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The capital and largest city of the Czech Republic, in the western part of the country on the Vltava River. Known since the 9th century, it was a leading cultural and commercial center by the 14th century and came under Hapsburg rule in 1526. Prague was the capital of Czechoslovakia from the country's formation in 1918 until its dissolution in 1993. Population: 1,190,000.
For more information on Prague, visit Britannica.com.
Prague is also the see of a Roman Catholic archbishop, an Eastern Orthodox archbishop, and the archbishop of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. Educational and cultural facilities in the city include Charles Univ. (founded 1348), one of the oldest and most famous in Europe; a technical university (1707); the Czech Academy of Sciences; the National Gallery; the National Museum; and many other museums and theaters.
Culture and Landmarks
Until World War II, Prague was characterized by the generally peaceful coexistence of Czech, German, and German-Jewish cultures. It was the city of Rilke and Kafka as well as of Smetana, Dvořák, and Čapek. The city's literary, artistic, and musical life, which has a long and distinguished tradition, was very active between the two World Wars.
The old section of Prague, which occupies the center of the city, is an architectural treasure enhanced by the beauty of its location on the hilly banks of the Vltava. Hradčany Castle dominates the city; the seat of the president of the Czech Republic and the former royal residence, it is an imposing and many-winged structure, dating mostly from the reign of Charles IV. Next to it stands the largely Gothic Cathedral of St. Vitus, first built in the 10th cent., which contains the tomb of St. Wenceslaus. The Hradčany quarter also contains many other fine churches and palaces, notably the Romanesque basilica of St. George; the baroque churches of Our Lady of Victory (with the miraculous statuette of the Infant Jesus or Holy Child of Prague), of St. Nicholas, and of Loretto; the magnificent Waldstein Palace, built for the imperial general Wallenstein; and the Czernin Palace.
The Old Town, on the Vltava's east bank, contains the Carolinum, the oldest part of the university; the adjacent Stavovske Theater, where Mozart's Don Giovanni had its first performance; the vast Clementinum Library; the Gothic Old Town Hall (13th cent.; burned in May, 1945); the ancient clock of the seasons; the Gothic Tyn Cathedral (14th cent., formerly the main Hussite church, with the tomb of Tycho Brahe); the Powder Tower (15th cent., the last city gate), and the art nouveau Municipal House (1912). Situated in the adjacent former Jewish quarter is the Old Synagogue (c.1270), Europe's oldest remaining synagogue.
In the heart of modern Prague is Wenceslaus Square, with its statue of St. Wenceslaus. It was the center of Czech resistance to the 1968 Soviet invasion and a rally site for the support of political change in 1989.
History
The earliest settlements, dating from at least the 9th cent., began around the castles standing on top of the Hradčany and Vysehrad hills (on the left and right bank, respectively, of the Vltava) that still dominate Prague's skyline. Already an important trading center by the 10th cent., it achieved real prominence after King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia established (1232) a German settlement there.
Prague grew rapidly in size and prosperity as Bohemia's capital and became under Emperor Charles IV (14th cent.) one of the most splendid cities of Europe. The city's location at the intersection of vital trade routes stimulated its economy, while scholars and students from all over Europe came to its university. From the 14th to the early 17th cent., the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire resided at Prague as well as at Vienna. Rivalry between the Czech and German elements in the city was a major factor in the popular religious reform movement led by John Huss, a professor at the university. Huss, who also condemned the secular power of the Roman Catholic Church, was burned at the stake in 1415; his martyrdom sparked the Hussite Wars. Prague's attempt to follow a moderate course in the wars was frustrated (1424) by an army led by John Žižka.
Hapsburg rule of Prague began in 1526, when the Ottoman Turks were threatening Europe. In the late 16th and early 17th cent., under Emperor Rudolf II, Prague shone as a center of science where the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler worked. In 1618, when the Protestant Czech nobles felt the liberties of Bohemia threatened by Emperor Matthias, they vented their dissatisfaction by throwing two royal councilors and the secretary of the royal council of Bohemia out of the windows of Hradčany Castle (May 23, 1618). Although none of the victims of the so-called Defenestration of Prague were hurt, the event opened the Thirty Years War. The battle of the White Mountain (1620), fought near Prague, resulted in Bohemia's subjugation to Austrian rule. Until 1860, German was Prague's only official language. The Peace of Prague (1635) failed to end the Thirty Years War, in the last year of which (1648) a section of the city was occupied by the Swedes.
In the War of the Austrian Succession, Prague was occupied by the French (1742) and the Prussians (1744); and in the Seven Years War it was (1757) the scene of a major victory of Frederick II of Prussia. Although it had lost much of its former importance, Prague in the 18th cent. remained a brilliant cultural center. The building activities of Empress Maria Theresa and the great Bohemian nobles gave the city a predominantly baroque and rococo character. The center of the Czech national revival in the 19th cent., Prague played an important part in the Revolution of 1848 until its bombardment and capture by the Austrian field marshal Windischgrätz.
In 1918, Prague became the capital of the newly created Czechoslovak republic. Occupied (1939–45) by the Germans, it suffered hardship in World War II, but little structural damage. Prague was liberated in May, 1945, by Soviet troops after an anti-German rebellion (May 5). In 1968 the “Prague Spring,” a brief period of liberal reforms attempted by the government of Alexander Dubček, was ended with the invasion of the Soviet military. With the breakup of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, Prague became the capital of the Czech Republic.
Bibliography
See P. Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold (1997).
Prague was one of the largest and most influential cities in the Holy Roman Empire and central Europe in the early modern period. It was remarkable for its bilingual and multireligious population of Czech- and German-speaking Catholics, Protestants, and Jews; its distinctive geographic and political landscape; and its Reformation and cultural achievements. It was also the site of events of central importance in the histories of both the Bohemian kingdom and the empire. In reality, Prague was a complex of four legally and politically independent though socially and economically linked cities. The Old and New Cities, on the right bank of the Vltava River, were the center of artisanal and commercial activities. The Castle Hill (autonomous since 1592) and the Small Side, on the left bank, were home to royal and estate governments and were the seat of an archbishopric.
In 1346 Charles IV (ruled 1355–1378), king of Bohemia and Holy Roman emperor, chose Prague as his imperial residence. In 1348 he founded the University of Prague, the first university in central Europe, and he expanded and renovated the city. The new construction included the first stone bridge across the Vltava River and the monumental Saint Vitus Cathedral, which became the seat of a newly established archbishopric. Fifty years later Prague became the birthplace of the religious reform movement centered around Jan Hus (c. 1372–1415), rector of the Bethlehem Chapel in the Old City. In 1419 the reform movement turned into a revolution when a mob threw anti-Hussite councillors out of windows of the New City government building (an event known as the first Prague defenestration). During the Hussite Revolution religious orders and German speakers were forced to flee the city, and churches, monasteries, and other structures were destroyed in direct attacks and battles between competing forces. In the wake of the revolution Prague came into the hands of an Utraquist elite, a religiously and socially moderate group descended from the Hussites. Prague's population began to grow again, and schools and literary brotherhoods flourished in parish churches. Under the reign of King Vladislav II Jagiellon (ruled 1471–1516) Catholic religious orders began to return to the city, and Renaissance architecture first appeared in Bohemia at the Prague Castle. In 1483 the installation of new councillors sympathetic to the king's policies led to a revolt that culminated in a second defenestration of city councillors, this time from both the Old City and the New City government buildings. This revolt paved the way for the 1485 Peace of Kuttenberg, which established legal parity between Roman Catholics and Utraquists (though it forbade other religious groups).
By the beginning of the sixteenth century Prague had a population of about twenty thousand. The arrival of Lutheran ideas in the 1520s assisted in the ongoing development of Utraquism. In 1526 Ferdinand I (ruled Bohemia 1526–1564; ruled the Holy Roman Empire 1558–1564) was elected king of Bohemia. The first years of his reign were marked by maintenance of the status quo in religion and politics. However, in 1547, when the Prague cities refused to send troops to support the Catholic imperial army in the Schmalkaldic War, Ferdinand punished them with sanctions and sent his son, Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol, to reside in Prague as his viceroy. The residence of the viceroy helped draw Bohemian nobles, artisans, and some foreigners to the city. The mid-sixteenth century also witnessed a flowering of printing houses and literary societies and the spread of Renaissance innovations to noble palaces and burgher houses. In 1555 the first Jesuit college in Bohemia was founded, and in 1561 a new archbishop, who established the foundations of Catholic reform, was installed. In 1583 Rudolf II (ruled 1576–1612), Bohemian king and Holy Roman emperor, moved the imperial court from Vienna to Prague, making the city an imperial capital for a second time. At the Prague court Rudolf assembled a large array of foreign artists, artisans, and scientists. Among these notables were the astronomers Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) and Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), the painters Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611) and Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c. 1530–1593), and the sculptor Adriaan de Vries (c. 1560–1626). Rudolf's Kunstkammer, located in the Prague Castle, was the largest art collection in the Europe of that day.
By 1600 Prague had become a major European center of late Renaissance culture and, with a population of about sixty thousand people, the largest city in the empire and in central Europe. Growing tension between Catholics and Protestants within the ruling elite led in 1618 to an Estates revolt, which culminated in a third defenestration. This time Protestant noblemen tossed two Catholic imperial governors from a window in the Prague Castle. Although the men were not badly hurt, this action was the catalyst for the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). In 1620 the Bohemian Estates and their Protestant allies were defeated by Catholic imperial troops at the Battle of White Mountain, just outside of Prague. A year later twenty-one leaders of the revolt were executed on Old Town Square, and their heads were displayed on the bridge, an event publicized throughout the empire. The Edict of Restitution in 1629 firmly entrenched Habsburg rule and the Counter-Reformation and resulted in property confiscations and the exile of Protestants from the city. At the same time Prague's baroque culture flowered, which continued into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the reign of Empress Maria Theresa (ruled 1740–1780) a new wing was added to the Prague Castle. In 1781 the Edict of Toleration of Emperor Joseph II (ruled 1765–1790) brought with it the dissolution of cloisters and monasteries. In 1787 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart came to Prague for the premiere of Don Giovanni, which was widely acclaimed and affirmed Prague's importance as a major cultural center.
Bibliography
Demetz, Peter. Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City. New York, 1997.
Fučíková, Eliška, et al., eds. Rudolf II and Prague: The Court and the City. Prague, London, and New York, 1997.
Pešek, Jiří. Měšťanská vzdělanost a kultura v předbělohorských Čechách 1547–1620. Prague, 1993.
Vlk, Jan, and Jaroslav Láník, eds. Dějiny Prahy (The history of Prague). 2 vols. Prague and Litomyšl, 1997–1998.
—JAMES R. PALMITESSA
Capital of The Czech Republic, situated on both banks of the Vltava River; the republic's largest city, as well as its most important industrial city; a leading European industrial and commercial center.
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The country code is: 420
The city code is: 2
Local Time: Jul 20, 4:07 AM
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| Motto: Praga Caput Rei publicae | |||
| Nickname: City of a Hundred Spires | |||
| Country |  Czech Republic |
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| Region | Capital City of Prague | ||
| River | Vltava | ||
| Elevation | m ( ft) | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Area | km² ( mi²) | ||
| - metro | km² ( mi²) | ||
| Population | (2007-06-30) | ||
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| Density | /km² ( /mi²) | ||
| Founded | 9th century | ||
| Mayor | Pavel Bém | ||
| Timezone | CET ([[UTC+1]]) | ||
| - summer (DST) | CEST ([[UTC+2]]) | ||
| Postal code | 1xx xx | ||
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |||
| Name | Historic Center of Prague | ||
| Year | 1992 (#16) | ||
| Number | 616 | ||
| Region | Europe and North America | ||
| Criteria | ii, iv, vi | ||
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| Website: www.cityofprague.cz | |||
Prague (IPA: /ˈprɑːg/, Czech: Praha (IPA: [ˈpraɦa]), see also other names), is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Its official name is hlavní město Praha, meaning the Capital City of Prague.
Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the political, cultural, and economic center of the Czech state for over 1100 years. The city proper is home to nearly 1.2 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 1.9 million[1].
Prague is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe[2] and is among the most visited cities on the continent[3]. Since 1992, the historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" (Praga mater urbium, or "Praha matka měst" in Czech)", "city of a hundred spires" and "the golden city"[4].
The land where Prague came to be built has been settled since the Paleolithic Age. Several thousands of years ago, there were trade routes connecting southern parts of Europe to northern Europe which passed through this area, following the course of the river. From around 500 BC the Celtic tribe known as the Boii, were the first inhabitants of this region known by name. The Boii named the region Bohemia and the river Vltava. The Germanic tribe Marcomanni migrated to Bohemia with its king Maroboduus in 9 AD. Meanwhile, some of the Celts migrated southward while the remainder assimilated with the Marcomanni. In 568, most of the Marcomanni migrated southward with the Lombards, another Germanic tribe. The rest of Marcomanni assimilated with the invading West Slavs. (The Migration of Nations started in the 2nd century; it ended at the end of the 9th and at the beginning of the 10th centuries). The Byzantine historian Prokopios mentions the presence of the Slavs in the lands in 512 AD. The Czech Slavic tribe came to Bohemia at the beginning of 7th century and Forefather Czech became the founder of the Czech nation.
According to legends, Princess Libuše, the sovereign of the Czech tribe, married a humble ploughman by the name of Přemysl and founded the dynasty carrying the same name. The legendary Princess saw many prophecies from her castle Libusin, which was located in central Bohemia.[citation needed] (Archaeological finds dating back to the seventh century support the theory of the castle's location).[citation needed] In one prophecy, it is told, she foresaw the glory of Prague. One day she had a vision: "I see a vast city, whose glory will touch the stars! I see a place in the middle of a forest where a steep cliff rises above the Vltava River. There is a man, who is chiselling the threshold (prah) for the house. A castle named Prague (Praha) will be built there. Just as the princes and the dukes stoop in front of a threshold, they will bow to the castle and to the city around it. It will be honoured, favoured with great repute, and praise will be bestowed upon it by the entire world."[citation needed]
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From around 900 until 1306, Czech Přemyslid dynasty rulers had most of Bohemia under their control. The first Bohemian ruler acknowledged by historians was the Czech Prince Bořivoj Přemyslovec, who ruled in the second half of the 9th century. He and his wife Ludmila (who became a patron saint of Bohemia after her death) were baptised by Metodej, who (together with his brother Cyril) brought Christianity to Moravia in 863. Borivoj moved his seat from the fortified settlement Levý Hradec to a place called Prague (Praha). It was also called Prague castle grounds and later Prague Castle. Since Borivoj's reign it has been the seat of the Czech rulers. (Prague Castle became one of the largest inhabited fortress in Europe. Today, it is the seat of the Czech president.)
Bořivoj's grandson, Prince Wenceslas, initiated friendly relations with the Saxon dynasty. Wenceslas wanted Bohemia to become an equal partner in the larger empire. (In a similar way, Bohemia had belonged to Great Moravia in the 9th century and to Samo's empire in the 7th century; both of these empires had been founded to resist the attacks of the Avars). Orientation towards the Saxons was not favoured by his brother Boleslav, and it was the main reason why Prince Wenceslas was assassinated on September 28, 929. He was buried in St. Vitus' Rotunda, the church which he founded. (It stood on the ground where St. Wenceslas' Chapel in St. Vitus Cathedral now is). A few years later Wenceslas was canonised and he became Bohemia's most beloved patron saint. He is "Good King Wenceslas" from the Christmas carol. In 962, Boleslav changed his mind and Bohemia became part of the newly instituted Roman Empire when Otto I the Great from the Saxon dynasty became the emperor. (It was the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire, the exact term being adapted in the 12th century).
By the early 10th century, the area around and below Prague Castle had developed into an important trading centre, where merchants from all over Europe gathered. In 965, a Jewish merchant and traveller, called Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub wrote: "Prague is built from stone and lime, and it has the biggest trade centre. Slavs are on the whole courageous and brave... They occupy the lands which are the most fertile and abundant with a good food supply."
In 973, a bishopric was founded in Bohemia with the bishop's palace located on the Prague castle grounds. The first Czech bishop was Adalbert who became a Czech, Polish and Hungarian patron saint after he was canonised in 999.
Next to the Romanesque fortified settlement of Prague, another Romanesque fortified settlement was built across the river Vltava at Vyšehrad in the 11th century. During the reign of Prince Vratislav II, who rose to the title of King of Bohemia Vratislav I in 1085, Vyšehrad became the temporary seat of Czech rulers.
Prince Vladislav II rose to the title of King of Bohemia Vladislav I in 1158. Many monasteries and many churches were built under the rule of Vladislav I. The Strahov Monastery, built after the Romanesque style, was founded in 1142. The first bridge over the river Vltava — the Judith Bridge — was built in 1170. (It collapsed in 1342 and a new bridge, later called the Charles Bridge was built in its place in 1357).
In 1212, Bohemia became a kingdom when Prince Přemysl Otakar I rose to the title of King by inheritance from Frederick II (Emperor from 1215), which was legalised in the document called the "Golden Bull of Sicily". The king's daughter, Agnes, became another Bohemian saint. Agnes preferred to enter a convent rather than marry Emperor Frederick II. During the reign of King Premysl Otakar I, peaceful colonisation started. The German colonists were invited both to Bohemia and Moravia. For hundreds of years this duality of population did not cause any problem - before nationalism had become a world force.
In the 13th century, towns started to increase in size. Three settlements around the Prague Castle gained the privilege of a town. The settlement below Prague Castle became the New Town of Prague in 1257 under King Otakar II, and it was later renamed Little Quarter of Prague Kleinseite. The town of Hradčany which was built around its square, just outside Prague Castle, dates from 1320. Across the river Vltava, the Old Town of Prague Staré Město had already gained the privilege of a town in 1230.
In the 13th century, King Premysl Otakar II was the most powerful king in the Holy Roman Empire during his reign, known as the King of Iron and Gold. He ruled in seven other countries, and his reign stretched from Silesia to the Adriatic coast.
The Přemyslid dynasty ruled until 1306 when the male line died out. The inheriting dynasty was the Luxembourg dynasty when Eliška, sister of the last Přemyslid ruler, married John of Luxembourg.
The city flourished during the 14th century during the reign of Charles IV, of the Luxembourg dynasty. Charles was the oldest son of Czech Princess Eliska Premyslovna and John of Luxembourg. He was born in Prague in 1316 and became King of Bohemia upon the death of his father in 1346. Due to Charles's efforts, the bishopric of Prague was raised to an archbishopric in 1344. On April 7, 1348 he founded the first university in central, northern and eastern Europe, called today the Charles University, the oldest Czech university. In the same year he also founded New Town (Nové Město) adjacent to the Old Town. Charles rebuilt Prague Castle and Vysehrad, and a new bridge was erected, now called the Charles Bridge. The construction of St. Vitus' Cathedral had also begun. Many new churches were founded. In 1355, Charles was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in Rome. Prague became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles wanted Prague to become one of the most beautiful cities in the world. He wanted Prague to be the dominant city of the whole empire, with Prague Castle as the dominant site in the city and the stately Gothic Cathedral to be more dominant than Prague Castle. Everything was built in a grandiose Gothic style and decorated with an independent art style, called the Bohemian school. During the reign of Emperor Charles IV, the Czech Lands were among the most powerful in Europe.
All that changed during the reign of weak King Wenceslas IV, son of Charles IV. During the reign of King Wenceslas IV — Václav IV — (1378–1419), Master Jan Hus, a preacher and the university's rector, held his sermons in Prague in the Bethlehem Chapel, speaking in Czech to enlarge as much as possible the diffusion of his ideas about the reformation of the church. His execution in 1415 in Constance (of accused heresy) led four years later to the Hussite wars (following the defenestration, when the people rebelled under the command of the Prague priest Jan Želivský and threw the city's councillors from the New Town Hall). King Wenceslas IV died 16 days later. His younger stepbrother Sigismund was the legitimate heir to the throne. But the Hussites opposed Sigismund and so he came to Prague with an army of 30,000 crusaders. He planned to make Prague capitulate and to take the crown. (It was Sigismund, who invited Jan Hus to Constance to defend himself from heresy and he promised him immunity, but he didn't keep his word). In 1420, peasant rebels, led by the famous general Jan Žižka, along with Hussite troops, defeated Sigismund (Zikmund, son of Charles IV) in the Battle of Vítkov Mountain. There were more crusades, all of which ended in failure. But after Zizka died, the Hussite lost their focus. Eventually they split into groups. The most radical Hussites were finally defeated at the battle of Lipany in 1434 when the moderate Hussites got together with the Czech Catholics. Sigismund became King of Bohemia.
In 1437, Sigismund died. The male line of the Luxembourg dynasty died out. The husband of Sigismund's daughter Elizabeth, Albert II, Duke of Austria , became the Bohemian king for two years (until his death). Then, the next in line for Bohemian crown was the grandson of Sigismund, born after his father's death, and thus called Ladislaw Posthumous. When he died 17 years old, the nobleman George of Podebrady, former adviser of Ladislaus, was chosen as the Bohemian king both by the Catholics and by the Utraquist Hussites. He was called the Hussite king. During his reign, the Pope called for a crusade against the Czech heretics. The crusade was led by the King of Hungary Matthius Corvinus who, after the crusade, became also the King of Bohemia. George did not abdicate. Bohemia had two kings. George, before his death, made an arrangement with the Polish King Casimir IV that the next Bohemian king would come from the Jagellon dynasty. (The wife of King Casimir IV was the sister of late Ladislaus Posthumous and so her son Vladislav was related to the Luxembourg dynasty and also to the original Bohemian Premyslovec dynasty). The Jagellon dynasty ruled only until 1526 when it died out with Ludwig Jagellon, son of Vladislav Jagellon.
The next Bohemian king was Ferdinand Habsburg, husband of Ann Jagellon, who was the sister of Ludwig Jagellon. It was the beginning of the Habsburg dynasty. After Ferdinand's brother Charles V resigned in 1556 as Emperor, Ferdinand was elected Emperor in 1558. After he died, his son Maximilian II inherited all his titles and then upon his death, his son Rudolf II inherited them in turn. It was during the reign of Emperor Rudolf II, when there was another glorious time for Prague. Prague became the cultural centre of the Holy Roman Empire again. Rudolf was related to the Jagellon dynasty, to the Luxemburg dynasty and to the Premyslovec dynasty. But he was also related to Spanish Joan the Mad (the daughter of Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon); Joan was the mother of Rudolf's grandfather. Although Rudolf II was very talented, he was eccentric and he suffered from depression. Emperor Rudolf II lived in Prague Castle, where he held his bizarre courts of astrologers, magicians and other strange figures. But it was a prosperous period for the city; famous people living there included the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johann Kepler, the painters Giuseppe Arcimboldo, B. Spranger, Hans von Aachen, J. Heintz and others. In 1609, under the influence of the Protestant Estates, Rudolf II (a devout Catholic), issued an "Imperial Charter of the Emperor" in which he legalised extensive religious freedoms unparalleled in the Europe of that period. Many German Protestants (both Lutherans and Calvinists) immigrated to Bohemia. (One of them was Count J.M. Thurn, a German Lutheran; under his leadership the Third Defenestration of Prague happened in 1618, leading to the Thirty Years War).
Next in line for Bohemian crown was Rudolf's brother Matthias, but since Matthias was childless, his cousin, the archduke Ferdinand of Styria (related also to Jagellon, Luxemburg and Premyslovec Dynasties), was initially accepted by the Bohemian Diet as heir presumptive when Matthias became ill. The Protestant Estates of Bohemia didn't like this decision. Tension between the Protestants and the pro-Habsburg Catholics led to the Third Defenestration of Prague, when the Catholic governors were thrown from the windows of Prague Castle on May 23, 1618. They survived, but the Protestants replaced the Catholic governors. This incident led to the Thirty Years War. When Matthias died, Ferdinand of Styria was elected Emperor as Emperor Ferdinand II, but was not accepted as King of Bohemia by the Protestant directors. The Calvinist Frederick V of Pfalz was elected King of Bohemia. The Battle on the White Mountain followed on November 8, 1620. Emperor Ferdinand II was helped not only by Catholic Spain, Catholic Poland, and Catholic Bavaria, but also by Lutheran Saxony (which disliked the Calvinists). The Protestant army, led by the warrior Count J.M. Thurn, was formed mostly from Lutheran Silesia, Lusatia, and Moravia. It was mainly a battle between Protestants and Catholics. The Catholics won and Emperor Ferdinand II became King of Bohemia. He proclaimed the re-Catholicisation of the Czech Lands. Twenty-seven Protestant leaders were executed in theOld Town Square in Prague on June 21, 1621. (Three noblemen, seven knights and seventeen burghers were executed, including Dr. Jan Jesenius, the Rector of Prague University). Most Protestant leaders fled, including Count J.M. Thurn; those who stayed didn't expect harsh punishment. The Protestants had to return all the seized Catholic property to the Church. No faith other than Catholicism was permitted. The upper classes were given the option either to emigrate or to convert to Catholicism. The German language was given equal rights with the Czech language. After the Peace of Westphalia, Ferdinand II moved the court to Vienna, and Prague began a steady decline which reduced the population from the 60,000 it had had in the years before the war to 20,000.
The 17th century is considered the Golden Age of Jewish Prague. The Jewish community of Prague numbered some 15,000 people (approx. 30 per cent of the entire population), making it the largest Ashkenazic community in the world and the second largest Jewish community in Europe after Thessaloniki. In the years 1597 to 1609, the Maharal (Judah Loew ben Bezalel) served as Prague's chief rabbi. He is considered the greatest of Jewish scholars in Prague's history, his tomb in the Old Jewish Cemetery eventually becoming a pilgrimage site.
The expulsion of Jews from Prague by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1745 based on their alleged collaboration with the Prussian army was a severe blow to the flourishing Jewish community. The Queen allowed the Jews to return to the city in 1748. In 1848 the gates of the Prague ghetto were opened. The former Jewish quarter, renamed Josefov in 1850, was demolished during the "ghetto clearance" (Czech: asanace) at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.
In 1689 a great fire started by French agents[citation needed] devastated Prague, but this spurred a renovation and a rebuilding of the city. The economic rise continued through the following century, and in 1771 the city had 80,000 inhabitants. Many of these were rich merchants who, together with noblemen, enriched the city with a host of palaces, churches and gardens, creating a Baroque style renowned throughout the world. In 1784, under Joseph II, the four municipalities of Malá Strana, Nové Město, Staré Město and Hradčany were merged into a single entity. The Jewish district, called Josefov, was included only in 1850. The Industrial Revolution had a strong effect in Prague, as factories could take advantage of the coal mines and ironworks of the nearby region. A first suburb, Karlín, was created in 1817, and twenty years later the population exceeded 100,000. The first railway connection was built in 1842.
In 1806, the Holy Roman Empire ended when Napoleon dictated its dissolution. Holy Roman Emperor Francis II abdicated his title. He became Francis I, Emperor of Austria.
At the same time as the Industrial Revolution was developing, the Czechs were also going through the Czech National Revival movement: political and cultural changes demanded greater autonomy. Since the late 18th century, Czech literature occupied an important position in the Czech culture.
The revolutions that shocked all of Europe around 1848 touched Prague too, but they were fiercely suppressed. In the following years the Czech nationalist movement (opposed to another nationalist party, the German one) began its rise, until it gained the majority in the Town Council in 1861.
In 1867, Emperor Francis Joseph I established the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy of the Austrian Empire and Kingdom of Hungary.
The next in succession to the Austro-Hungarian throne was Francis Ferdinand d'Este after Crown Prince Rudolf (son of the emperor Francis Joseph I) had committed suicide and after the Emperor's brother (Ferdinand's father) had died. Ferdinand (related also to Jagellon, Luxemburg and Premyslovec Dynasties) was married to Sophie von Chotek from a Czech aristocratic family. They lived in Bohemia at the Konopiste Castle, not far from Prague. He was in favour of a Triple Monarchy, expanding an Austro-Hungary Dualism into Austro-Hungary-Czech Triple Monarchy, but on June 28, 1914 he and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo. This assassination led to World War I.
World War I ended with the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of Czechoslovakia. Prague was chosen as its capital. At this time Prague was an European city with developed industrial background. In 1930 the population had risen to 850,000.
For most of its history Prague had been an ethnically mixed city with important Czech, German, and Jewish populations. Prague had German-speaking near-majority in 1848, but by 1880 the German population decreased to 13.52 percent, and by 1910 to 5.97 percent, due to a massive increase of the city's overall population caused by the influx of Czechs from the rest of Bohemia and Moravia and also due to the assimilation of some Germans. As a result the German minority along with the German-speaking Jewish community remained mainly in the central, ancient parts of city, while the Czechs had a near-absolute majority in the fast-growing suburbs of Prague. As late as 1880, "Germans" still formed 22 percent of the population of Stare Mesto (the Old Town), 16 percent in Nove Mesto (the New Town), 20 percent in Mala strana (the Little Quarter), 9 percent in Hradcany, and 39 percent in the former Jewish Ghetto of Josefov. From 1939, when the country was occupied by Nazi Germany, and during World War II, most Jews either fled the city or were killed in the Holocaust. Most of the Jews living in Prague after the war emigrated during the years of Communism, particularly after the communist coup, the establishment of Israel in 1948, and the Soviet invasion in 1968. In the early 1990s, the Jewish Community in Prague numbered only 800 people compared to nearly 50,000 before World War II. In 2006, some 1,600 people were registered in the Jewish Community.
During the Nazi German occupation of Czechoslovakia Prague citizens were oppressed and persecuted by the Nazis. Politicians (e.g. prime minister Alois Eliáš), university professors and students and many others were murdered, imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. Prague was a target of several allied bombings, the deadliest one occurring on February 14, 1945, when large parts of the city centre were destroyed, leaving over 700 people dead and nearly 1200 injured. The Prague uprising started on May 5, 1945 when Prague's Czech citizens, assisted by a renegade Russian division formerly in service of the Waffen SS, had revolted against the Nazi German occupiers. That same day, General Patton's American Third Army (with 150,000 soldiers) arrived in Pilsen (only a few hours away from Prague) while Marshal Konev's Soviet Army was on the borders of Moravia. General Patton was in favour of liberating Prague, but he had to comply with the instructions from General D. Eisenhower. General Eisenhower requested the Soviet Chief of Staff to permit them to press forward, but was informed that American help was not needed (a prior agreement from the Yalta Conference was that Bohemia would be liberated by the Red Army). Finally, on May 9, 1945 (the day after Germany officially capitulated) Soviet tanks reached Prague. It was not until May 12, 1945 that all fighting ceased in the Czech Lands. German occupation caused the death of 270,000 Czechoslovak citizens, including 77,297 Czechoslovak Jews, whose names are inscribed on walls of the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague.
The ethnic German population of Prague either fled or was expelled in the months after May 1945. During the gathering and transfer of Germans a number of local massacres occurred resulting in an unknown number of fatalities.
After the war, Prague again became the capital of Czechoslovakia. Many Czechs genuinely felt gratitude towards the Soviet soldiers. Soviet troops left Czechoslovakia a couple of months after the war but the country remained under strong Soviet political influence. In February 1948, Prague became the centre of a communist coup.
The intellectual community of Prague, however, suffered under the totalitarian regime, in spite of the rather careful programme of rebuilding and caring for the damaged monuments after World War II. At the 4th Czechoslovakian Writers' Congress held in the city in 1967 a strong position against the regime was taken. This spurred the new secretary of the Communist Party, Alexander Dubček to proclaim a new phase in the city's and country's life, beginning the short-lived season of "socialism with a human face". This was the Prague Spring, which aimed at a democratic reform of institutions. The Soviet Union and the rest of the Warsaw Pact reacted, occupying Czechoslovakia and the capital in August 1968, suppressing any attempt at innovation under the treads of their tanks.
During the communist period little was actively done to maintain the beauty of the city's buildings. Due to the poor incentives offered by the regime workers would put up scaffolding and then disappear to moonlighting jobs. Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square) was covered in such scaffolds for over a decade, with little repair ever being accomplished. True renovation began after the collapse of communism. The durability of renovations was aided by the fact that Prague converted almost entirely from coal heating in homes to electric heating. The coal burnt during the communist period was a major source of air pollution that corroded and spotted building facades, giving Prague the look of a dark, dirty city.
In 1989, after the Berlin Wall had fallen, and the Velvet Revolution crowded the streets of Prague, Czechoslovakia finally freed itself from communism and Soviet influence, and Prague benefited deeply from the new mood. In 1993, after the split of Czechoslovakia, Prague became the capital city of the new Czech Republic. Prague is capital of two administrative units of Czech Republic - Prague region (Czech: Pražský kraj) and Central Bohemian Region (Czech: Středočeský kraj). As Prague is not geographically part of Central Bohemian Region it is a capital outside of territory it serves.
The four independent boroughs that had formerly constituted Prague were eventually proclaimed a single city in 1784. Those four cities were Hradčany (the Castle District, west and north of the Castle), Little Quarter (Malá Strana, south of the Castle), Old Town (Staré Město, on the east bank opposite the Castle) and New Town (Nové Město, further south and east). The city underwent further expansion with the annexation of Josefov in 1850 and Vyšehrad in 1883, and at the beginning of 1922, another 37 municipalities were incorporated, raising the city's population to 676,000. In 1938 population reached 1,000,000.
| 1230 | 1370 | 1600 | 1804 | 1837 | 1850 | 1880 | 1900 | 1925 | 1950 | 1980 | 1991 | 2004 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,000 | 40,000 | 60,000 | 90,000 | 105,500 | 118,000 | 162,000 | 201,600 | 718,300 | 931,500 | 1,182,800 | 1,214,174 | 1,170,571 |
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Prague has become one of Europe's (and the world's) most popular tourist destinations. It is the sixth most visited European city after London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin.[3] Prague suffered considerably less damage during World War II than some other major cities in the region, allowing most of its historic architecture to stay true to form. It contains one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture, from Art Nouveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Cubist, Gothic,
