Freedom Square and the Moravian City
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Transcript
Freedom Square sits in the commercial centre of a city whose linguistic balance changed dramatically in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Brno industrialised early and developed strong textile and engineering sectors. Its German-speaking bourgeoisie had deep economic and cultural ties to Vienna, while Czech-speaking migration from surrounding Moravia increased rapidly with industrial growth.
National movements converted language into political claims. After Czechoslovakia was created in 1918, Brno became a major centre of the new state and expanded administratively through the formation of Greater Brno in 1919.
Do not imagine two sealed ethnic cities occupying the same streets. Families, firms and institutions crossed linguistic boundaries in complicated ways.
Nationalism prefers columns marked Czech and German. Urban life keeps putting people in the wrong spreadsheet.