PRAGUE HISTORY

   

A legend connects the foundation of Prague with Princess Libuse of the Premysl dynasty who prophesied the future glory of Prague which "would touch the stars". The oldest settlement of this area goes back to the Stone Age but the Slovanic tribes came to the Prague valley in the 6th century. In the 9th century Prince Borivoj I. founded a castle on a headland above the Vltava valley and it became the seat of princes of the Premysl dynasty. In the 10th century another castle, Vysehrad, was built and it became temporarily a seat of the Premysl Princes too. Prague became the imperial residence of Charles IV. and during his reign it flourished and grew. Charles IV. established an Archbischopric, founded Charles University and the New Town, and promoted the construction of Charles Bridge and St. Vitus Cathedral. In the 15th century Prague was the center of Hussite Movement. In year 1420 John Zizka defeated the first anti-Hussite crusade on Vitkov Hill. At the end of the 16th century Prague regained its cosmopolitan character again when it became the seat of Rudolph II, who invited artists and scientists there (Tycho de Brahe, Johannes Kepler).

   

On November 8, 1620 the Czech estates rose up against the Habsburgs and were defeated in the Battle of the White Mountain, near the place, where the Star Summer Palace and Enclosure stands untill now. A few months later, in 1621, 27 representatives of the uprising were executed in the Old Town Square. The Thirty Year's War, re-catholicization and germanization followed. At the end of 18th century it became the center of Czech cultural life when Czech scholars and writers began the process of national revival. In 1918 Prague was the capital of the independent Czechoslovak Republic again. In 1939 it was occupied by German troops and in 1942 severaly persecuted after the assassination of the Nazi deputy protector Reinhardt Heydrich. After the Prague Uprising against the fascists the town was liberated by the Russians on 9th May, 1945. The August occupation of Prague in 1968 stopped the democratic reforms in the country and began the process of "normalization". On 17th November, 1989, the Velvet Revolution began democratic changes in our society. The whole process continued with the splitting of former federal Czechoslovakia into two independent states and thus, on 1st January, 1993, Prague became the capital of the Czech Republic.