Slavic fortress in Germany now under Czech ownership
In the German state of Brandenburg, a mighty circular fortress, a replica of a Slavic castle from the ninth or tenth century, has been acquired by a Czech owner. Care of the historical attraction has passed into the hands of David Chmelík, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the 1990s.
The historical region of Lusatia, part of Germany and Poland, has for centuries been a land with Slavic-speaking inhabitants. Today, you can still go to hear Sorbian, a Slavic language, in the Brandenburg city of Cottbus and the Saxon town of Bautzen – or, as they are called in Sorbian, Chóśebuz and Budyšin.
To give us today a glimpse of Lusatia’s early Slavic history, an imposing replica of an early medieval fortress was constructed outside the town of Vetschau, roughly halfway between Berlin and Dresden. The replica was built on the exact site of a real fortress, the remains of which were threatened by coal mining in the 1980s, and were excavated between 1984 and 1990. Following the removal of the site’s finds, including weapons, jewellery and pottery, the Slavic fortress of Raddusch began to rise again in 1999 and was open to the public in 2003.
Today, the fortress is an important tourist site and educational centre in the region. It welcomes many day visitors and school trips, offering them a museum of real artefacts and a café. However, running the expansive site had become a burden for the local municipality of Vetschau. With only eight thousand inhabitants, Vetschau had been looking for someone to take on the project for five years.
Enter David Chmelík, who emigrated to the West from Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, and who was brought to the fortress by members of a local Sorbian community. He spoke to Czech Radio about his first visit:
“They brought me here nine months ago and said ‘we want to show you this amazing thing: this is a Slavic castle.’ We came here one Sunday. I saw these ten hectares, and then this castle, which is circular. It's something completely different to Karlštejn. It's massive, it's very historical. So I said ‘guys, we have to do something here’. I think they wanted it that way. They lured me here, because they know me.”
Mr Chmelík has big plans for the site. In addition to the fortress, a replica of a medieval Slavic village is to be built near the castle, as well as enclosures for animals. The site’s new administrators also want to organise cultural events and work with local businesses. Mr Chmelík knows the region’s wider historical connections with Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, and wants to make the fortress a “meeting place for all Slavs in Europe.”
“You can really feel that it is different here from West Germany. The people here are much more open, there is a certain Slavic simplicity. People look forward to the arrival of someone who likes them and feels somehow connected to the country.”
