Horácko
Horácko is a cultural and ethnographic region in the western part of Moravia and middle part of present-day Czech Republic. The area forms eastern part of administrative region Vysočina and small parts of administrative regions Jihomoravský and Jihočeský. The region of Horácko is divided into several subregions, with the main parts being Northern Highlands, Jihlava Highlands, Southern Highlands and Low Highlands (Czech: Podhorácko).
Its most important center is the town of Jihlava which is located on the Moravia borders. Other important population centers include Velké Meziříčí, Žďár nad Sázavou, Třebíč, Telč, Dačice, Slavonice, Moravské Budějovice and Moravský Krumlov.
Northern and western part of the region is a rolling, densely forested, hilly country with traditional wooden rural architecture. Their timbered cottages are contemporary used as weekend-houses. In harmony with the character of the landscape and the available local raw materials, priority was given to woodwork, iron ore and stone processing, and manufacture of glass and textile.
Southern Highlands agriculture was focused on cattle breeding and fish farming. Farming prevailed across the entire vast territory, especially in the fertile areas in the southern part of Low Highlands. Under difficult mountainous conditions, only resistant kinds of corn, fodder plants and especially flax and potatoes could survive.
Notable people of Horácko
- Josef Hoffmann - architect
- Saint Zdislava Berka - altruist
- Jan Kubiš - paratrooper assassinated Nazi despot R. Heydrich
- Gustav Mahler - composer
- Ludvík Svoboda - anti Nazi general on Eastern front, president of Czechoslovakia
- Joseph Schumpeter - economist and American political scientist
Literature
- B. Pernica: Lidové umění výtvarné. Horácko – Podhorácko. Havlíčkův Brod 1954. (Czech)
- J. Dufek: Naše Horácko jindy a nyní, Velké Meziříčí 1893. (Czech)
- J. Kopáč: Bývalý horácký kroj Vysočiny českomoravské v Čechách, Humpolec 1929. (Czech)
- V. Kovářů - J. Kuča: Venkovské stavby na Moravském Horácku, Nové Město na Moravě - Tišnov 2009. (Czech)
- J. Mátlová - Divoká: Horácký kroj z Telečska, Dačicka a Třešťska. Ženský kroj, Praha-Jihlava 1983. (Czech)
- J. F. Svoboda: Horácká osada, Nové Město na Moravě 1928. (Czech)
- J. F. Svoboda: Moravské Horácko. Lidové umění výtvarné, Praha 1930. (Czech)
- J. F. Svoboda: Moravské Horácko, Jihlava 1940 (Czech)
- V. Svobodová: O lidovém kroji na Moravském Horácku, Nové Město na Moravě 1977. (Czech)
