The Šluknov promontory of history

History of the Šluknov promontory

The history of the Šluknov promontory is younger than the history of the interior. Until the end of the first millennium of our era, Rumburk was covered with forests. The first sparse settlement was probably Slavic, as the names of the oldest settlements Doubice (Dubinec-Daubitz), Chřibská (Křibska-Kryvic-Kreibitz) or the brook Křinice (Kirnischt) show. The settlers of that time probably belonged to the Slavic tribe of Milčany or Nisan.

The beginnings of Rumburk (first mentioned in 1298; by 1347 Rumburk is already called a town in "Novi Scriptores rerum Lusaticarum") and the actual settlement of the whole area is connected with the beginning of a large border colonization during the reign of the last Přemyslids. The original name Ronneperk (two crossed islands / Ronne / were in the emblem of the Berks of Dubá and are still in the town emblem of Šluknov) gradually changed to Ronberg, Romburg, Rumburg and finally Rumburk.

Rumburk, Šluknov and other cities soon benefited from a convenient location on an important land route from Prague to Zittau and from there via Varnsdorf, Rumburk and Šluknov and Dolní Poustevna to Meissen and along the Elbe to Hamburg. Rumburk lay at the crossroads of this route connecting Lusatia via Jiříkov and Česká Lípa with the capital. Jiřetín was founded in 1548; Jiříkov, Krásná Lípa and Lipová were established in the XIII. and XIV. century. They were declared cities in the XVIII. age. Varnsdorf did not become a town until 1868. Before its promotion, it was considered the largest village in Austria-Hungary. Velký Šenov, Dolní Poustevna and Mikulášovice became towns at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The Berks of Dubá, the Vartenberks, in the 16th century the Schleinitzs and the Strehlitzs took turns holding the territory. The Slavov estate also held the Lipov estate for some time. From 1680 to 1923, the Rumburk-Tolštejn estate was owned by the powerful South Moravian Lichtensteins. The nobility lived first at Hohenstein Castle in Saxony, then at Krásný Buk (ruins above Křinice near Krásná Lípa) and even later at Tolštýn pod Jedlovou (it was abandoned in the middle of the 17th century). From the 16th century, the manor was housed in castles in Rumburk, Šluknov and Lipová.

In the Hussite period, German Rumburk was Catholic and sided with Sigismund with the Lusatian six cities (Kamenz-Kamenice, Bautzen-Bautzen, Görlitz-Görlitz, Löbau, ZittauŽitava and Ljubljana). Therefore, in May 1423, part of the Hussite army marched to northern Bohemia. Six Upper Lusatian towns were preparing for defense. The six-city corps attracted Rumburk to help in late, mid-June. The Hussites fought a victorious battle near Valdek at the end of May. In 1426, 18,000 Hussite warriors marched across Rumburk against Zittau, where the St. Vitus Chapter was forced to flee Prague. The most important battle was experienced by Rumburk in September 1429 between the local population, assisted by the Zittau, and the Hussites led by Prokůpek in the number of 4,000 infantry and 400 cavalry on the hill Frencelsberg. This fight also ended in victory for the Hussites. More than 1,000 fallen remained on the battlefield.

In the 16th century, Rumburk flourished under the Schleinitz family. They began to mine silver in the slopes around Křížová hora near Tolštejn. In 1548, they founded the town of Jiřetín for miners. In the first half of the XVII. century, during the Thirty Years' War, Rumburk was again plundered several times by the armies of various parties.

From the beginning of XVIII. In the 19th century, linen manufactories were quickly established in the Šluknov foothills. Flax cultivation and the beginnings of linen in the area date back to the XIII. A XIV. century. In 1708, a linen manufactory was founded in Lipová. Later they were founded in Krásná Lípa, in Varnsdorf, in Rumburk and its surroundings. Rumburk became a well-known "Rumburk web" far beyond the borders, especially due to the Rumburk cloth maker Antonín Salomon. End of XVIII. century brought a change in the structure of textile production of our promontory. Cotton processing took the place of linen processing and the focus of production finally shifted to Varnsdorf.

In the thirties XIX. century, the first factories were established in our promontory, first textile, in the second half of the century engineering. The strong industrialization of the promontory also required the connection of industrial towns to the railway network (the first train arrived in Rumburk in 1869) and the construction of financial institutions (a savings bank was opened in Šluknov on January 1, 1862).

This area experienced the greatest development at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when there was a massive reconstruction of settlements. In the 20th century, several factors had a negative effect on the face of the landscape, notably the economic crisis of the 1930s, which hit the region very hard, and then the expulsion of the German population and the migration of new inhabitants from the interior. The situation did not stabilize until the 1970s.

(Source: Gymnázium Rumburk)