Olomouc

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 (in lowland, south of the city centre). 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 (the eastern, smaller part of the medieval centre). This settlement survived the defeat of the Great Moravia (c. 907) and gradually became the capital of the province of Moravia.

Around 981–990, the Polish Duke Mieszko I took the Moravian Gate and Olomouc as an important place at the intersection of trade routes. Olomouc probably was mentioned in the Dagome iudex document (ca 991) as Alemura. All of Moravia was part of Poland between 1003 and 1031 during the reign of Bolesław I the Brave and partly Mieszko II Lambert. The first certain mention of the city dates back to 1017. Moravia was under Bohemian rule since 1031 (according to some Czech historians, since 1019 or 1021).

The bishopric of Olomouc was founded in 1063. It was possibly 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, then it is very likely that these bishops had their seat in Olomouc. Centuries later in 1777, it was raised to the rank of an archbishopric. The bishopric was moved from the church of St. Peter (since destroyed) to the church of Saint Wenceslas in 1141 (the date is still disputed, other suggestions are 1131, 1134) under bishop Jindřich Zdík. The bishop's palace was built in the Romanesque architectural style. The bishopric acquired large tracts of land, especially in northern Moravia, and 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.[10] With his death, the whole Přemyslid dynasty died out.

The city was officially 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 finally lost after the Swedes took the city and held it for eight years (1642–1650).

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.[11] The Mongols subsequently invaded and defeated Hungary.[12]

In 1454 the city expelled its Jewish population as part of a wave of anti-Semitism, also 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, and Matthias Corvinus was elected here as King of Bohemia (in fact anti-king) by the estates in 1469. In 1479 two kings of Bohemia (Vladislaus II and Matthias Corvinus) met here and concluded an agreement (Peace of Olomouc of 1479) for splitting the country.

Olomouc fortress in 1686

Olomouc bastion fortress in 1757

Participating in the Protestant Reformation, Moravia became mostly Protestant. During the Thirty Years' War, in 1640 Olomouc was occupied by the Swedes for eight years. They left the city in ruins, and as a result it lost its predominant place in Moravia, becoming second to Brno.

In 1740 the town was captured and briefly 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.[13] Two years later, 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.

Largely 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 Czech 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 likely resulted from the cosmopolitan nature of the city; as the cultural, administrative and religious centre of the region, it drew officials, musicians and traders from all over Europe.

Despite these influences, Czech dominated, particularly in ecclesiastical publications throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. When the Austrian-born composer and musician Philip J. Rittler accepted a post at the Wenceslas Cathedral in the latter 17th century, he felt it necessary to learn Czech. With the continued dominance of the Habsburgs and migration of ethnic Germans into the area, the use of Czech declined. By the 19th century, the number of ethnic Germans in the city were recorded as three times higher than the number of Czechs.[14]

After the 1848 revolution, the government rescinded its Jewish expulsion order of 1454. Jews returned to the city and, in 1897, built a synagogue. The Jewish population reached 1,676 in 1900.

Olomouc Synagogue, 1900s

1907 postcard of Olomouc

Olomouc retained its defensive city walls almost until the end of the 19th century. This suited the city council, because demolishing the walls would have allowed for expansion of the city and attracted more Czechs from neighbouring villages. The city council preferred Olomouc to be smaller and predominantly German. Greater expansion came after World War I and the establishment of Czechoslovakia. In 1919 Olomouc annexed two neighbouring towns and 11 surrounding villages, gaining new space for additional growth and development.

Serious tensions arose between ethnic Czechs and Germans during both world wars. During World War II, the city was under German occupation and most of the city's ethnic German residents sided with the Nazis; the German-run city council renamed the main square (until then named after president T. G. Masaryk) after Adolf Hitler. World War II brought a rise in anti-semitism and attacks on the Jews that reflected what was happening in Germany. On Kristallnacht (10 November 1938), townspeople destroyed the synagogue. In March 1939, city police arrested 800 Jewish men, and had some deported to the Dachau concentration camp. During 1942–1943, ethnic Germans sent the remaining Jews to Theresienstadt and other German concentration camps in occupied Poland. Fewer than 300 of the city's Jews survived the Holocaust. The Germans also established and operated a Gestapo prison in the city,[15] and a forced labour camp in the Chválkovice district.[16]

After Olomouc was liberated, Czech residents took back the original name of the city square. When the retreating German army passed through the city in the final weeks of the war, they shot at its 15th-century astronomical clock, leaving only a few pieces intact (these are held in the local museum). The city was restored to Czechoslovakia, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime with stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. In the 1950s, the clock was reconstructed under the influence of Soviet government; it features a procession of proletarians rather than saints. After the war, the government participated in the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the country, following the Allied leaders' Potsdam Agreement, which redefined the Central European borders, although many of these people's families had lived for two centuries in the region. There were the statue of the first president T. G. Masaryk reconstructed as a symbol of come back of democracy on Masaryk street after "velvet revolution" in 1990. Its inner city is the third-largest urban monument reservation in the country, after Prague.[17]

• Francis Taaffe, 4th Viscount Taaffe (1639–1704), Irish nobleman and officer; studied at the University of Olomouc
• Joseph von Petrasch (1714–1772), soldier, writer and philologist; lived here from 1758
• Anton Schubirz von Chobinin (1748–1801), General-major fought for Habsburg Austria against Ottoman Turkey
• Alexander von Krobatin (1849–1933), Austrian Field Marshal Imperial Minister for War in 1912–1917
• Hermann Hiltl (1872–1930), Austrian army officer
• Paul Engelmann (1891–1965), Austrian-Israeli architect
• Zdeněk Fierlinger (1891–1976), diplomat and politician, served as the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia in 1944–1946
• Franz Karmasin (1901–1970), German politician in Czechoslovakia and SS Officer
• Jaroslav Otruba (1916–2007), architect, urban planner, designer and artist
• Jiří Pelikán (1923–1999), journalist and politician
• Pavel Dostál (1943–2005), Minister of Culture in 1998–2005
• Franz Josef Wagner (born 1943), German journalist
• Jiří Paroubek (born 1952), politician and Prime Minister in 2005–2006
• Ivan Langer (born 1967), politician

• Augustinus Olomucensis (1467–1513), humanist and theologian
• Charles Joseph of Lorraine (1680–1715) prelate, known as Charles III as Bishop of Olomouc
• Archduke Rudolf of Austria (1788–1831), consecrated as Archbishop of Olomouc in 1819
• Franziskus von Sales Bauer (1841–1915), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and Archbishop of Olomouc in 1904–1915
• Berthold Oppenheim (1867–1942), the rabbi of Olomouc in 1892–1939
• John M. Oesterreicher (1904–1993), Roman Catholic theologian and a leading advocate of Jewish–Catholic reconciliation
• Jan Graubner (born 1948), Roman Catholic archbishop of Olomouc in 1992–2022

• Valentin Stansel (1621–1705), Jesuit and astronomer who worked in Brazil
• Karel Ferdinand Irmler (1650–?), lawyer and the first professor of secular law at University of Olomouc
• Josef Vratislav Monse (1733–1793), lawyer, historian and professor of law, Rector at the University of Olomouc in 1780
• Anton Schrötter von Kristelli (1802–1875), Austrian chemist and mineralogist
• Rudolf Eitelberger (1817–1885), Austrian art historian and founder of the Vienna School of Art History
• Ludwig Karl Schmarda (1819–1908), Austrian naturalist and traveller
• Berthold Hatschek (1854–1941), Austrian zoologist
• Olga Taussky-Todd (1906–1995), Austrian and later Czech-American mathematician
• Jan G. Švec (born 1966), voice scientist, invented videokymography, used for diagnosis of voice disorders
• Jaroslav Miller (born 1971), professor of history and rector at Palacký University
• Tomáš Hudeček (born 1979), university professor and politician

• Olomouc town hall with an astronomical clock
• Horní Square with the Holy Trinity Column

• Official portal for tourist – information, services, leisure time, monuments, culture
• Travel Information and Photos of the Main Sights in Olomouc
• Olomouc Travel.cz