Charles IV parades through Prague to commemorate 650 anniversary of coronation

The Czech capital Prague recently witnessed a royal procession, as Czechs commemorated the 650th anniversary of the coronation of the Bohemian King Charles IV as Holy Roman Emperor. Charles IV, who built some of Prague's most famous landmarks, is a highly popular historical figure.

Photo: CTK

A medieval band plays as the emperor's procession winds its way through the cobbled streets of medieval Prague. The procession was led by Charles himself - played by an actor of course - and accompanied by his third wife, Anna of Swidnica. Even though the procession commemorated the 650th anniversary of his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in 1350, the route of the procession was that of his coronation as Bohemian King seven years earlier. The mayor of Prague 2, Michal Basch, said it was a route Charles himself had meticulously planned out.

"His idea is interesting in that he always - even in this procession - respected two Prague Castles: Vysehrad, which is from the Premysl era and respecting his mother, and Hradcany, which was the choice of his father. So the coronation procession starts at Vysehrad and goes through Prague, the Old Town especially, to the Hradcany castle."

Charles IV

Charles IV made a huge contribution to the development of Bohemia, and many of his achievements are still with us today. Tourists inch their away across the beautiful Charles Bridge, and Czech students still fight for a place at Charles University. Founded in 1348, it's the oldest university in Central Europe. Charles IV was educated in Paris and spoke five languages. The Vice-Chancellor of Charles University, Ivan Wilhelm, says the emperor was an enlightened European with very modern ideas:

"He was the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Holy Roman Empire in this time divided from Turkey to Portugal and from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia. And the students and masters of my university had the right of free movement from Turkey to Portugal. And now we open the door for the free movement of students and academics and we call it the European programme of study and free movement of ideas and so on."

And Charles' popularity has only grown over the centuries. Earlier this year Czech Television asked viewers to vote for the Greatest Czech in history. The Bohemian king and Holy Roman Emperor beat the likes of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and Vaclav Havel to clinch the Greatest Czech prize.