Abstract
The hill Blaník (638 m) is located in southern part of Central Bohemia relatively close to town Tabor that became the most prominent centre of Hussitism during 14th century. The hill has a unique position in forming of modern (19th century till present) national identity, because it is at least since 15th century believed that a group of sleeping heroes will fi nally conquere the foreign armies attacking Bohemia.
The hill is located on eastern margin of Blanice Furrow. It is one of the large, geological north_southern fault structures that are dissecting Europe as it can be seen on the predominant courses of Europenan rivers such as Rhone, Rhine, Vltava, Volga and many others.
Some of these fault zones very active since Ordovician but the sedimenation mostly begins during Upper Carboniferous to Lower Permian. The N-S direction is not much dependent on Variscan orogeny, but more probably on the deep mantle movements that caused the opening of major N-S structures of the northern hemisphere including marine rift zones.
All these zones e.g. in western Portugal, Massif Central, Alsace Graben are closely connected to the origin of hydrothermal deposits - in case of Blanice Furrow with gold and silver ores. Early Iron age fortifi cation was established on the top of Blaník above the old road that could be traced form Danube region (Linz area) to Saxony.
The road represents one of the branches of the copper, salt, gold and amber routes that connected Italian Etruria and Gallia Cisalpina, early mining and industrial centres in Alps, Bohemia, Saxony and northern coasts since Early Copper Age. The folk tale of the mountain in which the hidden army rests, was recorded rather late during 15th century, but soon attracted almost apocylaptic dimensions of the fi nal battle that will destroy most of the Bohemia including Prague, before the mountain knights will help to sve the wordl.
The area was one of the war centres during Hussite movement around 1420 and later in the vicinity of local village Jankov one of the bloodiest confl icts of Thirty year war took place in 1645. The victorious Swedish army then decided to march to Vienna but it was stopped close to Brno in Moravia and then it returned to Sweden.
Blaník has becomed the centre of religious and later national pilgrimage and this tradition is refl ected in many poems, romantic tales and later even political speeches. The cultural landscape forms clean, well preserved and harmonious unity that lead to the environmental protection of the local landscape area.
Besides cultural heritage we can fi nd there ponds and marshes with rich acquatic fauna and fl ora; and in the hilly areas old, most beech forests growing on scree fi elds and among boulders and rocks. The photographs in this book will show you the landscape character and its natural and architectonic richness.
The fi nal chapter of this book is focused on the understanding of other presumable "holy moun_tains" of Bohemia including some other hills like Polish Sleza, Slovakian Sitno or Danube hill forts such as Hungarian Ostrzegom or Bavarian Bogenberg. Some of these mythological hills are said to hide a heroic army of sleeping and waiting soldiers, many of them are located around prehistoric merchant routes, all of them are closely connected to folklore stories and customs that are alive even in the present times.
We consider Blaník hill as part of the European network of holy sites with a pilgrimage potential, that may help us to understand our deep natural and historical background through old myths, integration of pre-Christian and Christian traditions and, of course, mostly through the beauty of landscape and nature itself.