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 Moravian Ostrava – from village to metropolis

Before the establishment of a town, the current site of Moravian Ostrava was the location of a settlement on the trade route running from Moravia to Silesia. The first written mention of the town is contained in the last will and testament of the Bishop of Olomouc Bruno von Schauenburg. The will was written on 29 November 1267, when Bruno was setting out alongside the Czech king Přemysl Otakar II on a military mission to the pagan territories of East Prussia and Lithuania. In the Latin transcription of the will, Ostrava is named ‘Oztrauiam’. The name was taken from the river Ostrava (nowadays called Ostravice) – which in turn is derived from the Slavic word ‘ostrá’, meaning ‘sharp’ or ‘rapid’ – referring to the river’s fast-flowing waters.

There is no doubt that Bishop Bruno held out great hopes for the newly established town on the border between the Czech kingdom and the Principality of Těšín (Cieszyn in Polish / Teschen in German). Ostrava was built on a grand scale, with the largest square of any town in Eastern Moravia, occupying almost a hectare (9300 m2). Lining the square were 42 houses and the town hall. By the end of the 14th century the town had its own fortified walls, and entry was via three gates: the ‘Bridge Gate’ or ‘Church Gate’ from the Silesian side (after crossing the river Ostravice), the Hrabová Gate (on the road to Vítkovice) and the Přívoz Gate (leading to the village of Přívoz, where there was a crossing point on the Odra river). Settlements soon grew up outside the town walls. Ostrava’s castle (which was situated on today’s Zámecká street) provided extra protection.

Trades flourished in the town, above all butchers, bakers and tailors. With several watercourses, Ostrava was also an ideal location for the development of milling. In 1362, when the Czech King Charles IV was staying in nearby Opava (German Troppau), the burghers of Ostrava took the opportunity to petition him for the right to hold a 16-day annual market. This newly acquired privilege enabled Ostrava to become the commercial and legal centre of the wider region. A parish church was also built. The Hussite movement (a Czech religious reform movement following the Christian teachings of their founder Jan Hus, active in the early 15th century) never truly took root in Ostrava, even though the town was controlled by Hussite commanders such as Bolek Opolský, Mikuláš Sokol z Lamberka and Jan Čapek ze Sán.

In the first half of the 16th century, under the leadership of Bishop Marek Khuen, Moravian Ostrava came into the possession of the Archbishopric of Olomouc (German Olmütz). This coincided with one of the greatest periods of prosperity in the early history of the town, with the development of trades (above all weaving and drapery) and the foundation of tradesmen’s guilds. Ostrava was granted the privilege to hold more annual markets, and became an important administrative centre; in 1584 the town became the legal centre for all villages in the Hukvaldy estates. There was a boom in pond-husbandry, and Bishop Khuen himself wrote of the “excellent pond which Ostrava’s citizens built for their community”. In 1554 the Bishop had a set of ordinances drawn up to regulate the everyday lives of Ostrava’s people. Arguments and shouting were forbidden at night, and citizens were banned from carrying open flames. There were also fixed-penalty fines for hitting fellow citizens or for fights which resulted in open wounds. Poaching was punishable by forfeiture of property or even by death.

In 1556 a fire broke out in Moravian Ostrava due to the negligence of a draper named Hunek. The tradesman in question behaved disgracefully – he loaded his wares onto a cart and tried to escape without raising the alarm. Ostrava, being built of wood, was destroyed utterly. The angry townspeople wanted to execute Hunek, but were persuaded to take a more lenient approach by Václav, the Prince of Těšín. During the 16th century, Italian masons and master-builders began to arrive in the area, and the town’s architectural style began to change. Ostrava recovered from the devastating fire with remarkable speed, and most new buildings were constructed of less flammable stone and brick rather than wood. Many houses were remodelled in the Renaissance style, and the town’s church was reconstructed.

The period of prosperity was rudely interrupted by the rule of Bishop František of Ditrichštejn, who was particularly hostile towards Moravian Ostrava due to the town’s unenthusiastic response to the Counter-Reformation. To make a bad situation worse, the Thirty Years’ War was at its height and in 1625 the town was hit by plague. The disease killed up to 500 people, and of 211 houses only 121 remained inhabited. The plague returned at the start of the 18th century, when Ostrava also suffered another destructive fire. The town fell into such dire poverty that its Deanery was disbanded.

Further problems followed Austria’s defeat in Prussian-Austrian War, in which the Habsburg monarchy (under Empress Maria Theresa) lost the province of Silesia. The old trade route from Saxony to Krakow via Opava, Ostrava and Těšín fell into disuse, and the new route (via the town of Místek) bypassed Ostrava entirely. It was not until Austria’s acquisition of the province of Galicia that the city regained some of its former prosperity, becoming the site of one of the largest cattle markets in the entire Empire. Up to 90,000 head of cattle were bought and sold in Ostrava every year.

In the early 19th century Ostrava’s fortunes were dramatically transformed by the discovery of coal, the founding of the Rudolf Ironworks in Vítkovice (1828) and the construction of the Ferdinand Northern Railway. At the turn of the 19th century Ostrava’s houses were built of stone and brick; though narrow, they ran back a long way from the street. All ground-floor rooms were vaulted, and each house had a farmyard, stables, barns, a manure heap and a cesspit. In 1829 Moravian Ostrava had just 1,752 inhabitants. During the next 40 years the population grew to 6,800 – and Ostrava became the largest industrial centre in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This uncontrolled boom brought its own set of problems – lack of water, inadequate housing, and air pollution (including ashes falling from the sky). The town lacked hospitals, schools, paved roads, pavements and a sewerage system. The transport system was non-existent.

In 1900 the administrative boundaries were belatedly redrawn, removing Moravian Ostrava from Místek district and establishing a separate Ostrava district. However, it was still necessary to yoke the chaotically scattered settlements together in order to create a single metropolitan area. This happened in 1924, when Moravian Ostrava was merged with several surrounding communities including Přívoz, Vítkovice, Mariánské Hory, Zábřeh nad Odrou, Nová Ves and Hrabůvka. Moravian Ostrava’s population grew to 114,000 – making it one of the largest cities in Czechoslovakia. The largest growth in population came after 1918; in the 20 years between the two world wars, Ostrava became a major metropolis. It had a new City Hall, a city savings bank, department stores, banks, government offices and an extensive network of schools. A functioning transport system was set up, and water and gas mains were constructed. The streets were paved and a sewerage system was built.

When German troops marched into Moravian Ostrava in 1939, the city’s boundaries were expanded once again, this time to include Silesian Ostrava and a further 11 municipalities (7 in Silesia, 4 in Moravia). From 1946 onwards the city no longer bore the name ‘Moravian Ostrava’, but was known simply as ‘Ostrava’. The boundaries continued to be expanded, and in 1957 the district of Poruba – the largest housing scheme in the country at the time – was incorporated into the Ostrava metropolitan area. Today, Ostrava consists of 34 municipalities and has a population of 318,000.