CENTRAL EUROPE REVISITED (Part 2)

By Mike McPhee

[This is the text of an Address at the Sydney Unitarian Church on 21 October 2018.]

As we noted in Part 1, the Czech Republic and are too entangled, historically and geographically, with Austria and Hungary to be dealt with in isolation. The historical connections go back much further than the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the central geographical tie is the Danube River, on which three of the four national capitals are located.

Before we start our tour (meeting some fellow Unitarians along the way), it may be useful to have a quick look at the topography of the region. The Czech Republic is largely low level, though hilly in many areas, and it has low mountain ranges on its borders with Germany. Much of Slovakia has the Tatra mountain ranges which, while hardly comparable to the Alps, are the highest part of the Carpathian mountains that extend into Romania.

Both countries have a continental divide on their northern borders that causes most of their rivers to drain into the Danube and others to flow north into Germany and Poland. Indeed, the Elbe and Oder Rivers rise in the Czech Republic, as does the Morava River, which joins the Danube before it forms a small part of the border between Slovakia and Hungary.

As we saw last time, the inhabitants of what are now Austria and Hungary were Celts at the time the Romans arrived in those regions. The same is true of the former , though the Celts in those regions had, at most, indirect contact with the Romans. More importantly, many historians believe that Central Europe was the original Celtic heartland and that their Hallstadt culture in Austria initiated the Iron Age in the 8th Century BCE and enabled them to spread rapidly across most of Europe.

In any case, the Celts in former Czechoslovakia were displaced over time by migrating Germanic tribes from the east. They, in turn, moved into what is now Bavaria and were replaced by Slavs, who arrived in Slovakia from the 4th Century CE and in the Czech Lands (now known as Bohemia and Moravia ) by the 6th Century. (It should be noted that ‘Bohemia’ is derived from the name of the Celtic Boii people who lived there at first.)

The first Slavic state in the region formed in the late 7th Century along the Morava River (a tributary of the Danube), for which reason it became known as Moravia. Over the next 300 years, it became the dominant force in Bohemia, most of Slovakia and parts of Poland and Hungary. At its peak in the late 900s, the Great Moravian Empire may have encompassed the whole of Hungary, more of Poland, parts of Germany, Austria, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia and even Ukraine. The Moravians were already aware of Christianity but, when the Roman Church declined King Rastislav’s request, he asked the Orthodox Church in Constantinople to send teachers to introduce literacy and a legal system. In 863, Saints Cyril and Methodius arrived and they developed an alphabet for the Slavic language which was used to translate holy scripture. A later king went over to the Western Church and expelled the Orthodox missionaries, but their disciples went to Bulgaria and developed the Cyrillic alphabet that is still used there, as well as in Serbia, Macedonia, Russia and some other former states of the Soviet Union.

Moravia collapsed in 907 under attacks from Hungary and the Eastern Franks of Germany. Bohemia became the new centre of power, though its rulers were subordinate to the Franks and, later, to the Holy Roman Empire. After a decisive defeat of the Hungarians by Bohemian and Empire forces in 955, the dukes of Bohemia were given possession of Moravia. Their Přemyslid dynasty started calling themselves kings from 1085 and it became their practice to put Moravia under the governance of their eldest sons.

Under King Wenceslaus I, Bohemia repelled the Mongol invasion that had devastated much of Central Europe (including Moravia) in the mid-1200s. Such was the loss of life in that period that Germans were encouraged to settle along Bohemia’s borders, which would have long-term consequences. Shortly after that, King Ottokar II briefly conquered eastern Austria and Slovenia, forming an empire that reached the Adriatic Sea. His son, Wenceslaus II, became the king of Poland and his grandson, Wenceslaus III, succeeded him and was also elected king of Hungary.

The dynasty changed in 1310, when Count John of Luxembourg married Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. This was actually a recognition of the kingdom’s power, as he was the eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII. His son, King Charles I, became Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in 1355, who brought Bohemia to its greatest extent ever. He made Prague his imperial capital and accomplished great works in that city (more about that later). His son, Sigismund, succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor in 1433, after first becoming the king of Hungary and Croatia, but the Bohemian leadership refused to recognise him as their king.

During the 1400s, the Bohemian nobility and many of its population embraced the Protestantism of Jan Hus, an academic from Prague who was burned at the stake during the Council of Constance in 1415. No less than five papal crusades were launched against Bohemia between 1420 and 1431, all of which were repulsed by the Hussites. A negotiated settlement affirmed freedom of religion in the kingdom and this enlightened arrange- ment lasted long after Bohemia came under the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526.

In 1618, the Bohemian nobility revolted against Catholic encroachment on their rights, but they were crushed at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. Their leaders were either executed or exiled, and their estates were given to Catholic magnates from elsewhere in the Habsburg’s realms.

Slovakia, meanwhile, had been under Hungarian control since 1000 CE, though the populace retained its Slavic language and culture. After the Ottoman invasion of 1526, only Upper Hungary remained free and Pozsony () became the capital from 1536 to 1783. The Habsburgs ascended to the Hungarian throne in 1570 and all future kings of Hungary were the Holy Roman Emperors of the day. When the Empire was dissolved in 1806, that position was held by the Emperors of Austria.

Bohemia (with Moravia) remained a nominal kingdom under the same rulers as Hungary until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Industrial Revolution started there in the 1800s and, possibly because of their proximity to Germany, the Czech Lands became the most developed region in the Empire. In contrast, the Hungarian territories remained largely agrarian – except for some mining in Slovakia’s mountain ranges.

By the mid-1800s, there were nationalist rumblings in many provinces of the Empire. In both the Czech Lands and Slovakia, linguistic and cultural revivals emerged that were strongly influenced by Pan-Slavism. The turn of the century saw the formation of overtly nationalist parties that won seats in the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (left), a philosophy professor at Charles University in Prague, served two terms in Vienna but, after World War I broke out, he went to various Allied countries to campaign for an independent Czechoslovakia. He was assisted by Edvard Beneš, a fellow Czech, and Milan Štefánik (right), a Slovak former student of his who had become an astronomer in France and then a pilot in the French air force.

The three met in Paris in 1915 and formed the Czechoslovak National Council in the next year, which became recognised by all of the Allies as the provisional government by the summer of 1918. Masaryk had spent most of that year in the US, gathering the support of President Woodrow Wilson’s government and that of the one million Czech and Slovak immigrants there. He declared the independence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia from Philadelphia on 18 October 1918 and was elected president before he arrived in Prague in December.

The new nation had its teething troubles, as its population consisted of Czechs (51%), Slovaks (16%), Germans (22%), Hungarians (5%) and Rusyns (4%). Most people don’t know about that last group, as they lived in a little territory in the far east known variously as Ruthenia, Carpatho-Ukraine or Sub-Carpathian Rus. Also part of Hungary until 1918, that polyglot region joined Czechoslovakia in 1919. It was annexed by Hungary during World War II and became part of the Ukrainian SSR after that. (Also with the map, Silesia is the region on the border between Moravia proper and Poland. In those days, the German region also known as Silesia took up most of that border.)

There were also attempts by Austria to gain the largely German-inhabited borderland and by Hungary to retain Slovakia and Ruthenia, but the former was rebuffed and the latter was defeated militarily. Czechoslovakia went on to become a prosperous democratic nation with many progressive social policies, especially in the field of education. Although Slovakia and Ruthenia had a degree of autonomy, the Czechs had the numbers and the industrial advancement to be the dominant force in the country’s development, which led to some disaffection in those regions. Marasaryk was re-elected as president twice, in 1927 and 1934, but he retired in 1935 on grounds of age and health, dying in 1937. His successor was the aforementioned Edvard Beneš, who formed the Czechoslovak government-in-exile after the infamous Munich Agreement. Czechoslovakia was the last democracy left in Central Europe when that happened.

We all know the history of Czechoslovakia during and after World War II, so we’ll ‘fast-forward’ to 1993, when the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated. The Czech Republic has a population of close to 11 million and six of its cities have over 100,000 inhabitants. It is a unitary state but it has a number of administrative regions, some of which reflect the former territories of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia.

The country has a highly diversified economy, with industries ranging from steelmaking and heavy industry to chemicals and pharmaceuticals to electronics and technology. It has a per capita GDP comparable to those of Slovenia and Italy, and its unemployment and poverty rates are among the lowest in the OECD countries.

So, now we can begin our actual tour, and where else to start but in Prague? This fascinating city of 1.3 million people has been the centre of the Czech state for over 1000 years and it has seen many transformations over that time. Yet, it still retains much of its medieval past, not least because later developments were confined to their own respective precincts.

Prague is situated on the Vltava River, a tributary of the Elbe, that would have been an important trading route even in Celtic times. It was founded in about 880 by Prince Bořivoj of the Přemyslid dynasty who, with his wife, Ludmila, had been baptised by St. Methodius.

Bořivoj built the first Prague Castle, really just a walled fortress, which expanded over the centuries to become one of the largest castle complexes in the world. The settlements that sprang up around it soon became an important trading centre that attracted merchants from all over Europe. With Prague as its capital, Bohemia began to distance itself from the declining Great Moravian Empire and made alliances with its Bavarian and other German neighbours.

This, in turn, meant a shift from the Orthodox Church to Roman Catholicism. The small church in the castle was replaced by two new Romanesque buildings dedicated respectively to St. George and St. Vitus. The latter was completed by Bořivoj’s grandson, Prince Václav I (known to us as ‘Good King Wenceslas’) in 930. He was assassinated five years later, still not thirty years old, and his remains were interred in a special chapel in what is now St. Vitus’ Cathedral. The present Gothic structure is the third to be built on that site and the nucleus of it goes back to the 1300s.

Another fortification was built at Vyšehrad on the other side of the Vltava in the 11th Century and the two towns were connected by a stone bridge in 1170. Strangely, the new settlement became known as the Old Town, after the Hradčany (Castle District) side was redeveloped in the 14th Century. Certainly, the Old Town today has the more medieval appearance, with its central square, the many old buildings and the monument to Jan Hus, though that was erected only in 1915 to mark the 600th anniversary of his death.

Also on the square is the Old Town Hall and the Church of Our Lady of Týn, built in the Late Gothic style in the 1300s to replace an older church. The Town Hall is famous for its magnificent astronomical clock, made in 1410 with other mechanical features added later.

The clock’s hands show the locations of the Sun and Moon in the Zodiac, but the 24-hour time can be read on the outer ring. A skeleton pulls on a chain to rings a bell at the top that chimes the hour and statues of the Twelve Apostles move in and out of the doors above the clock – it’s all quite remarkable to see. One last feature in the Old Town is the Powder Tower, originally one of the 13 gates in the wall that surround- ed the town. It was reconstructed between 1475 and 1485 as an attractive entrance through which visitors could proceed to the bridge and then to Prague Castle. The tower received its strange name after gunpowder was stored there in the 1600s.

As was mentioned before, Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV did great work in making Prague a worthy capital of the Empire. His legacy includes the Charles Bridge, built to replace the crumbling earlier one, which took 45 years to construct and was completed after his death. Its 30 statues were added in about 1700.

Charles also established the first university in Eastern Europe in 1348. It is still known today as Charles University and it remains the country’s largest tertiary institution, with 17 faculties and 51,000 students.

Lest anyone think that all of Prague is medieval, Charles IV also commissioned the New Town to be built out- side the city walls, allocating an area three times that of the Old Town for the purpose. The university was located here and, over the centuries, government and commercial buildings were constructed in more modern styles. Today, the New Town hosts the impressive avenue known as Václavské Náměstí (literally, Wenceslas Square), where are found a statue of Saint Wenceslas on horseback at one end and the National Museum at the other. The Museum was built in 1818 and the statue was added in 1924.

After 1990, one outer district was given over to high-rise buildings, the most controversial of which is known as the Dancing House. Designed by architects Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić, it was built by the Dutch ING Bank and completed in 1996.It also has a restaurant, a gallery, a conference centre and a terrace on the top that provides a panoramic view of the city.

However, we can’t leave Prague without visiting our Unitarian confreres, who call themselves the Religious Society of Czech Unitarians. Their founder, Norbert Fabian Čapek, was born a Catholic but became a Baptist minister and a missionary. Already an accomplished writer and editor of religious journals, he attended the conference of the International Association for Religious Freedom in Berlin in 1910, where Tomáš Masaryk introduced him to officers of the American Unitarian Association. Čapek and his family lived in the US between 1914 and 1921, during which time he became a Unitarian.

He returned to Prague and founded the Religious Liberal Fellowship a year later. The Fellowship’s numbers in Prague grew to 3200 over the next twenty years, making it the largest Unitarian congregation in the world at that time. The national membership was 8000, including six lay-led fellowships in other cities and towns, which Čapek visited regularly. He wrote many books and hymns, translating some of the latter from English to Czech, and developed the Flower Communion that Unitarians around the world now celebrate.

Tragically, Čapek was arrested after the Nazi invasion for listening to BBC radio and eventually sent to the Dachau internment camp. He wrote his most haunting hymn, ‘Out of the Depths’, there and it is reported that he was of great comfort to other inmates. In the October of 1942, he was taken to Hartheim Castle in Austria and killed by poison gas.

It is unclear whether the Prague Unitaria building was acquired or constructed and when; however, it is near Charles Bridge on the city side of the river and it serves as both the main Prague church and the headquarters of the RSCU. Here are scenes of its front door and the stained glass window inside. They actually have services in English on the first and third Sundays of every month, after the normal Czech service.

Today, the Society’s membership is not as large as before but it has churches in Prague (two), Brno, Teplice and Plzeň; also fellowships in Liberec and Ostrava, so it is represented in four of the six largest cities in the country. A recent addition is the National Wider Fellowship, which welcomes members from all over the country. There is also a branch of the European UUs, who are mostly expatriate Americans, that calls itself the International Unitarian Church of Prague and has its own minister.

Our tour of the rest of Bohemia begins at Budějovice, one of the smaller cities in the country but the largest in the south, with a population of 900,000. Located at the confluence of the Vltava and a tributary, it was founded in 1265 by King Ottokar II to secure the southern border. It probably had a significant Austrian population from the outset, as its German name gave rise to the well-known Budweiser beer.

Much of the city’s significant Gothic and Baroque architecture is located around the central Ottokur II Square, with its Samson Fountain. The Town Hall is there, too, famous for its murals and bronze gargoyles. There is also a Dominican Monastery that goes back to the city’s foundation.

The original Church of St. Nicholas was built here between 1265 and the mid-1300s, repaired and rebuilt numerous times, and the Black Tower for its bell was added in the 16th Century. It became a cathedral in 1765, when Budějovice was made a diocese.

For all its small size, the city’s importance in the region is shown by the fact that the University of South Bohemia was established there in 1991 and also a regional museum.

About 130 km due west of Prague is the amazing town of Karlovy Vary, with a population of just 50,000. Its German name is Carlsbad (Charles’ Bath) because Emperor Charles IV is said to have found a thermal spring there and founded the town in 1370 on an existing settlement. The area has no less than 13 main springs and 300 smaller ones – even the local Teplá River has warm water! It flows into the Ohře River, a tributary of the Elbe that actually rises in Bavaria.

Not a great deal appears to have happened there until the 19th Century, when the town’s spas became popular with aristocrats and celebrities from all over Europe. This probably explains why the Church of St. Mary Magdalene only dates from 1737; the Orthodox Church of St. Peter and St. Paul was built for the benefit of Russian and Serbian visitors in the 1890s.

The many spas, some of which have hotels built over them, often have colonnades for entrances. The Mill Colonnade is one of the finest examples, built in 1871–81. It has 124 Corinthian columns, twelve statues representing the months of the year on the portico above, and a raised orchestra space outside.

Despite the dearth of information about Karlovy Vary’s past, it has a very attractive Old Town, some of which was influenced by the Art Nouveau style in the 19th Century. The town is still a major tourist attraction today, as well as hosting conferences and an annual International Film Festival.

A bit to the east is Plzeň, the Czech Republic’s fourth-largest city, with a population of over 170,000. It had a castle as long ago as 976 and it was made a ‘Royal Town’ by King Wenceslas II in 1295. The nucleus of what is now the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew (centre of picture) probably dates from that time, though the present structure only achieved cathedral status in 1993. The town became a trading and industrial centre from the 1800s and its Škoda Works still produces locomotives, trams and subway trains.

The Cathedral is on Republic Square, along with the Town Hall that has stood there since 1496. The monument is known as the St. Mary’s Plague Column and was erected in 1681 after the town was spared the year before from a pestilence that affected much of the region. From the German name for the city, Pilsen, we now have Pilsner beers. While the brewing of beer in Plzeň goes back to its origins, the first brewery to produce the genuine Pilsner flavour was built by the town council in 1842. Sadly, that brewery has been foreign-owned since 1999 but it still exports its products all over the world.

All of the cities and towns we’ve seen since Prague were part of the Sudetenland region that was annexed in 1938. The same was true of the Ore Mountains on Bohemia’s northern border which, while not higher than 1000 metres above sea level, had formed an effective border for 800 years. The range’s name is appropriate, as mining there goes back 2500 years – initially, for tin and silver, but uranium has been the most important product since 1945. (It was first discovered there in about 1900.)

There are some nature reserves in those mountains, as well, and it certainly gets cold enough in the winter to sustain ski resorts and other snow sports. Tourists also hike there in the summer.

So, now we come to Moravia and its historic capital, Brno – the second-largest city in the Czech Republic with a population of 380,000. In early Slavic times, it was a fortified settlement of the Great Moravian Empire but other peoples had lived there much earlier than that. It became the seat of junior members of the Bohemian ruling dynasty but it was not the largest town in Moravia until 1642. The Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul was founded as a church in the 14th Century and upgraded to that status in 1777; the towers were added in 1905.

Špilberk Castle (above left) was built in the mid-1300s for the younger Přemyslids to rule from. It withstood a number of sieges between the Hussite Wars and the War of the Austrian Succession, and its prison was used to house a variety of (mostly foreign) political captives between 1620 and 1855.

The Cabbage Market Square (above right) in the historic centre of the city dates from the earliest times and fruit, vegetables and flowers are still sold there. The central Parnas Fountain, built in 1695, is decorated with statues depicting ancient European history and myths. There is also a labyrinth under the square in which goods were stored, beer was brewed and wines were matured.

Because Brno is much closer to Vienna than Prague is, it was connected to the Imperial capital by rail in 1838. Further modernisation followed, including the Institute of Technology in 1899 (above left) and a horsecar tram service in 1869. Today, the city has many tertiary institutions, including Masaryk University, founded in 1919 and now the second-largest in the country with 40,000 students.

Since 1990, Brno has been the judicial capital of the Czech Republic, hosting the Supreme Court (above right), the Supreme Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court. The offices of the Supreme Public Prosecutor and of the national ombudsman are there, also.

Further north is the old Moravian capital of Olomouc on the Morava River, thought to have been a Roman fort in the 2nd Century. After the Great Moravian Empire adopted Christianity, it became a bishopric in 1063 and it remained so during the Bohemian ascendancy. Today, it is the sixth-largest city in the Czech Republic, with a population of 100,000.

The St. Wenceslas Cathedral began as a Romanesque structure in 1131 but was modified in the Gothic style in the 13th and 14th Centuries. It stands in the Olomouc Castle complex along with the partly preserved Bishop’s Palace. Its third spire, completed in 1892, is the highest in Moravia and the second-highest in the country.

The city has many squares and monuments, but the most famous is the Holy Trinity Column, built between 1716 and 1754. As we have seen in other places, it was inspired by the ending of a plague, but the length of time involved here was due to its extreme sophistication, At the top are gilded sculptures of the Holy Trinity, the Archangel Gabriel and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, while the base comprises three levels of statues and reliefs of various saints, many of whom had connections to Central Europe.

Our last stop in the Czech Republic is Ostrava, which is an unusual place in a number of ways. Near the Polish border and the third-largest city with over 300, 000 people, it is at the confluence of the Oder River and three tributaries, one of which – the Ostravice which gave the city is name – divides the city into Moravian and Silesian sides. Both parts were settled in the 1200s and the town became a trading centre on the Amber Road between the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas.

However, Ostrava’s more recent history is what distinguishes it, as massive coal deposits were discovered in the region in 1763, leading to a large iron and steel industry. The foundries and associated industrial sites are visible in this picture and most of the older buildings date from that time. Even the Neo-Romanesque Cathedral of the Divine Saviour (centre of picture) was built in the 1890s.

The resulting boom was not without its costs, however – Ostrava Castle in the town centre was once on high ground but it sunk by16 metres due to the collapse of mining corridors below it. The original Gothic castle was built in the 1280s and rebuilt in 1534 and 1872. Like Olomouc, there is also a Masaryk Square with a Plague Column dating from 1702. No few of the city’s building have needed restoration in our times due to the polluted atmosphere and acid rain.

Coal mining ceased in 1994 and the city embarked on a major environmental reconstruction that continues to this day. Mining land was recultivated; nature reserves were expanded; and the 315 metre Ema Hill was created from a huge slag heap. The waste may still be burning underneath it, as the hill has its own warm ecosystem in which any snow that falls doesn’t last and flowers grow there all year long! Air quality has been improving over the years, helped by a large filtration plant that removes 61 tonnes of dust per year. Some of the foundries and steel mills are now considered worthy of UNESCO Heritage listing for their industrial architecture

Finally, we reach Slovakia, a country of 5.4 million people and five cities with populations exceeding 80,000. As was noted earlier, it is largely mountainous but it does have fertile lowlands in the south. While often regarded as a ‘poor relation’ to the Czech Republic, it has a high standard of living by OECD standards and its economy has been growing at impressive rates since 2000.

While the services sector (which includes tourism) is the mainstay of the country’s economy, there are also large automotive and electrical engineering industries and mining in the mountains. Its many rivers produce hydroelectricity and it has two nuclear power plants, as well.

Bratislava, the capital, has a population of 450,000 and occupies both sides of the Danube in is brief passage from Austria to Hungary. The Celtic Boii built a fortified settlement there in about 200 BC and the Romans made it part of their Danubian defence system between the 1st and 4th Centuries. As was mentioned earlier, Slovakia became part of Hungary in the 10th Century and the town was called Pozsony, though it was better known elsewhere in Europe by its German name, Pressburg.

Due to the Ottoman occupation, Pozsolny served as the capital of Hungary for over two centuries and eleven of its kings and queens were crowned there between 1536 and 1830. All of those were actually Austrian Habs- burgs and it was Empress who greatly enhanced the city in the 18th Century. It became the capital of Slovakia in 1919 when Czechoslovakia was created and it has been known as Bratislava since then. (Note the observation platform on the central pylon of the New Bridge, which was completed in 1972.)

The iconic (also known as Schloss Pressburg) stands on the site of fortifications built by a prehistoric culture in 3500 BCE, and later by Celts, Romans and Slavs. The Hungarians, in their turn, construct- ed successive castles there from 1000 CE onward but the last one was destroyed by a fire in 1811. Its ruins were neglected for over a century until it was reconstructed in 1957, restoring the earlier Baroque and Gothic designs (below). The castle now houses the National Council (parliament) and the National Slovak Museum.

Bratislava became another trading centre on the Amber Road because it was possible to ford the Danube at that point. One can readily imagine markets in the Main Square, whose Old Town Hall complex was built in the 14th Century. It was rebuilt in the Renaissance style after an earthquake in 1599 caused serious damage.

St. Martin’s Cathedral was built on the site of an earlier church between 1311 and 1452, though it has had refurbishments as recently as the late 1800s. This is where the Hapsburg monarchs were crowned in their capacity as king or queen of Hungary.

The stately Grassalkovich Palace, named after the Croatian aristocrat who commissioned it, was completed in 1760. It became famous for the balls and concerts held there, not least because Josef Haydn premiered some of his works there and even conducted the orchestra on occasion. It was used as a children’s activity centre in the Communist era, resulting in sufficient damage that a major restoration was carried out in the early 1990s.

Košice is Slovakia’s second-largest city, with a population of 240,000. Well to the east of Bratislava, it is between the Low Tatra mountains and the Hungarian border. Dating back to 1230, it was actually part of Transylvania (and, therefore, the Ottoman Empire) for a few decades in the early 1600s. It was a trading centre on a branch of the Amber Road that connected Hungary and Poland. (The building in the lower centre of the picture is the State Theatre, built in the late 1800s.)

The Cathedral of St. Elisabeth stands on the site of earlier churches and, as usual, has been rebuilt many times. Nevertheless, its predecessors had the same name and status from at least 1420. The present building was completed in 1896 and it has undergone major restoration from 1978 that continue to this day.

The Old Town has a Plague Column that dates from 1723, with a sculpture of St. Mary at the top and those of other saints on pillars around it. According to legend, the relics of St. Valentine are buried underneath it. The city today has many modern features, including the Slovak Technical Museum and the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University. The former was built in 1947 and is the only such museum in the country, while the latter was founded in 1959 and named after Masaryk’s Slovak colleague.

Just for the sake of fairness, we’ll have a quick look at Prešov, Slovakia’s third-largest city with a population of over 90,000. Located north of Košice, it was known by its Hungarian name, Eperjes, until 1919 and it was here in 1685 that the Hungarian Protestant rebel, Imre Thököly, was defeated in battle by the Habsburgs. Also, a short-lived Slovak Soviet Republic was declared there in 1919.

The Co-Cathedral of St. Nicholas in the Old Town has the usual history of such churches, going back to the 14th Century and with the tower added in 1903. The bishop of a co-cathedral serves in two adjacent towns but its partner church is not identified. Its central park hosts the Neptune Fountain, built in about 1800 by some Jewish businessmen who were grateful to be allowed to live there.

So, we’ll take our leave via the High Tatra mountains, the most spectacular region in Slovakia, with 29 peaks over 2500 metres. The Tatra National Park there conjoins with one in Poland to comprise an international park. Its rare fauna include the goat-antelope and the critically endangered Tatra chamois, while there are also Eurasian brown bears, Eurasian lynx, wolves and Alpine marmots.

It will come as no surprise that these mountains have ski resorts far superior to those in the Cech Republic’s Ore Mountains, which are mainly suited to cross-country skiing. Of course, the mountains have many meadows, lakes and also caves, so people have plenty to do there in the summer, as well.

Well, I hope this has been sufficiently interesting for you to want to go there some time. While I haven’t seen half of the places I’ve shown you, I still can’t recommend those countries, their wonderful peoples and their colourful cultures highly enough.