Case study: The Battle for Jezeří Chateau

Introduction

For Jezeří Chateau, perched dramatically on the foothills of the Ore Mountains in North-West Bohemia, its struggle for survival has been an enduring one over the centuries and reached its most critical moments in the latter half of the 20th century long after pan-European wars were consigned to history. Even in the new democratic era, its fight to exist has continued. From its role as a troop base in the Hussite Wars, the various reconstructions it underwent, its numerous changes of ownership, and its use and misuse by German troops during the Second World War, Jezeří Chateau still faced almost inevitable ruin through deliberate neglect from the 1950s onward when the communist regime became transfixed by extracting as much of the surrounding coal deposits as possible, even at the expense of demolishing the chateau itself. Even now, after a successful fight to preserve the building, the threat of demise looms over the chateau once again as part of the equation to lifting the territorial mining limits imposed in the early 1990s.