THE PARDUBICE REGION

Svitavy

Though the exact way Svitavy received its name is the subject of differing myths, one of the more credible has it receiving the name after the small Svitava River, whose water was once so crystal clear that the early Slavs equated it with an effect described by the word "svitati", or being clean and pure.
Svitavy



Though the exact way Svitavy received its name is the subject of differing myths, one of the more credible has it receiving the name after the small Svitava River, whose water was once so crystal clear that the early Slavs equated it with an effect described by the word "svitati", or being clean and pure.
The earliest written record of the city of Svitavy can be found in the year 1256 in a letter resolving a land dispute between Bruno of Schauemburk, the Bishop of Olomouc, and the Premonstratensian monastery in Litomysl, which places it among the older towns in the country. In fact, there are accounts that the first Czech settlement on the site, Stara Svitava (Antiqua Zuitavia), was already established a hundred years before.

Around 1260, the aforementioned Bishop Bruno also played a major part in the so-called "colonization" of Moravia, when he invited settlers from Germany, which was over-populated at the time, to move to Moravia. These immigrants mostly came from Bavaria and Silesia, and turned Svitavy into a primarily German town, known in German as Zwittau.

Evidence of this German heritage can be seen in the person of Svitavy's most well-known offspring, the Nazi industrialist made famous by Steven Spielberg, Oskar Schindler. Born in 1908, in the years before the war Schindler was not a popular figure in Svitavy, in fact his nickname was gauner - crook. In addition, he was arrested for espionage against the Czechoslovak state and sentenced to two months hard labor in the Brno prison, though he only served half that time. The deeds he would become known for wouldn't begin until after he left for Krakow in 1939.

The city's primary industry in the past was textiles, and it was mid-point in the first railroad to be built from Brno to Prague in 1845.

Good luck!

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Note added at 2003-02-13 22:56:27 (GMT)
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Sorry: \"belongs to Pardubice Region.\"
ERRATA :-(

district is used connection with schools
school district, etc.
See Google.

Translation of the pertinent sentence: "Moravská Třebová is a not too large city in the Pardubice region and belongs among the five most important in the Svitavy county."

Administratively speaking, the "district", (i.e. "county" in the U.S.,) was part of the "kraj", i.e. administrative "region".

However, "county", as an administrative unit was abolished recently. My guess is that one could refer to the former "Svitavy county" [artist formerly known as Prince? :-)] as the "Svitavy area".