Slavkov u Brna is a Moravian town in the Litava valley, known under the German name Austerlitz after the Battle of the Three Emperors of 2 December 1805. It is the site of a Baroque château of the Kounic family, a national cultural monument since 2008.
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Slavkov u Brna is a town in Moravia in the valley of the Litava river, known worldwide under its older name Austerlitz. It entered world history through the Battle of the Three Emperors of 2 December 1805, which the French emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte won on the fields west of the town.[1][4] It is the centre of the administrative district of a municipality with a delegated municipal authority.[2]
Name of the town
The earlier German name Austerlitz arose, according to historians, from the Latin form “Nova sedes”, that is “new seat”, most likely before the end of the 12th century, when the territory passed to the Teutonic Order. Through erroneous transcriptions the form changed: in 1237 it was written Novosedeliz, in 1322 Nausedlicz, in 1343 Neusserlicz, in 1460 Nausterlitz and from 1611 Austerlitz. This name was used until 1918 and again during the German occupation.[1]
The name Slavkov is first mentioned in 1361 and then not until 1475. It is derived from the personal name Bohuslav, colloquially Slávek, and probably refers to a nearby farmstead belonging to a person of the same name. In the 17th and 18th centuries both names were used side by side on the territory of the town. The suffix “u Brna” was added after 1918 to distinguish the town from other places called Slavkov in the Czech lands.[1]
The distant past
The earliest traces of humans in the Slavkov area lead to a station of Palaeolithic mammoth hunters at Křižanovice, whose age is given as 45,000 to 25,000 years. Denser settlement is attested by painted pottery found at Křenovice, Vážany nad Litavou and Lovčičky, dating roughly from 4500 to 3000 BC. In the Slavkov brickworks, rich material of the Bell Beaker people, graves of the Únětice culture and evidence of the Tumulus culture people were found.[1]
The area lay at the crossroads of old trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, as finds show: a hoard of eighty bronze hřivnas was deposited here, as well as a treasure of Roman coins from the time of the emperors Theodosius II and Majorian. The Late Hillfort period is represented by a hoard of almost forty coins, so-called obols of the dead, and coins of King Cnut the Great from the London mint. The Litava valley was also densely settled in the 10th and 11th centuries.[1]
The Middle Ages and the coat of arms
The territory originally belonged to the sovereign of the land, and at the end of the 1190s Margrave Vladislaus Henry assigned it for use to the Teutonic Order. The order built here one of the economically most successful commanderies in Moravia, and according to the château's website its commandery arose at the start of the 13th century on the site of today's château.[1][3] The settlement is listed among the order's estates in a charter of King Wenceslaus I of 1237, which is its first written mention.[1][4]
On 1 July 1416 King Wenceslaus IV granted the town a coat of arms in Prague. According to the château's website this was the first such right in Bohemia.[2][4] The shield is divided: at the top, on the right, a quarter of a black eagle and, on the left, a quarter of a silver-and-red chequered eagle; below, half of a Bohemian lion grows out of the dividing line.[2]
The château and the Kounic family
The history of the château has been bound for more than four centuries to the noble Kounic family. Oldřich of Kounic acquired the Slavkov estate in 1509 and made the château the family's main seat. At the end of the 16th century a Renaissance château with a four-wing plan, arcades and a massive round tower was built on older foundations, probably under Oldřich III of Kounic. Among the most important owners was Václav Antonín Kounic-Rietberg, chancellor of four Habsburg rulers, including Maria Theresa.[3][4]
The impulse for the Baroque reconstruction was given at the end of the 17th century by Dominik Ondřej of Kounic. The Italian architect Domenico Martinelli of Lucca designed in the 1680s a new building in Danubian Baroque on a U-shaped plan and included in the plan the rebuilding of a larger part of the town, including a new parish church. The frescoes were created by Andrea Lanzani, the stuccos by Santino Bussi and the sculptural decoration of the château and park by Giovanni Giuliani.[3]
Dominik Ondřej died in 1705, when only the west wing was roughly complete. His son Maxmilián Oldřich, from 1720 Moravian Land Captain, continued the work with the architect Ignác Valmaggini, who in 1731 carried out changes to the courtyard of the west wing. The builder Václav Petruzzi was entrusted with the completion at the start of the 1730s.[3] The Baroque form of the château was completed in 1769.[4]
Battle of Austerlitz and the more recent period
At Slavkov on 2 December 1805 France clashed with a numerically larger allied army of Austria and Russia. Tens of thousands of soldiers died, and the French won. The next day Napoleon quoted his order to the guard units from the château balcony and named the battle Austerlitz after the then name of the town.[1][4]
In 1919 Evžen Kounic died and the Kounic family thereby became extinct; the château was taken over by the Hungarian Pálffys. After the war the nobility's property was confiscated and passed to the state. In 2008 the château was declared a national cultural monument and today it is owned by the town of Slavkov u Brna.[4]