Moravia

• 1. The River And The Divide

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  The Morava river flows from north to south, carving the heart of a region that has served as a natural corridor for millennia. This single watercourse defines the boundaries of the land and drains almost its entire area. To the west, the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands rise up to 837 meters at Javořice. These mountains form a filter that makes movement between north and south difficult across most of Central Europe. Only the depression known as the Outer Subcarpathia offers a comfortable connection between the Danubian and Polish regions. This geographic feature has guided migration routes for large mammals since prehistory. The highest peak in the northern border is Praděd, standing at 1491 meters above sea level. Further east, the Moravian-Silesian Beskids reach 1278 meters at Smrk. The watershed line running along the border from west to north and east is part of the European Watershed. Plans to build a waterway across Moravia to join the Danube and Oder river systems have existed for centuries.

• 2. Mammoth Bones And Clay Figures

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  Evidence of human presence in this region dates back more than 600,000 years within the paleontological area of Stránská skála. Early modern humans had settled here by the Paleolithic period, attracted by suitable living conditions. Caves in the Moravian Karst were used by mammoth hunters who crafted their homes from bone. The Venus of Dolní Věstonice stands as the oldest ceramic figure in the world. Karel Absolon found this artifact during an excavation at Dolní Věstonine. In November 2024, new discoveries emerged on the outskirts of Brno where bones of at least three mammoths were found alongside human stone tools dating back 15,000 years. During the Bronze Age, people of various cultures settled in Moravia including the Nitra culture. The largest burial site of the Nitra culture contained 400 graves discovered in Holešov during the 1960s. A recent find unearthed two settlements and two burial grounds near Olomouc with a total of 130 graves. One of these sites dates between the years 2100, 1800 BC.

• 3. The Margrave And The Empire

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  In 833 AD, the state of Great Moravia formed through the conquest of the Principality of Nitra. Their first king was Mojmír I who ruled from 830 to 846. Louis the German invaded Moravia and replaced Mojmír I with his nephew Rastiz who became St. Rastislav. Methodius became the first Moravian archbishop and the first archbishop in the Slavic world. Great Moravia reached its greatest territorial extent in the 890s under Svatopluk I. After Svatopluk's death in 895, the Moravian state ceased to exist after being overrun by invading Magyars in 907. Following the defeat of the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, Boleslaus I took control over Moravia. In 1182, Emperor Frederick I elevated Conrad II Otto of Znojmo to the status of a margrave. This status was short-lived as Conrad Otto was forced to obey the supreme rule of Bohemian duke Frederick three years later. The margrave title was restored in 1197 when Vladislaus III accepted Moravia as a vassal land of Bohemian rulers.

• 4. Wars And The Habsburg Crown

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  After the death of King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in 1526, Ferdinand I of Austria became ruler of the Crown of Bohemia including Moravia. From 1599 to 1711, Moravia was frequently subjected to raids by the Ottoman Empire and its vassals. Hundreds of thousands were enslaved whilst tens of thousands were killed during these conflicts. In 1740, Moravia was invaded by Prussian forces under Frederick the Great. Olomouc was forced to surrender on the 27th of December 1741. A few months later, the Prussians were repelled mainly because of their unsuccessful siege of Brno in 1742. In 1758, Olomouc was besieged by Prussians again but defenders forced them to withdraw following the Battle of Domstadtl. According to the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, the proportion of Czechs in the population of Moravia at that time was 71.8 percent while the proportion of Germans was 27.6 percent. The Margraviate of Moravia had its own Diet or parliament known as zemský sněm whose deputies from 1905 onward were elected separately from ethnically separate German and Czech constituencies.

• 5. Factories And Vineyards

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  An area in South Moravia around Hodonín and Břeclav is part of the Viennese Basin where petroleum and lignite are found in abundance. Moravia contains 94 percent of the Czech Republic's vineyards and sits at the center of the country's wine industry. Wallachia has at least a 400-year-old tradition of slivovitz making. The Czech automotive industry played a significant role in Moravia's economy during the 20th century with factories of Wikov in Prostějov and Tatra in Kopřivnice producing many automobiles. Moravia is also the center of the Czech firearm industry as the vast majority of manufacturers like CZUB and Zbrojovka Brno are found here. Aircraft production in the region started in the 1930s after a period of low production post-1989 there have been signs of recovery post-2010. Companies with operations in Brno include Gen Digital which maintains one of its headquarters there and continues to use the brand AVG Technologies. In recent years, Brno's economy has seen growth in the quaternary sector focusing on science research and education.

• 6. Census And Expulsion

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  Before the expulsion of Germans from Moravia the Moravian German minority also referred to themselves as Moravians. Those expelled and their descendants continue to identify as Moravian. In the census of 1991 the first census in history where respondents were allowed to claim Moravian nationality, 1,362,000 people identified as being of Moravian nationality. This represented 13.2 percent of the Czech population. In the census of 2001, the number of Moravians had decreased to 380,000 representing 3.7 percent of the country's population. In the census of 2011, this number rose to 522,474 or 4.9 percent of the Czech population. After World War II, the Czechoslovak government almost fully expelled them in retaliation for their support of Nazi Germany's invasion and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia between 1938 and 1939. The occupiers established several forced labor camps including subcamps of Auschwitz concentration camp in Brno for mostly Polish prisoners. The Moravian-Silesian Land was restored with Moravia as part of it and towns left by former German inhabitants were resettled by Czechs Slovaks and reemigrants.