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Ore mountains - region and history (view source)
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[[File:Krusne hory CZ I3A-2.png|200px|thumb|right|Location of Ore Mountains within Czech Republic]] | |||
[[File:Krusne hory CZ I3A-2.png|200px|thumb|right| | [[File:Altenberg Panorama (04) 2006-10-30.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Altenberg Panorama]] | ||
[[File:Altenberg Panorama (04) 2006-10-30.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Altenberg Panorama | |||
==Geological history of the region== | ==Geological history of the region== | ||
The landscape of North-West Bohemia, with its Ore Mountains, Sokolov and North Bohemian coal basins, Central Bohemian Uplands and Egerland, is the result of millions of years of orogenetic processes. The Ore Mountains' crystalline complex was formed during the Hercynian orogeny at the turn of the early Palaeozoic, when older rocks of various ages and origins were affected by metamorphic processes. They were, roughly speaking, sediments saturated with deep magmatic rocks, and deep magmatic rocks themselves. Depending on the nature of the original rocks and the intensity of the metamorphic processes, they were turned into orthogneisses, paragneisses, crystalline slates, crystalline limestones, schists, and phyllites. As part of the Bohemian Massif, the Ore Mountains crystalline complex was part of the Hercynian European mountain system. The massif repeatedly sank and was lifted again in the Mesozoic. The associated erosion and accumulation processes fashioned it into a levelled peneplain by the end of the Mesozoic; its sheet was broken at the edges by the Saxon orogeny in the early Tertiary. The elevated plain of the Ore Mountains and the rift valley below it were formed at the northwestern breach of the Bohemian Massif; it was filled with lake sediments, containing brown coal seams in their older strata, in the course of the Tertiary. The deposition of massive layers of dead organic matter from the tropical vegetation of that era is probably linked to the repeated disastrous effects of volcanoes in the emerging Central Bohemian Uplands and Doupov Mountains. The landscape was then completed by the alteration of colder and warmer periods, the effects of water, vegetation, and the evolution of plant and animal species since the beginning of the Quaternary. The contribution of human activity to the landscape formation can only be recognized in the last millennium.<ref name = Riha>Říha,M., Stoklasa, J., Lafarová, M., Dejmal, I., Marek, J., Pakosta, P., Beránek, K. Environmental mining limits in North Bohemian Lignite Region. Společnost pro krajinu, Praha 2005. Translation: Petr Kurfurst. Updated for the ISPoS summer school in September, 2011</ref> | The landscape of North-West Bohemia, with its Ore Mountains, Sokolov and North Bohemian coal basins, Central Bohemian Uplands and Egerland, is the result of millions of years of orogenetic processes. The Ore Mountains' crystalline complex was formed during the Hercynian orogeny at the turn of the early Palaeozoic, when older rocks of various ages and origins were affected by metamorphic processes. They were, roughly speaking, sediments saturated with deep magmatic rocks, and deep magmatic rocks themselves. Depending on the nature of the original rocks and the intensity of the metamorphic processes, they were turned into orthogneisses, paragneisses, crystalline slates, crystalline limestones, schists, and phyllites. As part of the Bohemian Massif, the Ore Mountains crystalline complex was part of the Hercynian European mountain system. The massif repeatedly sank and was lifted again in the Mesozoic. The associated erosion and accumulation processes fashioned it into a levelled peneplain by the end of the Mesozoic; its sheet was broken at the edges by the Saxon orogeny in the early Tertiary. The elevated plain of the Ore Mountains and the rift valley below it were formed at the northwestern breach of the Bohemian Massif; it was filled with lake sediments, containing brown coal seams in their older strata, in the course of the Tertiary. The deposition of massive layers of dead organic matter from the tropical vegetation of that era is probably linked to the repeated disastrous effects of volcanoes in the emerging Central Bohemian Uplands and Doupov Mountains. The landscape was then completed by the alteration of colder and warmer periods, the effects of water, vegetation, and the evolution of plant and animal species since the beginning of the Quaternary. The contribution of human activity to the landscape formation can only be recognized in the last millennium.<ref name = Riha>Říha,M., Stoklasa, J., Lafarová, M., Dejmal, I., Marek, J., Pakosta, P., Beránek, K. Environmental mining limits in North Bohemian Lignite Region. Společnost pro krajinu, Praha 2005. Translation: Petr Kurfurst. Updated for the ISPoS summer school in September, 2011</ref> | ||
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==Natural potential utilized: curative spas== | ==Natural potential utilized: curative spas== | ||
[[File:Eger durch Karlsbad.JPG|200px|thumb|left| | [[File:Eger durch Karlsbad.JPG|200px|thumb|left|River Teplá in Karlovy Vary]] | ||
The beautiful and variegated landscape went hand in hand with rich cultural heritage – heritage of towns and villages, numerous castles and chateaux, monasteries, churches, parks and arboreta, and lakes – in consequence both the extent and quality of the settlements and the economic development of the region increased. When residual manifestations of volcanic activity through numerous thermal and mineralized springs and spouts were discovered, other types of settlements typical of this region emerged: curative spas. They further increased the variety in the landscape character and exploitation of the natural resources. This was accompanied by specific architecture and building types: spa houses, buildings for temporary guest accommodation, colonnades and promenades, gyms and casinos, open-air theatres, theatres and concert halls, riding schools, park gazebos, maintained walking paths with vistas and resting facilities, and landscaped compositions of spa town surroundings.<ref name = Riha></ref> | The beautiful and variegated landscape went hand in hand with rich cultural heritage – heritage of towns and villages, numerous castles and chateaux, monasteries, churches, parks and arboreta, and lakes – in consequence both the extent and quality of the settlements and the economic development of the region increased. When residual manifestations of volcanic activity through numerous thermal and mineralized springs and spouts were discovered, other types of settlements typical of this region emerged: curative spas. They further increased the variety in the landscape character and exploitation of the natural resources. This was accompanied by specific architecture and building types: spa houses, buildings for temporary guest accommodation, colonnades and promenades, gyms and casinos, open-air theatres, theatres and concert halls, riding schools, park gazebos, maintained walking paths with vistas and resting facilities, and landscaped compositions of spa town surroundings.<ref name = Riha></ref> | ||
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==Energy reserves== | ==Energy reserves== | ||
[[File:Lom ČSA - Pohled na důl a Krušné hory.jpg|300px|thumb|right|ČSA open pit mine]] | |||
The discovery of reserves and possible uses of the energy potential of brown coal in both the basins below the Ore Mountains was a fundamental milestone for the region. The initially tiny and primitive shallow surface “rustic” mining progressively developed into demanding underground extraction in increasingly difficult geological conditions due to the growing demands by emerging manufactures, then industries and railway transport. Surface mining continued to develop where the coal seam was not deep under the surface or even lay exposed on the ground (“in the day” as they used to say). Due to its high calorific capacity, coal soon replaced firewood and charcoal, common in both production and household heating until then, and permitted an unprecedented growth of industry once the steam engine was invented and widespread. It also brought about a radical change in transportation as the railway expanded. | The discovery of reserves and possible uses of the energy potential of brown coal in both the basins below the Ore Mountains was a fundamental milestone for the region. The initially tiny and primitive shallow surface “rustic” mining progressively developed into demanding underground extraction in increasingly difficult geological conditions due to the growing demands by emerging manufactures, then industries and railway transport. Surface mining continued to develop where the coal seam was not deep under the surface or even lay exposed on the ground (“in the day” as they used to say). Due to its high calorific capacity, coal soon replaced firewood and charcoal, common in both production and household heating until then, and permitted an unprecedented growth of industry once the steam engine was invented and widespread. It also brought about a radical change in transportation as the railway expanded. | ||
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The blanket eviction of the German population of the Ore Mountains and the basin below had a much more devastating impact on economic and social life, culture, and people’s relationships to nature and each other in the purely German-settled areas – which was the case of a large part of the basin area – than in areas where Germans made up a smaller proportion of the pre-war population. Unfortunately, the Germans often “took away” with them their qualifications, sense of order, and attachment to the towns and village, cultural heritage, nature and landscape. The first wave of settlers from the interior of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia included lots of “gold diggers”, who plundered and burgled the abandoned German properties and soon left again. Arrivals from Carpathian Ruthenia, and Czechs and Slovaks returning from Volhynia, Hungary, Romania and other parts of the Balkans could mostly not compare to the evicted Germans with their level of knowledge and management. Under the influence of the war that had recently ended, the gradually arriving skilled settlers, too, often behaved like in a conquered “enemy territory” without the slightest respect for the heritage of another culture. Since their roots were not here, many regarded everything German – the Saxonian and Lusatian architecture and culture – as worthless and hostile. Driven by an urge to supplant the German with the “Czech”, they carelessly destroyed links and values developed over centuries, neglected maintenance and repair, causing the total decay of the housing, factories, farmsteads, transport and technical infrastructures, including a sophisticated aquaculture, public and cultural amenities, cemeteries, churches, and recreational facilities in the landscape. In many towns, they threw out official documents and papers written in German, ranging from medieval manuscripts to building authority archives.<ref name = Riha></ref> | The blanket eviction of the German population of the Ore Mountains and the basin below had a much more devastating impact on economic and social life, culture, and people’s relationships to nature and each other in the purely German-settled areas – which was the case of a large part of the basin area – than in areas where Germans made up a smaller proportion of the pre-war population. Unfortunately, the Germans often “took away” with them their qualifications, sense of order, and attachment to the towns and village, cultural heritage, nature and landscape. The first wave of settlers from the interior of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia included lots of “gold diggers”, who plundered and burgled the abandoned German properties and soon left again. Arrivals from Carpathian Ruthenia, and Czechs and Slovaks returning from Volhynia, Hungary, Romania and other parts of the Balkans could mostly not compare to the evicted Germans with their level of knowledge and management. Under the influence of the war that had recently ended, the gradually arriving skilled settlers, too, often behaved like in a conquered “enemy territory” without the slightest respect for the heritage of another culture. Since their roots were not here, many regarded everything German – the Saxonian and Lusatian architecture and culture – as worthless and hostile. Driven by an urge to supplant the German with the “Czech”, they carelessly destroyed links and values developed over centuries, neglected maintenance and repair, causing the total decay of the housing, factories, farmsteads, transport and technical infrastructures, including a sophisticated aquaculture, public and cultural amenities, cemeteries, churches, and recreational facilities in the landscape. In many towns, they threw out official documents and papers written in German, ranging from medieval manuscripts to building authority archives.<ref name = Riha></ref> | ||
=== New regional identity for north Bohemia === | |||
It is possible to understand the devastation of north Bohemia as a direct causal link to expulsion of the German population, Glassheim argues for a more complex understanding, seeking to understand the development of a new regional identity: “Rejecting romantic/pastoral German conceptions of Heimat, postwar Czechs sought to create materialist regional identities in north Bohemia that emphasized labor, productivity, and industrial modernity.” Glassheim argues that “ethnic cleansing, Communist social engineering, and late-industrial modernity were related and intertwined phenomena in postwar Czechoslovakia. All three derived from a complex that David Harvey has called “universal or high modernism,” an economic, social, and cultural order that flourished in the wake of the Second World War. With roots in the Enlightenment and more proximately in the 1920s and 1930s, high modernism “has been identified with the belief in linear progress, absolute truths, the rational planning of ideal social orders, and the standardization of knowledge and production” (Glassheim 67). | |||
=== “Utopian potential” of north Bohemia === | |||
The eviction of the German population was followed by the arrival (both forced and voluntary) of various populations: thirty-nine thousand of the settlers were Czech speakers from the now-Ukrainian region of Volynia. In 1946, forty-two thousand Magyars from Slovakia were forced to settle in the Czech borderlands, nearly two-thirds of whom returned to Slovakia by 1950. More than one hundred thousand settlers were ethnic Slovaks, sixteen thousand of which were Roma (Gypsies). Among Czechs, there were significant differences among “old settlers” and “new settlers” who arrived after 1945, who differed in religious customs, community celebrations, skills levels and work habits<ref name = Glassheim></ref>, p. 72. This lack of solidarity made regional identity building particularly challenging in the postwar years. With the old order of the German capitalist bourgeoisie gone, the lack of a common identity provided an ideal “clean slate” from which to work from. The region was considered by Communist settlement planners as a frontier laboratory for the emerging socialist order. The “Communist head of the Settlement Committee in the National Assembly saw this utopian potential as vital to the development of Czech socialism: “The borderlands . . . [must] become a model territory for the other regions of the state, a guide to the path by which the working people will find a better tomorrow””<ref name = Glassheim>Glassheim, E. 2006, Ethnic Cleansing, Communism, and Environmental Devastation in Czechoslovakia’s Borderlands, 1945–1989* in The Journal of Modern History 78, pp. 65–92</ref>, p. 78. | |||
=== Post War Communist support === | |||
The Communist party had strong support in north Bohemia, partly due to their role as redistributors of German property. In free elections in May 1946, the Communist Party won between 50 and 60 percent of the vote in north Bohemia, as compared to 40 percent in the Czech Lands as a whole. Throughout the subsequent years, the region was ‘rewarded’ by the high status given to heavy industry and the Communists’ power to confer and privilege on workers, particularly miners, (in providing access to recreation centres and spas) who were lauded as the heroes of the new age (Glassheim 80). “Rather than a Heimat deficit, then, north Bohemia suffered from a misguided and destructive vision of regional identity…materialism ruled in north Bohemia like nowhere else. The new north Bohemia was an experiment in national, social, industrial, and environmental engineering. It became a worst case scenario—short of mass murder and nuclear annihilation—of what Communism, indeed modernity itself, could produce”<ref name = Glassheim></ref>, p. 91). | |||
Beneš declared in a typical 1945 speech in Tabor, ''“We must de-Germanize our republic . . .names, regions, towns, customs—everything that can possibly be de-Germanized must go."''<ref name = Glassheim></ref>p. 74 | |||
==Communist heavy industry base== | ==Communist heavy industry base== | ||
[[File:Lom Jiri 20070924.jpg|200px|thumb|left| | [[File:Lom Jiri 20070924.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Open pit mine Jiří, District Sokolov, year 2007]] | ||
The communist regime, established in 1948, made a cunning use of the people’s disappointment with the Western allies at the Conference of Munich, the anti-German nationalist feelings and its ideology to carry on the psychosis of fear and enmity towards the West and bind Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union. The Ore Mountains and the basin below became an unprecedentedly cheap source of uranium, coal and power for the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia’s national economy, renowned in the First Republic for its balanced proportion of heavy metallurgical, chemical and engineering industries with light and processing industries and a high rate of value-added of input raw materials, became the “forge of the socialist camp” with a dominance of metallurgical and other raw material and energy-intensive heavy industries. This orientation severely harmed all of Czechoslovakia’s national economy, devastated certain regions of the country and was most abominably manifested in the Sokolov-Cheb and North Bohemian Basins. Vast tracts of the landscape, spanning hundreds of square kilometres, were devastated due to opencast coal mining and sinking of underground mines, extraction of kaolin, gravel, sand, ceramic clays and construction stone, erection of gigantic power plants, power and heat distribution systems and dumps for power plant fly ash. The landscape character with the round hillsides and plateaux of the Ore Mountains, covered with forests and peat bogs, both the basins with fertile farmland and clear watercourses, preserved in a harmonious form until the World War, was transformed into an “industrial landscape” filled with new land formations due to shifting millions of cubic metres of rock and earth, industrial and storage buildings, deposits and dumps. The dense network of linear transport and technical infrastructures cut the once continuous countryside into fragments difficult to access and manage, upset its harmony, liveability and passability for both game and people. Natural plant environments disappeared, replaced by weeded patches and invasive non-native plant and animal species. Towns and villages where tens of thousands of people once lived were wiped out, along with thousands of cultural and natural heritage sites wiped out due to coal mining and the power plants fuelled by the extracted brown coal - to be precise, 106 municipalities, including the 650 year old royal city of Most were eliminated this way <ref name = Riha></ref>(see [http://www.zanikleobce.cz/index.php? Exctinct villages]). | The communist regime, established in 1948, made a cunning use of the people’s disappointment with the Western allies at the Conference of Munich, the anti-German nationalist feelings and its ideology to carry on the psychosis of fear and enmity towards the West and bind Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union. The Ore Mountains and the basin below became an unprecedentedly cheap source of uranium, coal and power for the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia’s national economy, renowned in the First Republic for its balanced proportion of heavy metallurgical, chemical and engineering industries with light and processing industries and a high rate of value-added of input raw materials, became the “forge of the socialist camp” with a dominance of metallurgical and other raw material and energy-intensive heavy industries. This orientation severely harmed all of Czechoslovakia’s national economy, devastated certain regions of the country and was most abominably manifested in the Sokolov-Cheb and North Bohemian Basins. Vast tracts of the landscape, spanning hundreds of square kilometres, were devastated due to opencast coal mining and sinking of underground mines, extraction of kaolin, gravel, sand, ceramic clays and construction stone, erection of gigantic power plants, power and heat distribution systems and dumps for power plant fly ash. The landscape character with the round hillsides and plateaux of the Ore Mountains, covered with forests and peat bogs, both the basins with fertile farmland and clear watercourses, preserved in a harmonious form until the World War, was transformed into an “industrial landscape” filled with new land formations due to shifting millions of cubic metres of rock and earth, industrial and storage buildings, deposits and dumps. The dense network of linear transport and technical infrastructures cut the once continuous countryside into fragments difficult to access and manage, upset its harmony, liveability and passability for both game and people. Natural plant environments disappeared, replaced by weeded patches and invasive non-native plant and animal species. Towns and villages where tens of thousands of people once lived were wiped out, along with thousands of cultural and natural heritage sites wiped out due to coal mining and the power plants fuelled by the extracted brown coal - to be precise, 106 municipalities, including the 650 year old royal city of Most were eliminated this way <ref name = Riha></ref>(see [http://www.zanikleobce.cz/index.php? Exctinct villages]). | ||
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=== Mining industry – social effects === | === Mining industry – social effects === | ||
*The Czech Coal Group http://www.czechcoal.cz/en/profil/skupina/region.html (en) - the official website of the chief mining concern in the Ore Mountain region, including how it perceives its relationship to the region.<br> | *The Czech Coal Group http://www.czechcoal.cz/en/profil/skupina/region.html (en) - the official website of the chief mining concern in the Ore Mountain region, including how it perceives its relationship to the region.<br> | ||
=== Mining industry - corruption scandals === | |||
*Respekt Magazine http://respekt.ihned.cz/respekt-in-english/c1-53501660-commentary-how-the-billions-were-mined - an article about murky dealings behind the sale of the Most Coal Company in the 1990s. | |||
*A choronological list of media articles relating to the corruption scandal surrounding the sale of Mostecka uhelna spolecnost (MUS) http://www.ceskapozice.cz/hot-top/mostecka-uhelna?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=hottop (Czech version) and http://www.ceskapozice.cz/en/tag/mostecka-uhelna-spolecnost-mus (English version) | |||
===Civil society and political participation=== | |||
*Howard, M. M. The Weakness of Post-Communist Civil Society. Journal of Democracy, 2002, V13:1. http://www18.georgetown.edu/data/people/mmh/publication-7320.pdf | |||
*Carmin, J. NGOs and Public Participation in Local Environmental Decision-Making in the Czech Republic. Local Environment, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 541–552, October 2003. http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9aa31ce4-caf4-4823-85a3-dada2593ae73%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=4 | |||
*Rakušanová, P. Civil Society and Civic Participation in the Czech Republic. Sociologický ústav Akademie věd České republiky, 2005. http://studie.soc.cas.cz/upl/texty/files/229_05-5%20zformatovany%20text%204%20pro%20tisk.pdf | |||
=== History === | === History === | ||
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*Cros-border mining trail http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenz%C3%BCberschreitender_Bergbaulehrpfad (cz, de, en) - information about a 40km long education trail through the eastern Ore Mountains detailing the mining history of the region<br> | *Cros-border mining trail http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenz%C3%BCberschreitender_Bergbaulehrpfad (cz, de, en) - information about a 40km long education trail through the eastern Ore Mountains detailing the mining history of the region<br> | ||
*The Czech Ore Mountains http://www.alte-salzstrasse.de/index.php?id=boemischeserzgebirge&L=3 (cz, de) - a series of articles about different aspects of the Czech Ore Mountains for tourists from the different names for the region to the geological interests of the old salt road through the mountains to landscape and life in the mountains.<br> | *The Czech Ore Mountains http://www.alte-salzstrasse.de/index.php?id=boemischeserzgebirge&L=3 (cz, de) - a series of articles about different aspects of the Czech Ore Mountains for tourists from the different names for the region to the geological interests of the old salt road through the mountains to landscape and life in the mountains.<br> | ||
{{License cc|Jana Dlouhá, Andrew Barton}} | |||
{{MOSUR}} | |||
[[Category:Ore Mountains case study]] | |||