PLZEN
- CZECH REPUBLIC |
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Plzen is a city in the Czech Republic in western Bohemia, the capital of Plzen Region. Population: 170,000. It lies about 90 km by highway southwest of Prague at the confluence of Radbuza, Mže, Úslava and Úhlava rivers, creating Berounka.
Plzen is famous for its Pilsener beer, named Pilsner Urquell after Pilsen (the German name for Plzen) and for the Škoda Works. The most prominent monuments are the Gothic church of St. Bartholomew, said to date from 1292, whose tower (325 ft.) is the highest in the Czech Republic, and the Renaissance town hall dating from the 16th century. |
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Plzen first appears in history in 976, as the
scene of a battle in the war between Prince Boleslaus II and the emperor
Otto II, and it became a town in 1295, established by Wenceslaus II. During
the Hussite Wars it was the centre of Catholic resistance to the Hussites;
it was three times unsuccessfully besieged by Prokop the Great, and it took
part in the league of the Romanist lords against King George of Podebrady.
The first Czech printing press was established here in 1468. During the
Thirty Years' War the town was taken by Mansfeld in 1618 and not recaptured
by the Imperialists till 1621. Wallenstein made it his winter-quarters in
1633. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by the Swedes in 1637 and 1648.
At the end of the Second World War, on May 5, 1945, Plzen (and Western
Bohemia) was liberated from Nazis by General Patton, unlike the rest of
Czechoslovakia that was freed by the Red Army.
Many famous people were born in, or are associated with, Plzen. Bedrich
Smetana studied here in the 1840s, for example. The poet Miroslav Holub was
a native.
There is a neighborhood called Pilsen in Chicago. It was once inhabited by
Czechs, but is Mexican today. |
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