The venue of XXI Czech–Polish seminar was Sezimovo Usti, Czech Republic.
First reports on Sezimovo Usti date back to 1250 when it was probably a well-developing town. The reports are related to church consecration and silver mining. The most important period is related to the Hussite movement, in particular to the stay of Jan Hus, and founding of the first Hussite community after his burning at stake in Constance. The inhabitants later moved to a newly founded town of Tabor and burnt out the abandoned Sezimovo Usti. The abandoned area, covered with grass and bushes, created a unique archaeologic site revealing the life at the beginning of 15th century. Within 30 years of excavations, a whole complex of estates, craftsmen workshops, storage places with raw materials and expensive bespoke products, lots of tools and home equipment, as well as wells and drainage system. No wonder the town is nicknamed the Czech Pompei.
The town was re-established in 1828. The original part Sezimovo Usti 1 is a quiet town formed by houses and gardens, dominated by the Jan Hus square. The new part Sezimovo Usti 2, separated by the main road E55, is connected with business activites of Tomas Bata. Building of a large machinery plant called MAS (Kovosvit in these days) started in 1939. Simultaneously, houses for employees were built as well as a combined cultural centre with a department store. The Centre was later rebuilt and serves as a hotel these days.
The second Czechoslovak president, Edvard Benes, had a summer-house in Sezimovo Usti, and he is buried there with his wife Hana. In the close neighbourhood, you can find a ruin of Kozi Hradek castle, the place of sermons delivered by Jan Hus himself.
Sezimovo Usti is a town of 7,300 inhabitants and area of about 8.5 km2; it makes an agglomeration of 47,000 inhabitants together with neighbouring Plana nad Luznici and the historical city of Tabor. Sezimovo Usti is located approx. 85 km to the south of Prague along the international route E55 to Ceske Budejovice.
Accommodation was provided in Hotel Mas***, Namesti Tomase Bati 417, 391 02 Sezimovo Usti. The hotel is located in a quiet area of Sezimovo Usti, close to the main road E55 connecting Prague and Ceske Budejovice. The hotel offers single/double/triple rooms, full board, free Wi-Fi, free swimming pool, bowling bar (subject to fee) etc.
The neighbouring city of Tabor can be easily reached by public bus. The town was founded in 1420 as a reformation centre and military fortress on the summit of an isolated hill, separated from the surroundings by the river of Luznice. The name Tabor is based on the narrative from the Book of Judges about prophetess Deborah and army leader Barak who led his soldiers atop the Thabor hill near Nazareth and then defeated the enemy army at the foot of the hill.
In 1437 it became a royal city. To provide water supply, an extensive lake of Jordan was built at the edge of the town. Founded in 1492, the lake is the oldest reservoir of its kind in Central Europe.
Zizka square, the central point of the city, is dominated by the Gothic Dean Church, the Town Hall and burgher houses. The Town Hall with its impressive four wings is one of the most remarkable late-Gothic buildings in the country. It houses the Hussite Museum and serves as an entry to underground corridors. The central part of the square is occupied by a Renaissance fountain and a statue of the legendary Hussite military commander Jan Zizka.
The Hussite religious reformation was gradually developing as a result of growing discontent with everyday activity of the medieval Catholic Church. The mass outbtreak of fighting began after a wilful behaviour of New Town burgomaster and town councillors on July 30, 1419 ending with defenestration. Upon the event, king Wenceslaus IV died of a heart attack and a revolution swept over the country. The predominantly religious movement was propelled by social issues and national awareness. Besides some religious doctrines the Czech reformation was targeted against the debauchery based on privilege, violence, abuse and misconduct of power. A disciplined army of peasants was developed under legendary leadership of Jan Zizka. The reformation forces started to build Tabor, a reformation centre and a military fortress, in spring 1420. The Tabor city provided a strong support for the movement. The Hussite voluntary army of the reform believers defeated five consecutive papal crusade armies. On the other hand, the Hussite troops organized attacks into neighbouring countries, among others to Poland. In 1432, negotiations with the Hussites and their opponents began at the Council of Basel, resulting in acceptance of the Compacta of Prague in 1433. The document, signed by the pope Eugenius IV. and the king Sigismund, played an important role for all the successive protestant movements in Europe.
The spiritual leader of the aborning reformation was Jan Hus who preached that the Holy Scripture is a basis for the faith and that every believer in the Lord has a natural right to expound it in his own way. His ideas were influenced by the reformation doctrines of John Wyclif, a theologian at Oxford University. Jan Hus, the rector of the Charles University in Prague, was burned at the stake for heresy on July 6, 1415 in Constance. Another spiritual leader of the reformation and the follower of Jan Hus was Jeronym Prazsky (Hieronymus Pragensis). Jeronym Prazsky, Master of the Charles University in Prague, Sorbonna, Heidelberg, and Koln, who studied John Wyclif’s writings at Oxford, was burned at the stake on May 30, 1416. Hus’s execution was taken as offence by many Czechs of all social strata. His execution had a great repercussion in the Czech society and called for disregard of the king Sigismond, the brother of the king Wenceslaus IV. The Hussite reformation with armed support broke several years after their death and was never defeated by crusade forces. A century later, in the time of Martin Luther’s reformation, a number of Christian churches alongside with the Catholic Church existed in Czech kingdom. At the time of 16th and 17th centuries, free choice of religion was exceptional. The Thirty Years War put an end to the pluralism of denomination expressed by the rule Cuius regio, eius religio. As a result of The Thirty Years War a large number of Czechs were forced to leave their homeland, among them the members of the church called Czech or Moravian Brethren. They have survived in exile having formed communities, e.g. in Poland (Zelow).
Jan Hus introduced diacritical marks above letters to represent sounds alien to Latin. The basic principle is “one sound, one letter”. The Czech alphabet consists of 42 letters, including the digraph “Ch” which is considered a single letter in Czech:
A, Á, B, C, Č, D, Ď, E, É, Ě, F, G, H, Ch, I, Í, J, K, L, M, N, Ň, O, Ó, P, Q, R, Ř, S, Š, T, Ť, U, Ú, Ů, V, W, X, Y, Ý, Z, Ž
The alphabets of several other European languages are based on the Czech alphabet, omitting and adding letters according to their needs. The most notable exception is Polish which developed its own Roman script independently.
In the course of the 19th Century, Jan Hus became a symbol of the Czech national emancipation. He has been acknowledged as an exceptional character, faithful to his belief to the utmost consequences. His exceptional attitude under the threat of death has been recently acknowledged by the common commission of the Catholic and Czech non-Catholic churches, the foundation of which was inspired by the late Pope St. John Paul II; for the Catholic Church, Jan Hus has been considered as its Reformer.
Before his death, Jan Hus wrote a letter from the dungeon prison in Constance addressed “to all faithful Czechs”:
I also pray you to love one another, not to let good people be oppressed by force and to allow everyone to enjoy the truth.
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