Uherske Hradiste

Uherske Hradiste was founded in 1257 on an island in the Morava as a royal fortress town and is now the main town of Slovacko, the ethnographic region of south-eastern Moravia, which matters more here than the architecture. Slovacko has kept its costume, music, dialect and wine culture as living practice rather than performance: village feasts, the hody, are held through the autumn with costume worn by people who own it, verbunk - the recruit dance - is on the UNESCO intangible list, and the cimbalom bands play at ordinary occasions. The town has a Renaissance and baroque square, a Jesuit church, and the Slovacke museum with the regional collections. Around it are the wine villages with rows of press houses and cellars, of which Vlcnov, Blatnice and Petrov's Plze cellar row are the best known.

History

The name means "Hungarian gord", a fortified settlement near the Hungarian border. Its predecessor was a Slavic settlement and system of fortifications on three islands in the Morava, founded in the early 9th century, which disappeared after the fall of Great Moravia. King Ottokar II founded the town in 1257 to protect the nearby monastery at Velehrad; it was called Nový Velehrad, then Hradiště, and the name Uherské Hradiště first appears in 1587. Stone walls replaced the wooden palisades in the 14th century and the fortifications were improved for centuries, as the town faced repeated raids, from the Cumans in the 16th century to the Thirty Years' War and the Turkish invasions of 1716-1718; it was first taken only in 1742, by the Prussian army. The Jesuits worked here from 1644 to 1773 and built a college, the Church of Saint Francis Xavier and a school. The town ceased to be a fortress in the 1780s, began to spread beyond its walls in the mid-19th century, and gained representative buildings in the late 19th century and industry in the early 20th (Wikipedia, Uherské Hradiště).

What's there

• Living folk practice - costume, music and dialect used rather than displayed.
• Verbunk - the recruit dance, on the UNESCO intangible heritage list.
• A Renaissance and baroque square - with the Jesuit church and the regional museum.
• Cellar rows in the villages - press houses at Petrov, Vlcnov and Blatnice.

When to go

May to September; autumn for the village feasts. A day.

Things to know

The living tradition is strongest at village events, which are local occasions rather than shows - go respectfully. Cellars open by arrangement or on set days. Museums close on Mondays.

Nearby

Velehrad and Buchlovice are north-west; Straznice is south.

Key facts