and commercial relationships with the neighbouring regions, the town is becoming a lively social and cultural centre and a much sough-after tourist destination in south-east Bohemia, thus establishing links to the best aspects of its rich history.
Tourist attractions:
The Church of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary
The Old Town is dominated by the provost Church of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary with a tower, the corner of which is crossed by the 15th meridian of the eastern length. The church, which was originally built in the Gothic style in the 2nd half of the 14th century, was repaired and enlarged a hundred years later. Its tower, which nowadays is a lookout tower and is 65 m tall, comes from the 15th century and got its present appearance - like a number of other town architecture - after the destructive fire of the town in 1801.
The Church of St. John the Baptist
This Gothic church, which replaced a Romanesque shrine standing on this site, gradually came into being in the early 13th century. In the following century, St, Nicholas’ Chapel was built, which is sometimes called a pearl of the high Gothic in South Bohemia. Interesting architecture, abundant wall paintings, a number of Gothic and Renaissance tombstones and early Baroque equipment of the church make the whole complex a unique monument of Central European importance.
Museum of the Region of Jindřichův Hradec
The museum from 1882 has been residing in the building of the former Jesuit seminary from the 1st half of the 17th century in Balbínovo Square since 1927. The museum has extensive collections, an outstanding item of which is Krýza’s Nativity Scene, the world’s largest folk mechanical nativity scene, a unique collection of prevailingly Gothic sculptures or a unique collection of painted sharpshooter targets and target weapons.
More information: www.muzeum.esnet.cz
National Photography Museum
The National Photography Museum is an institution which has been present in our town since 2002. The building used for its establishment was the late Renaissance building of the former Jesuit grammar school, which was founded in Jindřichův Hradec between 1595 and 1605. After the Jesuit Order was abolished in 1773, the grammar school was turned into a barracks. In the course of the construction work for establishing the facilities necessary for the operation of the NPM, extensive unique paintings covering the ceiling and walls from the 1st half of the 17th century were discovered and subsequently restored the academic painter Tomáš Švéda.
More information: www.nmf.cz
