Města a obce online - Valašské Klobouky

The history of Valašské Klobouky

and south Wallachia

The area of the south Wallachia region (created in 1999) is identical to the former domain of Brumov, which first Brumov and later Valašské Klobouky were the centres of.

The oldest medieval settlement of the area was in the neighbourhood of the town Slavičín and then in the direction of Loučka, the village, and primarily in the area of the Vlárský Pass with the castle Brumov that has been documented since 1225. Brumov worked partly as a control centre of the area confined in the north by the river Dřevnice, in the west by the river Moravia and in the south and east by Uhersko, and partly as a seat of economic administration of royal possession. As the burgraves the king appointed the most magnificent nobles of his peers.

In the period from the mid of the 13^th century untill the 14^th century, the first great colonization wave was being in progress (then Újezd, Vlachova Lhota and Nedašova Lhota were founded), it shaped not only the basic appearance of the towns Brumov, Klobouky, Slavičín, Újezd, of villages and noble seats (Vlachovice), but also the church's control system (vicarages in Brumov, Klobouky, Slavičín, Vlachovice and Újezd). The monarch did not hold all the seats in the area of Valašské Klobouky, though; Slavičín together with a few villages were in the ownership of bishops from Olomouc, who enfeoffed this property to the aristocracy (the largest fief was the small town Slavičín with the castle Engelsberg, the small feudal manor was even Divice).

The 14^th and the 15^th centuries brought a lot of privileges, above all to Valašské Klobouky, which started to play a role of the economic and later also the judicial centre of the extensive Brumov domain. The most significant privilege Klobouky received on the 18^th June 1356 (Holy Trio Eve). Klobouky became a market-town with the status of Hradiště, which except the right of market brought the capital punishment law. The important legal instruments the market-town received during the Hussites' War from the king Zikmund, who needed strengthen his position in the region, since the castle was temporarily held by chalice nobleman Boček from Kunštát. However, the castle returned soon to hands of the king. So the Hussites' movement definitely did not cast anchor here...

During the Hungarian War, which erased almost a fifth of the villages out of the map, Hungarian king gave over the manor of Brumov to the nobleman Podmanický (the Podmanicky´s family then bought back the right of hereditary tenure of the manor). Significant care was given to the manor in the 16^th century by noblemen from Lomnice. In 16^th century Vlachovice were promoted to the market town. Klobouky was an already denoted town. In the second half of the 16^th century local vicarages were Lutherian: the writings about the regional history from this period are mostly full of anger and disrespect, and there are no mentions of clerical administrators. But it is good to realize that, for example, it were the Lutherians thanks to whom the tower of the church in Klobouky exists (it was built in 80´s of the 16^th century). At the end of the 16^th century the presence of Czech Brothers, as well as the Jewish inhabitants, in Klobouky was documented. At the beginning of the 17^th century vigorous Jesuits came to the Brumov domain and recatholization followed. Just at that time new efforts to colonize the area culminated (their beginning is possible to date approximately to the mid of the 16^th century) with the purpose to colonize and make use of the higher mountain positions. The characteristic way of farming (cultivation of  fields on slopes of mountains, sheep and goats breeding) used in Romanian Wallachia gave this colonisation its name – valašská. The expansion of colonisation, especially in our area, caused then that the whole region has been called Wallachia since the 17^th century. Production of woolen cloth became an important craft of this area. Calm and economic prosperity of the domain in the 16^th century was altered in the 17^th century, which brought an invasion of Bočkajovci as early as in 1605 and soon afterwards the visits of thirty-year-war troops (in 1621 during the Wallachian insurrection the Wallachians captured the Brumov castle). After a short lapse of time several destructive invasions of Turks followed (the worst in 1663). During the invasion in 1680 Václav Pavliš, the parish priest from Klobouky, was dragged away, three years later the priest Jan František Čapek was dragged away by the invaders. At the beginning of the 18^th century still Rákoczi's Hungarian insurgents invaded the region. An interesting note about their fury has been documented in so called Chronical of Kráčalík: at the end of the year 1706 the new pastor of Brumov František Kalus was naked and then beaten to death in Beranicové Chrástí near Klobouky. From that period quite a lot of relics and memories were maintained in the area: Hložecká Chapel, the Small Angel, then the name of a railroad track Knězova louka (the Priest's Meadow) in the area of Tichovsko – for people then found their refuge from the invaders mainly in the forests of Tichovsko, the pastor was with them, naturally.

This area was only with difficulty getting over these tragedies and especially over the subsequent economic stagnation (we can check the stagnation in the number of population; however, after invasions many immigrants came here). Moreover the extensive noblemen's economic activities noticeably affected dependent masses.

For example the house No. 105 from 20´s of the 18^th century, and then the statue of Jan Nepomucký from 1733 (in 1766 the remains of Jan Nepomucký were given to the parish church) are valuable documents of revitalisation of the town Klobouky. The baroque glory of Marian cult was materialised in Klobouky in 1761. Tobiáš Tomaštík, whose sons Tobiáš and Benedikt built so called Red House (in1781), let make the Marian Column with the statues of Virgin Mary with baby Jesus, Saint Tekl, Saint Florian, Saint Vendelín and archangel Rafael with small Tobiáš. (Multitude of Tobiases and Dobiases in the town gave rise to a pejorative nickname of Klobouky's inhabitants – Dobši.) The Tomaštík´s brothers were chief representatives of woolen cloth production guild in Klobouky that from the half of the18^th century steered for the top. In the 19^th century the manufactures producing woolen cloth were founded in Klobouky and Brumov.

At the end of the 18^th and beginning the 19^th century we can note a visible prosperity of our corner of Wallachia, which is reminded by many buildings, today's cultural monuments. Let us remind too, that after twenty-year efforts pastors and bishops moved parish to have the church repaired at last. It was expected parish would pay the expenses. Only with minimal parish's assistance the church was amply repaired in the baroque style during 1771 – 1772. Ten years later the vicarage was newly built-up (today it is after the reconstruction that respected the original disposition).

The townhall waited for its significant reconstruction till the end of the 18^th century.  At the end of the 18^th century Klobouky was a seat of deanship, too, untill then it belonged under deanship of Vizovice. Hierocracy stopped using personal signets. Parish started to use a signet with two small lions supporting a hat with a cross below. Starting with the year 1808 the signet with the motive of Saint Helena holding a cross was used. In 1804 a church inscription – of the Finding the Holy Rood - was mentioned for the first time. Till that time it had been known only as the Holy Rood Church. The second concil of Vatican city in 60-ies of the 20^th century united the feasts of the Finding and the Raise of the Holy Rood. Today the church is also sacrificed to the Raise of the Holy Rood. At the end of the 18^th, and later in the 19^th century, the idea of changes in district parish occured. An opportunity to associate the town Študlov to the vicarage in Lideč was also discussed, but for the desire of Študlov's people to belong to the local vicarage, it was not completed. The extent of parish district has gradually settled into this area: Klobouky, Lipina, Mirošov, Smolina, Tichov, Lačnov, Poteč, Příkazy, and Študlov.

After the year 1848 the new administrative ordering and construction of court districts more or less respected the catchment areas of the late-feudal capital punishment law, which answered a social development better than the establishment's administrative areas. Thus in 1851 Valašské Klobouky became a seat of the district offices of South Walllachia. Since 1868 the jurisdiction of Klobouky has come under the political district Uherský Brod. This state outlasted throughout the First Republic.

It is possible to notice that in the second half of the 19^th century new rich businessmen and manufacturers advanced in comparison with the old noble stocks' decline (for example Antonín Dreher, who at the turn of the century bought the most of the Brumov domain, the first and the second part). The basic living of village people was still agriculture; however, it could not sustain growing population. At that time production of home-made wooden tools expanded in villages. Many villagers solved the deteriorating situation by the departure for seasonal jobs. For example in the area of Slavičín many people skillful in castrating animal set out to seek their living. For many their emigration mainly to the USA showed like the best solution. The doom of guilds and passing the trade order threw the entrepreneurial ways open to many handicraftsmen. Credit unions and savings banks contributed to the development of entrepreneurial activities too. The attempts appeared, too, to pull together for the greater concentration of production possibilities (Association of woolen cloth and slippers producers in Valašské Klobouky, 1898). Several petroleum bores were realized with poor results near the small town Bohuslavice nad Vláří. The names Pivečka and Šerý became entrepreneurial symbols of South Wallachia. In 1860 Piveček's tanner workshop was established in Slavičín, and it gradually grew into a shoemaker's factory.  Similarly František Šerý's textile workshop in Klobouky developed into a factory. But the better times will be always swept along by something – for largely wooden estate of local villages especially fire was the biggest enemy. In 1896 more than a half of the town Valašské Klobouky burnt down (since the eighties of the 19^th century Klobouky has been using an attribute Valašské). On the other hand, it is necessary to say, that in consequence of the fire Hubert Gessner's talent unreeled. At the end of the 19^th century Hubert Gessner projected many houses, for example the house No. 116 (so called Villa of Líbal), the house No. 177 (the Catholic House Association became the owner of it in the mid-thirties of the 20^th century), or the number 189 (the seat of municipal authorities). A new resurgence wave of business and bloom of the area occured after the economic crisis of the thirties of the 20^th century subsided. Especially foundation of a munition factory in Bohuslavice nad Vláří (1935-1936) had a great significance for South Wallachia. After the Second World War big changes took place, actually after the year 1848. The electrotechnical factory MEZ in Brumov (established in 1946), machine works in Slavičín, and Pal Magneton and Igla factories in Klobouky (former textile factories Šedý and Umtex, transformed into engeneering production after the Second World War) became industrial pillars.

The united agricultural co-operatives meant a great transformation of agricultural production (the first co-operatives were established in 1949 and 1950 in Bohuslavice, Divnice, Lipina, Brumov and Valašské Klobouky).

The darker side of the time is still reminded by the witnesses of a stage-managed public trial against the group called Světlana (1950) and of crackdowns on Catholic church and believers. In the 50´s the Corpus Christi Feasts were gradually limited. First small altars disappeared from the square, then, in 1958, this feast took place in the square for the last time. In 1949 the districts were cancelled (jurisdiction and political districts existed until then). Valašské Klobouky kept the statute of the district untill 1960, when the next administrative reform incorporated South Wallachia to the district Gottwaldov (since the 1^st January 1990 - Zlín).