Příbor (German Freiberg in Mähren) is a town in eastern Moravia in the district of Nový Jičín in the Moravian-Silesian Region. Approximately 8,500 inhabitants live here. It is best known as the birthplace of the world-famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. The preserved historic core is a city monument reserve. The neighboring villages of the seat are Hukvaldy, Kateřinice, Sedlnice, Kopřivnice, Skotnice and Závišice.
Příbor is the oldest town in the Nový Jičín district.
The first written mention of the village (as Vriburch) comes from 12
December 1251 in a document of the Margrave of Moravia Přemysl, the
future Czech King Přemysl Otakar II. The city was founded by Frank
of Hückeswen. From the very beginning, Příbor was an important
administrative, economic and cultural center of the whole area.
Already in 1292 it was named as a town and in 1294 as a town. After
the dominion of the lords of Hückeswagen and Příbor after 1307, it
became part of the Olomouc diocese. In 1389, Bishop Mikuláš of
Rýzmberk of Olomouc granted the town the right of fortification.
Former Hussite governors Mikuláš Sokol of Lamberk in 1435–1438 and
Jan Čapek of Sán in 1438–1452 and brother brother Jan Talafús of
Ostrov in 1452–1465 controlled the town as pawns of the Hukvaldy
estate. Mortgage holder Hukvald Dobeš from Boskovice extorted from
King Vladislav II. Jagiellonian granted the city two annual markets
in 1493. Bishop Marek Khuen of Olomouc granted the city four annual
markets and one weekly market in 1560.
The most numerous of
all guilds was the important guild of drapers, which exported its
cloths to Krakow, Poznan, Lviv, Levoča and Prešov and other cities
from the middle of the 16th century. In 1615, Cardinal František
Ditrichštejn transferred a number of privileges and rights to the
town, such as the Olomouc town law, liberation from robots, the
expansion of fishing in the Lubina River and many others. The
cardinal sometimes slept on the square in house no. 6, where his
emblem is still on. In 1617, Příbor rented the entire Hukvaldy
estate from the Bishop of Olomouc for 6 years for a salary of PLN
9,600. annually.
During the Thirty Years' War, the town
burned down three times in 1621 from the Wallachians, in 1626 from
the Danish general Mansfeld and in 1643 from the Swedes. At the end
of the 16th century, the local school was attended by St. Jan
Sarkander. In 1694, a Piarist college and grammar school were
founded, and there was a great expansion of education. The Piarists
played theater, performed music and managed a library with 30
originals (prints before 1500). The oldest Czech amateur theater in
Moravia was established in Příbor in 1809. The first educational
workers' association Harmonie in Moravia was founded here in 1869.
On May 6, 1856, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder of
psychoanalysis, was born in Příbor. Other important natives of the
town include the founder of Moravian ethnography and topography,
Řehoř Volný (1793–1871), the philosopher and national awakener
Bonifác Buzek (1788–1839), the historian Bertold Bretholz
(1862–1933) and the geologist Mořice Remeš (1867–1959). In 1875, the
Czech Teacher Training Institute was founded here, the second in
Moravia - the town became the center of education in northeastern
Moravia. The establishment of a high school and later a grammar
school in 1902 also contributed to this.
In 1918, two Příbor
battalions composed of volunteers occupied the rebellious, mostly
German-speaking cities of Nový Jičín, Fulnek, Odry, Bílovec and
Opava for the newly reigned Czechoslovakia. In 1938, the
predominantly Czech-speaking Příbor became part of the Third Reich,
at the end of World War II the town was liberated on May 6, 1945 by
the Red Army. From 1951, there was a subsidiary plant Tatra Příbor
in the city, producing since 1959 passenger cars Tatra 603, T-613
and T-700. Production was terminated in 1997. The historical part of
the city was declared a city monument reserve in 1989. For over a
hundred years, Masaryk's grammar school, originally a real school,
founded in 1902, has been operating here.