Olomouc
Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. Located on the Morava River, the city is the ecclesiastical metropolis and was a historical capital city of Moravia, before having been sacked by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War. Today, it is the administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and the sixth largest city in the Czech Republic; the city has about 100,000 residents, its larger urban zone has a population of about 480,000 people. Olomouc is said to occupy the site of a Roman fort founded in the imperial period, the original name of which, would be changed to the present form. Although this account is not documented except as oral history, archaeological excavations close to the city have revealed the remains of a Roman military camp dating from the time of the Marcomannic Wars of the late 2nd century. During the 6th century, Slavs migrated into the area; as early as the 7th century, a centre of political power developed in the present-day quarter of Povel.
Around 810 the local Slavonic ruler was defeated by troops of Great Moravian rulers and the settlement in Olomouc-Povel was destroyed. A new centre, where the Great Moravian governor resided, developed at the gord at Předhradí, a quarter of the inner city; this settlement survived the defeat of the Great Moravia and became the capital of the province of Moravia. The bishopric of Olomouc was founded in 1063, it was re-founded because there are some unclear references to bishops of Moravia in the 10th century—if they were not only missionary bishops, but representatives of some remains of regular church organization it is likely that these bishops had seat right here. Centuries in 1777, it was raised to the rank of an archbishopric; the bishopric was moved from the church of St. Peter to the church of Saint Wenceslas in 1141 under bishop Jindřich Zdík; the bishop's palace was built in the Romanesque architectural style. The bishopric acquired large tracts of land in northern Moravia, was one of the richest in the area.
Olomouc became one of the most important settlements in Moravia and a seat of the Přemyslid government and one of the appanage princes. In 1306 King Wenceslas III stopped here on his way to Poland, he was going to fight Władysław I the Elbow-high to claim his rights to the Polish crown and was assassinated. With his death, the whole Přemyslid dynasty died out; the city was founded in the mid-13th century and became one of the most important trade and power centres in the region. In the Middle Ages, it was the biggest town in Moravia and competed with Brno for the position of capital. Olomouc lost after the Swedes took the city and held it for eight years. In 1235, the Mongols launched an invasion of Europe. After the Battle of Legnica in Poland, the Mongols carried their raids into Moravia, but were defensively defeated at the fortified town of Olomouc; the Mongols subsequently defeated Hungary. In 1454 the city expelled its Jewish population as part of a wave of anti-Semitism seen in Spain and Portugal.
The second half of the 15th century is considered the start of Olomouc's golden age. It hosted several royal meetings, Matthias Corvinus was elected here as King of Bohemia by the estates in 1469. In 1479 two kings of Bohemia concluded an agreement for splitting the country. Participating in the Protestant Reformation, Moravia became Protestant. During the Thirty Years' War, in 1640 Olomouc was occupied by the Swedes for eight years, they left the city in ruins, it became second to Brno. In 1740 the town was captured and held by the Prussians. Olomouc was fortified by Maria Theresa during the wars with Frederick the Great, who besieged the city unsuccessfully for seven weeks in 1758. In 1848 Olomouc was the scene of the emperor Ferdinand's abdication. Two years Austrian and German statesmen held a conference here called the Punctation of Olmütz. At the conference, they agreed to restore the German Confederation and Prussia accepted leadership by the Austrians. In 1746 the first learned society in the lands under control of the Austrian Habsburgs, the Societas eruditorum incognitorum in terris Austriacis, was founded in Olomouc to spread Enlightenment ideas.
Its monthly Monatliche Auszüge was the first scientific journal published in the Habsburg empire. Because of its ecclesiastical links to Austria, Salzburg in particular, the city was influenced by German culture since the Middle Ages. Demographics before censuses can only be interpreted from other documents; the town's ecclesiastical constitution, the meetings of the Diet and the locally printed hymnal, were recorded in the Czech language in the mid-16th and 17th centuries. The first treatise on music in Czech was published in Olomouc in the mid-16th century; the political and social changes that followed the Thirty Years' War increased the influence of courtly Habsburg and Austrian/German language culture. The "Germanification" of the town resulted from the cosmopolitan nature of the city. Despite these influences, the Czech language dominated in ecclesiastical publications throughout the 17th and 18th centuries; when the Austrian-born composer and musician Philip J. Rittler accepted
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy – Habsburg Empire, Austrian Monarchy or Danube Monarchy – is an unofficial umbrella term among historians for the countries and provinces that were ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg between 1526 and 1780 and by the successor branch of Habsburg-Lorraine until 1918. The Monarchy was a typical composite state composed of territories within and outside the Holy Roman Empire, united only in the person of the monarch; the dynastic capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611. From 1804 to 1867 the Habsburg Monarchy was formally unified as the Austrian Empire, from 1867 to 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the head of the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg was elected Holy Roman Emperor: from 1452 until the Empire's dissolution in 1806, Charles VII of Bavaria was the only Holy Roman Emperor, not Habsburg ruler of Austria. The two entities were never coterminous, as the Habsburg Monarchy covered many lands beyond the Holy Roman Empire, most of the Empire was ruled by other dynasties.
This Austrian Habsburg Monarchy must not be confused with the House of Habsburg, existing since the 11th century, whose vast domains were split up in 1521 between this "junior" Austrian branch and the "senior" Spanish branch. The monarchy had no official name. Instead, various names included: Habsburg Monarchy Habsburg Empire Habsburg/Austrian Hereditary Lands Austrian Monarchy Danubian Monarchy The Habsburg family originated with the Habsburg Castle in modern Switzerland, after 1279 came to rule in Austria; the Habsburg family grew to European prominence with the marriage and adoption treaty by Emperor Maximilian I at the First Congress of Vienna in 1515, the subsequent death of adopted Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in 1526. Following the death of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in the Battle of Mohács against the Turks, his brother-in-law Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was elected the next King of Bohemia and Hungary. Names of the territory that became Austria-Hungary: Habsburg monarchy: This was an unofficial umbrella term, but frequent, name during that time.
The entity had no official name. Austrian Empire: This was the official name. Note that the German version is Kaisertum Österreich, i.e. the English translation empire refers to a territory ruled by an emperor, not just to a "widespreading domain". Austria-Hungary: This name was used in the international relations, though the official name was Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. An unofficial popular name was the Danubian Monarchy often used was the term Doppel-Monarchie meaning two states under one crowned ruler. Crownlands or crown lands: This is the name of all the individual parts of the Austrian Empire, of Austria-Hungary from 1867 on; the Kingdom of Hungary was not considered a "crownland" after the establishment of Austria-Hungary 1867, so that the "crownlands" became identical with what was called the Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Imperial Council. The Hungarian parts of the Empire were called "Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen" or "Lands of Holy Stephen's Crown"; the Bohemian Lands were called "Lands of the St. Wenceslaus' Crown".
Names of some smaller territories: Austrian lands or "Archduchies of Austria" – Lands up and below the Enns: This is the historical name of the parts of the Archduchy of Austria that became the present-day Republic of Austria on 12 November 1918. Modern day Austria is a semi-federal republic of nine states that are: Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Burgenland and the Capital of Vienna, a state of its own. Burgenland came to Austria in 1921 from Hungary. Salzburg became Austrian in 1816 after the Napoleonic wars. Vienna, Austria's capital became a state 1 January 1922, after being residence and capital of the Austrian Empire for the Habsburg monarchs for centuries. Upper and Lower Austria were split into "Austria above the Enns" and "Austria below the Enns". Upper Austria was enlarged after the Treaty of Teschen following the "War of the Bavarian Succession" by the so-called Innviertel part of Bavaria. Hereditary Lands or German Hereditary Lands or Austrian Hereditary Lands: In a narrower sense these were the "original" Habsburg Austrian territories, i.e. the Austrian lands and Carniola.
In a wider sense the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were included in the Hereditary lands. The term was replaced by the term "Crownlands" in the 1849 March Constitution, but it was used afterwards; the Er
Marchegg
Marchegg is a town in the district of Gänserndorf in the Austrian state of Lower Austria near the Slovak border. It is near Lake Bernhardsthal
Central Europe
Central Europe is the region comprising the central part of Europe. It is said to occupy continuous territory that are otherwise conventionally Western Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe; the concept of Central Europe is based on a common historical and cultural identity. Central Europe is going through a phase of "strategic awakening", with initiatives such as the CEI, Centrope and the Visegrád Four. While the region's economy shows high disparities with regard to income, all Central European countries are listed by the Human Development Index as highly developed. Elements of unity for Western and Central Europe were Latin; however Eastern Europe, which remained Eastern Orthodox, was the area of Graeco-Byzantine cultural influence. According to Hungarian historian Jenő Szűcs, foundations of Central European history at the first millennium were in close connection with Western European development, he explained that between the 11th and 15th centuries not only Christianization and its cultural consequences were implemented, but well-defined social features emerged in Central Europe based on Western characteristics.
The keyword of Western social development after millennium was the spread of liberties and autonomies in Western Europe. These phenomena appeared in the middle of the 13th century in Central European countries. There were self-governments of towns and parliaments. In 1335, under the rule of the King Charles I of Hungary, the castle of Visegrád, the seat of the Hungarian monarchs was the scene of the royal summit of the Kings of Poland and Hungary, they agreed to cooperate in the field of politics and commerce, inspiring their post-Cold War successors to launch a successful Central European initiative. In the Middle Ages, countries in Central Europe adopted Magdeburg rights. Before 1870, the industrialization that had developed in Western and Central Europe and the United States did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. In Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia, for example, remained rural and agricultural, its autocratic rulers kept the peasants in serfdom.
The concept of Central Europe was known at the beginning of the 19th century, but its real life began in the 20th century and became an object of intensive interest. However, the first concept mixed science and economy – it was connected with intensively growing German economy and its aspirations to dominate a part of European continent called Mitteleuropa; the German term denoting Central Europe was so fashionable that other languages started referring to it when indicating territories from Rhine to Vistula, or Dnieper, from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. An example of that-time vision of Central Europe may be seen in J. Partsch's book of 1903. On 21 January 1904, Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein was established in Berlin with economic integration of Germany and Austria–Hungary as its main aim. Another time, the term Central Europe became connected to the German plans of political and cultural domination; the "bible" of the concept was Friedrich Naumann's book Mitteleuropa in which he called for an economic federation to be established after the war.
Naumann's idea was that the federation would have at its centre Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire but would include all European nations outside the Anglo-French alliance, on one side, Russia, on the other. The concept failed after the German defeat in the dissolution of Austria -- Hungary; the revival of the idea may be observed during the Hitler era. According to Emmanuel de Martonne, in 1927 the Central European countries included: Austria, Germany, Poland and Switzerland; the author use both Human and Physical Geographical features to define Central Europe, but he doesn't care about the legal development, the social, economic, infrastructural developments in these countries. The interwar period brought new geopolitical system and economic and political problems, the concept of Central Europe took a different character; the centre of interest was moved to its eastern part – the countries that have appeared on the map of Europe: Czechoslovakia and Poland. Central Europe ceased to be the area of German aspiration to lead or dominate and became a territory of various integration movements aiming at resolving political and national problems of "new" states, being a way to face German and Soviet pressures.
However, the conflict of interests was too big and neither Little Entente nor Intermarium ideas succeeded. The interwar period brought new elements to the concept of Central Europe. Before World War I, it embraced German states, non-German territories being an area of intended German penetration and domination – German leadership position was to be the natural result of economic dominance. After the war, the Eastern part of Central Europe was placed at the centre of the concept. At that time the scientists took an interest in the idea: the International Historical Congress in Brussels in 1923 was committed to Central Europe, the 1933 Congress continued the discussions. Hungarian scholar Magda Adam wrote in her study Versailles System and Central Europe: "Today we know that the bane of Central Europe was the Little Entente, military alliance of Czechoslovakia and Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes (later Yu
Bratislava Region
The Bratislava Region is one of the administrative regions of Slovakia. Its capital is Bratislava; the region was first established in 1923 and its present borders exist from 1996. It is the smallest of the eight regions of Slovakia as well as the most urbanized; the region is located in the south-western part of Slovakia and has an area of 2,053 km² and a population of 622,706. The region is split by the Little Carpathians which start in Bratislava and continue north-eastwards. Major rivers in the region are the Danube and the Little Danube. There are three protected landscape areas in the region: the Little Carpathians, Záhorie and Dunajské luhy; the region borders Trnava Region in the north and east, Győr-Moson-Sopron county in Hungary in the south, Burgenland in Austria in the south-west and Lower Austria in the west. The first known permanent settlement of the area of today's Bratislava was the Linear Pottery Culture, around 5000 BC in the Neolithic era. Around 200 BC, the Celtic Boii tribe established an oppidum on the site of today's Bratislava Castle.
The Romans established their camp Gerulata on the right bank of the Danube in the 1st century and remained there until the 4th century. The area was part of the Principality of Nitra and in the 9th century, of Great Moravia. From the 10th century onwards, it became part of the Principality of Hungary and the whole area was part of Pozsony county. After the break-up of Austria-Hungary in 1918, region was newly defined in 1923 and present Bratislava region copies its 1923 borders. Bratislava Regio was abolished in 1928 and replaced by a new territorial unit called the "Slovak Land". During the WWII Slovak Republic, Bratislava county was restored, albeit with somewhat modified borders. After the restoration of Czechoslovakia, the pre-breakup status was restored. From 1949–1960 a unit named Bratislava Region existed, but it was replaced in 1960 by the Western Slovak Region. After abolition of the regions in 1990, the current system was introduced in 1996. Since the administrative regions became autonomous in 2002, it has been governed by the Bratislava Self-Governing Region.
Although it is the smallest region of Slovakia by area, it does not have the lowest population. The largest city is the second largest is Pezinok; the region has a high level of urbanization. According to the 2001 census, there were 599,015 inhabitants in the region, with most of them being Slovaks, with minorities of Hungarians and Czechs; the economy of the Bratislava Region accounts for about a quarter of the Slovak GDP. Bratislava has one of the highest GDP per capita at PPP of among whole E. U. €51,200. It is marked by a strong tertiary sector, while the primary sector has a share of only around 1% and the secondary sector around 20%. Important branches include chemical, machine and food industries; the Bratislava Region consists of 8 districts: Malacky, Senec and 5 districts of Bratislava. There are 73 municipalities in the region. Kopa, Ľudovít; the Encyclopaedia of Slovakia and the Slovaks. Bratislava, Slovakia: Encyclopaedic Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. ISBN 80-224-0925-1. Bratislavský samosprávny kraj Official website Bratislava Region Tourism
Bečva
The Bečva is a river in the Czech Republic. It is a left tributary of the river Morava; the Bečva is created by two source streams, the Northern Rožnovská Bečva and the Southern Vsetínská Bečva. It is 61.6 km long, its basin area is 1,613 km2
Avar Khaganate
The Pannonian Avars were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of unknown origins. They are best known for their invasions and destruction in the Avar–Byzantine wars from 568 to 626; the name Pannonian Avars is used to distinguish them from the Avars of the Caucasus, a separate people with whom the Pannonian Avars may or may not have been linked. They established the Avar Khaganate, which spanned the Pannonian Basin and considerable areas of Central and Eastern Europe from the late 6th to the early 9th century. Although the name Avar first appeared in the mid-5th century, the Pannonian Avars entered the historical scene in the mid-6th century, on the Pontic-Caspian steppe as a people who wished to escape the rule of the Göktürks; the earliest clear reference to the Avar ethnonym comes from Priscus the Rhetor. Priscus recounts c. 463, the Šaragurs and Ogurs were attacked by the Sabirs, attacked by the Avars. In turn, the Avars had been driven off by people fleeing "man-eating griffins" coming from "the ocean".
Whilst Priscus' accounts provide some information about the ethno-political situation in the Don-Kuban-Volga region after the demise of the Huns, no unequivocal conclusions can be reached. Denis Sinor has argued that whoever the "Avars" referred to by Priscus were, they differed from the Avars who appear a century during the time of Justinian; the next author to discuss the Avars, Menander Protector, appeared during the 6th century, wrote of Göktürk embassies to Constantinople in 565 and 568 AD. The Turks appeared angry at the Byzantines for having made an alliance with the Avars, whom the Turks saw as their subjects and slaves. Turxanthos, a Turk prince, calls the Avars "Varchonites" and "escaped slaves of the Turks", who numbered "about 20 thousand". Many more, but somewhat confusing, details come from Theophylact Simocatta, who wrote c. 629, describing the final two decades of the 6th century. In particular, he claims to quote a triumph letter from the Turk lord Tamgan: For this Chagan had in fact outfought the leader of the nation of the Abdeli, conquered him, assumed the rule of the nation.
He... enslaved the Avar nation. But let no one think that we are distorting the history of these times because he supposes that the Avars are those barbarians neighbouring on Europe and Pannonia, that their arrival was prior to the times of the emperor Maurice. For it is by a misnomer. So, when the Avars had been defeated some of them made their escape to those. Taugast is a famous city, a total of one thousand five hundred miles distant from those who are called Turks.... Others of the Avars, who declined to humbler fortune because of their defeat, came to those who are called Mucri; these make their habitations in the east, by the course of the river Til, which Turks are accustomed to call Melas. The earliest leaders of this nation were named Chunni. While the emperor Justinian was in possession of the royal power, a small section of these Var and Chunni fled from that ancestral tribe and settled in Europe; these named themselves glorified their leader with the appellation of Chagan. Let us declare, without departing in the least from the truth, how the means of changing their name came to them....
When the Barsils, Onogurs and other Hun nations in addition to these, saw that a section of those who were still Var and Chunni had fled to their regions, they plunged into extreme panic, since they suspected that the settlers were Avars. For this reason they honoured the fugitives with splendid gifts and supposed that they received from them security in exchange. After the Var and Chunni saw the well-omened beginning to their flight, they appropriated the ambassadors' error and named themselves Avars: for among the Scythian nations that of the Avars is said to be the most adept tribe. In point of fact up to our present times the Pseudo-Avars are divided in their ancestry, some bearing the time-honoured name of Var while others are called Chunni.... According to the interpretation of Dobrovits and Nechaeva, the Turks insisted that the Avars were only pseudo-Avars, so as to boast that they were the only formidable power in the Eurasian steppe; the Gokturks claimed. Furthermore, Dobrovits has questioned the authenticity of Theophylact's account.
As such, he has argued that Theophylact borrowed information from Menander's accounts of Byzantine-Turk negotiations to meet political needs of his time – i.e. to castigate and deride the Avars during a time of strained political relations between the Byzantines and Avars. According to some scholars the Pannonian Avars originated from a confederation formed in the Aral Sea region, by the Uar known as the Var or Warr and the Xūn or Xionites (also known as the Chionitae, Chunni, H
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