Přísečnice () was a mining town in what is today the municipality of

Kryštofovy Hamry Kryštofovy Hamry () is a municipality and village in Chomutov District Chomutov District () is a district in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. Its capital is the city of Chomutov. Administrative division Chomutov District is di ...

in the

Ústí nad Labem Region Ústí nad Labem Region or Ústecký Region () is an Regions of the Czech Republic, administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the north-western part of the historical land of Bohemia, and named after the capital, Ústí nad Labem. I ...

of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It was located in the

Ore Mountains The Ore Mountains (, or ; ) lie along the Czech–German border, separating the historical regions of Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Saxony in Germany. The highest peaks are the Klínovec in the Czech Republic (German: ''Keilberg'') at ab ...

Name

The town got its Czech name from the stream of the same name that flowed through it. The German name was created by distortion of the Czech name. Another possible origin of the town's name is the Czech

hydronym A hydronym (from , , "water" and , , "name") is a type of toponym that designates a proper name of a body of water. Hydronyms include the proper names of rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, seas and oceans. As a subset of top ...

''breznica''.

History

The origins of the town are unclear. The surrounding area had been used by people in prehistory, but the oldest known archaeological evidence of medieval inhabitance in the area was a pyrotechnical object from the turn of the thirteenth century, this was located about 1.5 kilometers southeast of the town. Přísečnice once sat on an important trade route from

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

. The road to Bohemia spanned from Saxon

Zwickau Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ''Zwickauer Mulde''; progression: ), ...

via Schlettau to Přísečnice, from where two branches continued into the Bohemian interior; the first spanned via Louchov to

Kadaň Kadaň (; ) is a town in Chomutov District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 18,000 inhabitants. It lies on the banks of the Ohře river. Kadaň is a tourist centre with highlights being the Franciscan Monastery in ...

and the second via

Výsluní Výsluní (earlier also Suniperk; ) is a town in Chomutov District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 300 inhabitants. Administrative division Výsluní consists of six municipal parts (in brackets population accord ...

to Kralupy u Chomutova. The first written mention of Přísečnice is from 1335, when

John of Bohemia John of Bohemia, also called the Blind or of Luxembourg (; ; ; 10 August 1296 – 26 August 1346), was the Count of Luxembourg from 1313 and King of Bohemia from 1310 and titular King of Poland. He is well known for having died while fighting ...

granted the inhabitants an exemption from

customs Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...

. It was disestablished in 1974 due to the construction of the

Přísečnice Reservoir Přísečnice () was a mining town in what is today the municipality of Kryštofovy Hamry in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It was located in the Ore Mountains. Name The town got its Czech name from the Preßnitz, stream of t ...

; though the region was already underpopulated due to the expulsion of the German population after World War II.

Demographics

Notable people

Richard Markgraf Richard Markgraf (13 March 1869 – January-March 1916) was a German Bohemian paleontologist. He is best remembered for his expeditions to Egypt, which discovered the first known remains of many extinct fossil reptiles, such as '' Aegyptosaurus' ...

(1869–1916), palaeontologist *

Eugen Sänger Eugen Sänger (22 September 1905 – 10 February 1964) was an Austrian aerospace engineer best known for his contributions to lifting body and ramjet technology. Early career Sänger was born in the former mining town of Preßnitz (Příse� ...

(1905–1964), Austrian aerospace engineer

References

{{authority control 1974 disestablishments in Europe Mining communities in the Czech Republic Former populated places in the Czech Republic Populated places disestablished in 1974 Towns in the Ore Mountains