History of the town

Let us embark on a long journey through this town’s centuries-long history. The beginnings of such a journey, however, lead us into the murky depths of the Middle Ages, where only step by step do clearer and more definite vistas begin to emerge before us. This high-altitude foothill landscape, with its relatively infertile soil and rather harsh climate, is not the sort of place where the first significant settlements sprang up or where the earliest history of our country was forged. On the other hand, the unique geological structure of the terrain has, since time immemorial, attracted prospectors in search of silver and iron deposits.

The town’s advantageous location

And the location of this place, near an ancient trade route, soon caught the attention of the Bishop of Prague as well. The local estate, bearing the Czech personal name ‘Příbram’ – presumably in memory of its former, otherwise long-forgotten founder – belonged to the noble magnate Hroznata at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Hroznata’s lasting interest, however, lay elsewhere: most of his estates were far from here, in northern and north-western Bohemia; there, in Teplá, Hroznata had also founded a Premonstratensian monastery as early as 1193 and, resolved to devote himself to the spiritual life, became the prior of Teplá himself. Hroznata also bequeathed all his estates to the new monastery. Among these was Příbram, which was inconveniently distant from the centre; conversely, it enjoyed a favourable location for the head of the Church in Bohemia, the Bishop of Prague. The latter was establishing a unified administrative structure throughout the country and, in order to make personal visits to all corners of his vast diocese, needed safe places to stay overnight at reasonable distances from Prague; Příbram lay precisely halfway between the Czech capital and the south-western borderlands.

Ondřej, Bishop of Prague

And so, in 1216, Bishop Ondřej of Prague purchased from the monastery at Teplá “the estate known as Příbram” and began to establish one of his estates there. A small town with market rights and the Church of St James grew up around the bishop’s residence – the centre of the estate comprising several villages. When, in 1278, the Bohemian King Přemysl Otakar II fell and years of internal unrest broke out across the country, the bishop’s enemies began attacking church estates; in April 1289, they also stormed Příbram, plundered it and either killed or carried off some of the inhabitants; shortly afterwards, in early June, there was a further incursion. The devastation was so great that, once the unrest had ended, sometime in 1290 or 1291, the bishop had to call in new settlers, led by the locator Přemysl, to the devastated town of Příbram; and he subsequently became reeve of the rebuilt town – the first representative of Příbram’s local government known to us by name. A long period of peace and prosperity followed.

Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice

The first Archbishop of Prague, Arnošt of Pardubice (1343–1364), had a new stone castle built in Příbram and often stayed there himself; on the outskirts, he established a hospital with a second church dedicated to St John. The archbishop’s estate continued to expand with the addition of new villages; the small town at the foot of the castle grew in importance, and life there became increasingly bustling. The number of town households eventually approached eighty. There was even a school here as early as the 14th century. In 1406, the archbishop solemnly confirmed the legal rights of the townspeople by means of a special charter. The population remained overwhelmingly Czech. There were, of course, also quite a few Germans here who mined silver ore in the surrounding area. However, the successes of mining were interspersed with failures, and so the miners came and went, forming a distinct community that did not merge with the settled townspeople.

The Hussite Reformation

The Hussite Reformation met with a lively response in the Czech town of Příbram. The religious revolution left the archbishop’s see vacant, and the town was left without a lord. The people of Příbram even took part in military skirmishes on the Hussite side, but to no avail: as early as 1421–1422, they suffered heavily from repeated attacks by the Catholic lord Hanuš of Kolovrat, who even temporarily seized the fortified castle of Příbram. Příbram, stripped of its ecclesiastical authority, became the property of the king; however, he did not administer it directly, but pledged it as security to his creditors, who changed frequently. Their aim was always to quickly exploit the estate, which they administered only temporarily; they had no interest in its long-term prosperity.

The consequences were catastrophic: the townspeople eventually came to fear that their town, stripped of its ancient rights, would be reduced to a mere village. Consequently, they pinned their hopes all the more on silver mining, which had been developing rapidly and on an unprecedented scale there since the early 16th century. Many German miners from the Ore Mountains came to the town, whilst others even established a separate settlement on nearby Březová Mountain. Jindřich Pešík, the lord of the manor of Příbram, introduced the Jáchymov mining rights for the local miners in 1525, and it was expected that a significant mining town would soon emerge here. These bold expectations were not fulfilled. After half a century, mining began to decline rapidly once more. However, hopes for a favourable turnaround persisted for a long time and finally prompted the monarch, in 1579, to free the estate from the exploitative administration of the feudal lords by elevating Příbram to the status of a royal mining town, entrusted to the care of a royal official – the master of the mint. From that time onwards, the town of Příbram prospered, whilst the small village of Březové Hory, gradually becoming Czech in character, stagnated in its growth and remained a tiny settlement.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) marked a profound turning point. The town, plundered several times by the armies of both warring sides, emerged from the conflict severely devastated: more than half the houses – 97 out of 168 – lay in ruins, and the inhabitants, if they had survived the calamity, were reduced to poverty. The outcome of the war condemned Bohemia, hitherto predominantly Utraquist, to forced recatholicisation. In Příbram, the religious upheaval was further accelerated by the fact that the local Marian chapel, Svatá Hora, had now become renowned throughout the wider region as the most famous place of pilgrimage in Bohemia, frequented not only by crowds of people but also by the nobility and monarchs. Pilgrimage traffic became the main source of livelihood for the impoverished townspeople. It took a full half-century for Příbram to fully recover from the devastation of war. This recovery was aided by successful iron mining, which provided the town with a considerable source of income at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. The silver mines remained in operation, but they yielded only meagre returns; and so, during the 18th century, the town gradually ceded its share of both costs and profits to the state, until it ultimately retained a mere four mining shares. This was soon to prove a fatal mistake.

The development of mining

It was precisely then, at the close of the 18th century, that mining began to enjoy unprecedented success and continued to develop on a scale that was entirely unforeseen. The town rapidly became more populous and grew. But not in a pleasant way: the new residential buildings were almost exclusively humble miners’ cottages, through which narrow streets radiated like a spider’s web from the square in all directions. Příbram, world-renowned as the site of the most profitable silver mining in the entire Habsburg Monarchy, became the seat of the central mining institutions and, in the mid-19th century, also of the mining academy; however, the profits from the immense wealth extracted from the depths here flowed almost entirely to Vienna. The town itself was left with only that tiny fraction of the four mining shares. Even so, during the years of greatest profitability for the mines, this was sufficient at least to enable the municipality to build important secondary schools: a teacher-training college in 1874 and a grammar school in 1884 – for a long time the only institutions of their kind in the wider region. The peak prosperity of the local mining enterprise lasted a hundred years; from the 1880s, mining output stagnated and subsequently began to decline. The mine laid off its workers; from the turn of the century, when Příbram’s population exceeded 14,000, the town itself began to lose its inhabitants. In an ironic twist of fate, it was precisely at this bleak moment, in 1897, the neighbouring town of Březové Hory finally achieved the long-cherished goal of its long-standing endeavours – its ceremonial elevation to the status of a royal mining town, a title which, in modern times, could no longer benefit its holder any more than as a formal ornament. The bright prospects for future development that had fuelled 19th-century Příbram were gradually turning into nostalgic memories of a glorious past, slipping irretrievably into the distance. Yet there remained plenty that made this place extraordinary, even in a time of economic and demographic decline. The world-famous mines continued to attract large numbers of visitors, whilst Svatá Hora remained the destination for numerous processions. And there was one more distinctive feature that set Příbram apart from other rural towns: the abundance of schools at all levels, right up to the University of Mining, and consequently the town’s vibrant cultural life.

The Uranium Age

The mid-twentieth century marked a new turning point in the history of Příbram. The dawn of the uranium age, cast in the shadow of the Cold War, ushered in a new era for local mining – the rapid development of uranium extraction and, with it, the town’s renewed growth. But it was as if a strange curse lay upon the Příbram mines: whereas in the previous century the fabulous profits from them had flowed almost entirely to the capital of the Habsburg Empire, it was now the despotic Eastern superpower that had seized them entirely. And its rule over Czechoslovakia also left its mark on the appearance of a resettling Příbram. The infamous ‘Stalinist’ architecture spread, with its gloomy, barracks-like façades. Menacing barbed-wire barriers, complete with watchtowers from which armed guards kept watch over the slave labour of the convicts, loomed around the mines and building sites. However, public life outside the barbed wire also had its vigilant guardians.

The town’s cultural life declined. In 1950, the Redemptorist monks who administered Svatá Hora were driven out; nine years later, a theatre was ceremonially opened on the opposite hillside, the new building of which was reportedly intended to create a symbolic landmark in opposition to the Svatá Hora church. It did not succeed in doing so. The theatre did not become a Marxist rival to Svatá Hora, as the ideological strategists had expected. The theatre remained a theatre, just as the church remained a church – because people remained people, with an irrepressible longing for freedom and spiritual riches. And so, despite the adversity of the times, thanks to the initiative of individuals, the town eventually began to revive its old cultural traditions in music, science and regional activities. Czechoslovakia’s awakening to freedom in November 1989 found Příbram once again on the threshold of a new era. The large mining enterprises, the ancient silver and lead mines, and the modern uranium ore mines all ceased to exist.

The Present

Today’s town is no longer a mining town. However, it remains a place of pilgrimage and a monument to its rich mining traditions. It is becoming a centre for scientific research into the history of the uranium industry and the history of the third, anti-Communist resistance movement. It is beginning to capitalise prudently on its extraordinary history and current opportunities, so that it can provide a safe and cultured home for its residents and offer interesting and pleasant experiences to its visitors.