Mikulov

Coordinates: 48°48′20.01″N 16°38′00″E / 48.8055583°N 16.6333333°E / 48.8055583; 16.6333333

Mikulov
Town
Old town center
Coat of arms
Country	Czech Republic
Region	South Moravian
District	Břeclav
Commune	Mikulov
Elevation	242 m (794 ft)
Coordinates	48°48′20.01″N 16°38′00″E / 48.8055583°N 16.6333333°E / 48.8055583; 16.6333333
Area	45.34 km2 (17.51 sq mi)
Population	7,624 (2005)
Density	168 / km2 (435 / sq mi)
City rights	1410
Mayor	Rostislav Koštial
Timezone	CET (UTC+1)
- summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	692 01
Location in the Czech Republic
Wikimedia Commons: Mikulov
Statistics: statnisprava.cz
Website: www.mikulov.cz

Mikulov (Czech pronunciation: [ˈmɪkulof]; German: Nikolsburg, Yiddish: ניקאלשבורג Nikolshburg) is a town in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic with a population of 7,608 (2004). It is located directly on the border with Lower Austria. Mikulov is located at the edge of a hilly area and the three Nové Mlýny reservoirs. Pálava Landscape Protected Area begins in Mikulov, and so does the Moravian Karst.

History

Mikulov Castle

In 1249, Ottokar II of Bohemia granted the land of Mikulov, including a castle, and the surrounding area to the Austrian noble Henry I of Liechtenstein. Mikulov remained in the Liechtenstein family until 1575, when it was purchased by Adam von Dietrichstein, the Emperor's ambassador to the Spanish court. Mikulov was the site of the Treaty of Nikolsburg in 1621 during the Thirty Years' War. After a fire damaged the original Mikulov Castle in 1719, the Dietrichstein family reconstructed the chateau to its present appearance.

After the Austro-Prussian War, Count Károlyi began work on a peace treaty in Mikulov that led to the Treaty of Prague in 1866. In 1938, prior to the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the population of Mikulov was 8,000 mostly German-speaking inhabitants. 472 Jews lived in Mikulov at this time, but only 110 managed to emigrate in time, and 327 of Mikulov's Jews did not survive the Holocaust. After Germany was defeated in World War II, the town's German population was expelled between 1945-46. In 1948, Mikulov's population was around 5,200.

Jewish Mikulov

See also: Familianten

Judengasse (1900s)

The beginning of the Jewish settlement in Mikulov dates as far as 1421, when Jews were expelled from Vienna and the neighboring province of Lower Austria by the duke of Austria, Albert II of Germany. Fugitives settled in the town situated close to the Austrian border, some 85 kilometers from the Austrian capital, under the protection of the princes of Liechtenstein, and additional settlers were brought after the expulsions of the Jews from the Moravian royal boroughs by the king Ladislaus the Posthumous after 1454.^[1]

The settlement grew in importance and in the first half of the 16th century when Mikulov became the seat of the regional rabbi of Moravia, thus becoming a cultural centre of Moravian Jewry. The famous rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525 – 1609), who is said to have created the golem of Prague, officiated here for twenty years as the second regional rabbi between 1553 and 1573. ^[2] Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein, son of Adam von Dietrichstein, was a special protector of the Jews, whose taxes were necessary to finance the Thirty Years' War. ^[3]

In the first half of the 18th century the congregation in Mikulov totalled over 600 families, being the largest Jewish settlement in Moravia. The census of 1754 decreed by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria ascertained that there were some 620 families established in Mikulov, i.e. the Jewish population of about 3,000 comprised half of the town‘s inhabitants.^[1] It is obvious that only a small number of the Mikulov Jews could make their living in the town as artisans; the rest had to become merchants. The congregation suffered severely during the Silesian wars (1740–1742, 1744–1745 and 1756–1763), when they had to furnish the monarchy with their share in the supertaxes exacted by the government of Maria Theresa from the Jews of Moravia.^[3]

Quite a number of Mikulov Jews continued to earn their livelihood in Vienna, where they were permitted to stay for some time on special passports. The freedom of residence, which was conceded to the Jews in Austria in 1848, reduced the number of resident Jews in Mikulov to less than one-third of the population which it contained at the time of its highest development. In 1904, there were 749 Jewish residents in the city, out of a total population of 8,192.^[3]In 1938 the city population totaled about 8,000 inhabitants. Out of these, 472 were Jewish.^[1] The Jewish settlement in Mikulov ceased to exist during World War II.

Demographics

St. Sebastian Chapel on the Holy Hill (Svatý Kopeček)

Census year	Population	Ethnicity of inhabitants
year		German	Czechs	other
1793	7440
1836	8421
1869	7173
1880	7642	7447	144	61
1890	8210	8057	79	74
1900	8092	7843	170	79
1910	8043	7787	189	67
1921	7699	6359	626	485
1930	7790	6409	898	483
1939	7886

^[4]

Economy

Mikulov is a centre of Czech wine-making due to its favorable geographic location and climate, as well as its unique history. Mikulov is not only the centre, but the namesake of, the Moravian wine sub-region vinarská podoblast Mikulovská.^[5] Twelve registered cadastral vineyard tracts (Czech: trat) are situated within the Mikulov wine village as defined under the Czech Viticulture Act.^[6]Other significant economic activities in Mikulov are the machine-making and clay industries, as well as oil found at the edge of the Viennese Basin.

Landmarks

Mikulov's historic buildings, such as Mikulov Castle, and the surrounding wine country draw tourists from the Czech Republic and neighboring countries. Beginning in Mikulov, the 65 kilometer long Mikulov Wine Trail winds throughout the Mikulov wine region and is a part of wine tourism in the area. Other noteworthy historic sights are the Dietrichstein sepulchre, the old Jewish Quarter, and the Piarist College. Several historic churches and a synagogue, built in various architectural styles, are located in Mikulov, including the Romanesque Church of St. Václav and charnel house, the Baroque Church of St. John the Baptist, St. Sebastian Chapel on the Holy Hill (Svatý Kopeček), the neo-Gothic Eastern Christian Church of St. Nicolas, and the Altschul Synagogue.

Notable residents

Rabbis

Judah Löw ben Bezaleel, the first rabbi of Nikolsburg, chief rabbi of Moravia, officiated in Nikolsburg about 1553–1573 Judah Löb Eilenburg (1574–1618) Gabriel ben Chajjim ben Sinaj (1618–1624) Yom-Ṭob Lipmann Heller (1624– ) Pethahiah ben Joseph (1631–1637) Abraham ben Mordechaj Jaffe (1637–1647) Menahem Mendel Krochmal (1648–1661) Gerson Ashkenazi (1661– ) Aaron Jacob ben Ezekiel ( –1671) Judah Löb, son of Menahem Krochmal (1672–1684) Eliezer Mendel Fanta (1684–1690) David Oppenheimer (1690–1702) Gabriel Eskeles (1709–1718) Bernard Eskeles (1718–1753)

Moses Lwow-Lemburger (1753–1757) Gershon Politz (1757–1772) Shmuel "S(c)hmelke" (ben Hirsh Halevi) Horowitz of Nikolsburg (1772–1778) Gershon Chajes (1780–1789) Mordecai Benet (1789–1829) Nehemias Trebitsch (1831–1842) Samson Raphael Hirsch (1847–1851) Hirsch Teltscher (1851–1853) Isak Weinberger (1853–1855) Solomon Quetsch (1855–1856) Mayer Feuchtwang (1861–1888) David Feuchtwang (1892–1903), also chief rabbi of Vienna; Son of Mayer Moritz Levin (since 1903–1918) Alfred Willmann (1919–1938)

• Adam von Dietrichstein, purchaser of the Mikulov estate in 1575
• Maximilian, Prince of Dietrichstein (1596–1655), grandson of Adam von Dietrichstein and owner of the Mikulov estate
• Auerbach (Jewish family)
• Moses ben Avraham Avinu (?–1733), printer, author, Christian convert to Judaism
• Joseph von Sonnenfels, né Lipmann (1732–1817), Austrian and German Jewish (later Christian) jurist, novelist
• Anton Josef Leeb (1769–1837), Mayor of Vienna (de)
• Heinrich Landesmann (1821–1902), Jewish poet and philosophical writer
• Heinrich Auspitz (1835–1886), Jewish dermatologist
• Edmund Wengraf (1860–1933, Vienna), Austrian jurist, journalist, narrative writer, novelist, essayist, poet, theatre critic
• Siegfried Altmann (1872–1961), Jewish educator and former Director of Das Israelitisches Blindeninstitut, a Jewish institute for blind children. ^[7]
• Adolf Schärf (1890–1965), Moravian German politician
• Karel Krautgartner (1922–1982), Czech jazz and classical clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger, composer, conductor and teacher
• Joseph Almosnino, Greek-Serbian rabbi
• Simon Bacher
• Samuel Baeck
• Vincent, Count Benedetti
• Simcha Bunim of Peshischa
• Bonifác Buzek (1788, Příbor - 1839, Brno) (de)
• Judah he-Hasid
• Balthasar Hubmaier (c. 1480, Friedberg, Bavaria – March 10, 1528), Moravian German Anabaptist (Schwertler (de)) leader
• Aaron Samuel Kaidanover
• Meyer Kayserling
• Karl (Carl) Borromäus Landsteiner (pseudonym: Arthur Landerstein; 1835, Schloß Stoitzendorf, Stoitzendorf bei Eggenburg, Lower Austria - 1909, Mikulov), Austrian Catholic theologian, author^[8]
• Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin
• Alfons Mucha, hired by Count Karl Khuen of Mikulov
• Abraham Neuda
• Leonhard Schiemer
• Richard Teltscher (1888, Vienna - 1974, London), Jewish Austrian wine-merchant, patron and patriot, founder of the Jewish Central Museum for Moravia-Silesia in Mikulov
• Abraham Trebitsch

Gallery

• 

  Synagogue in the former Jewish ghetto

• 

  Obere Synagoge, 2009

• 

  graveyard (1900s)

• 

  Castle in Mikulov

See also

• Lednice - Valtice area
• Lednice–Valtice Cultural Landscape
• Old Hungarian alphabet of Nikolsburg
• Ostlandkreuz

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Nezhodová, Soňa. The Jewish Mikulov (Židovský Mikulov). 1. ed. Brno: Matice moravská, 2006, 423 p. ISBN 80-86488-28-4
2. ^ Moravia and its castles
3. ^ ^{a b c} Jewish Encyclopedia, "Jewish Nikolsburg", Retrieved 2011-01-30
4. ^ Historický místopis Moravy a Slezska v letech 1848–1960, sv.9. 1984
5. ^ Wine of the Czech Republic, "Mikulov Wine Region", Retrieved 2011-01-30
6. ^ Czech Wine Law, "Viticulture Act of 2004", pg 87-90, Retrieved 2011-01-30
7. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections, "Sigfried Altmann Collection", Retrieved 2011-01-30
8. ^ aeiou Encyclopedia, "Landsteiner, Karl", Retrieved 2011-01-30

External links

• Official Mikulov City Website
• Mikulov Regional Museum
• Wine of Czech Republic
• Mikulov Tourism Portal
• Nikolsburg (Jewish Encyclopedia)
• Jewish Nikolsburg Organization