English Information

Olomouc itself was settled down since the primeval ages but first Slavs came to Olomouc around 500 AD. After that it was a very important part of the Great Moravian Empire in the 9th and early 10th century. The famous bishopric of Olomouc was re-founded in 1063 (I say re-founded while there are some references in local annals pointing to existence of Moravia’s bishops in the 10th century). Archbishopric exists there since 1777. Olomouc started to prosper a lot and it suddenly became one of the most important settlements in Moravia. And after some time also a seat of the Přemyslid government. Its nature has been changed many times while there were many wars and constant changes of princes. Anyway it was definitely one of the most important towns of all lands of the Bohemian Crown and it was even competing with Brno in the question of having a privileged position in Morava
– both town wanted to become a capital city of it. The competition was very long and at first it even seemed that Olomouc will become the capital city of Morava. But after that in the time of Thirty Years’ War whole Morava was attacked by the Swedish army and that was the end of the idea of Olomouc becoming a capital city of Morava while it submitted to General Leonard Torstenson and Swedish army. After eight years of occupation it was nearly completely destroyed and depopulated. On the other hand Brno survived two attacks of the Swedish army – completely intact. That and the fact that Brno is a lot closer to Vienna than Olomouc was the reason why the competition was over and Brno became the capital city of Morava.
There are a lot of interesting sights in Olomouc – for example the Saint Wenceslas cathedral, which was re-built in the end of the 19th century in neo-Gothic style. Very important is also the Romanesque Bishop’s Palace, the domicile of Olomouc bishopric.
While working on this project I also asked some people in Brno streets about what do they know about Olomouc, its history and also about their attitude to this town. Finally I was surprised that the general knowledge of the people was very good. Most of them also spent some time of their life in there and most of the people quite like Olomouc.