Hodslavice

A four-hour drive east from Prague, at the western feet of the Beskids, lies the forest of Čtenice. Here, just five meters apart, two springs emerge — one tastes metallic, the other reeks of sulfur. Usually, nearby waters aren't that different.

Today, this area offers an escape. Intriguing fountains, accessible trails, and a nearby swimming spot draw regulars. Oversized letters, cut from styrene and set in all-caps Comic Sans, loom above the idiosyncratic beer garden — a beloved one.

Before religious freedoms sparked across the Austro-Hungarian Empire, local cells of Old Brethren¹ met here in secret. At night, they whispered hymns and hid their prayer books² in the hollows, their torches flickering. Legends link many to Hodslavice.

The history of Hodslavice is woven into a tapestry of contrasting influences shaping Moravia, spanning six centuries. First documented in 1411, the village oscillated between Catholic and Protestant dominions. Cuius regio, eius religio. Over time, it became a hint of practical Christian coexistence, prefiguring ecumenism.

One of the region's oldest preserved wooden churches³ stood firm amid these waves — dedicated to St. Andrew, adapted for Lutheran worship, reclaimed by Catholics under Jesuit governance. A single grave remains from the wood-fenced churchyard and ossuary, marked for Anna and Jiří. The tombstone solemnly notes, 'Here rest the parents of the illustrious Czech, the father of the nation, Dr. František Palacký.'

He was a curious boy. And a tenacious one. 'I had read the entire Bible by the age of five,' he later recalled.⁴ Born in 1798, František, the fifth among twelve children of an Evangelical school teacher Jiří, had left home by 1807. To study. First nearby, then far away. Both geographically and intellectually. His writings rarely revisited the simple joys and duties of childhood in Hodslavice.

Burdened from a young age by his destined greatness, Palacký strove to discern the roles the 'Director of fates' had in store for him. As he explored eminent biographies in the scholarly enclaves of Pressburg, his initial admiration for Kant’s 'Critique of Pure Reason' quickly shifted toward dissent. He was captivated by Bacon’s scientific disruptions, finding them grandiose yet irresistible.⁵ Guided by Robertson’s radical approach to 'The History of Scotland' and inspired by Herder’s visions of Slavic destiny, Palacký chose the historiographer’s pen over the poet’s. Introduced to Prague's inner circles at twenty-four by Jungmann, his mentor and trailblazer of the Czech national project, František found himself spellbound.

His five-volume magnum opus, 'History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia' (Dějiny národu českého v Čechách i v Moravě), took 46 years to complete and was an unprecedented, sweeping take on framing innumerable primary sources through the lens of identity, practically constructing a nation in the process.⁶ The demand was evident — interests voiced in Czech, long marginalized in the Empire, were desperate for a sounding board. And as the blooms of the Springtime of Nations began to wilt, so did the trust in legacy structures.

To František, everything mattered. Jiří Štaif, in his refreshing view of Palacký, unpacks⁷ the pedagogic and subtly patriarchal rationale behind a change of script: "The Czech Museum Journal, initially printed in a typeface known as Schwabacher [see the German town of Schwabach near Nuremberg — J. Š.], was still the dominant script in the Central European cultural sphere. Following Dobrovsky's death in 1829, however, Palacký managed to have Schwabacher replaced with Latin antiqua, as he believed this script was not only culturally more authentic, but also more elegant. In this seemingly marginal way, he expressed his classical cultural inspirations as well as his aesthetic ideals. He did so even at the cost of the new Latin script aligning more with the cultural demands of the emerging Czech national elite than with the cultural stereotypes of the Czech folk layers, who were accustomed to reading Czech texts in Schwabacher. As its handwritten equivalent, they also used the German Kurrent script in Czech, which they learned at trivial schools. František Palacký believed that the Czech national elite should elevate the other layers of the Czech ethnicity to their level, instead of trying to lower their educational standards to accommodate them at all costs."

Moral rigor limited the political success of František Palacký, MP, yet it earned him widespread, filial love — marked by respect, loyalty, and devotion. In 1876, fifty thousand attended his funeral. Twenty-two years later, his centennial was celebrated by hundreds of thousands.⁸ A myth hatched. The myth that, ever fadingly, echoes within what the Czechs affectionately call 'Central Europe.'

Today, Palacký might grace a banknote and inspire the names of 325 streets⁹ across Czechia, yet his substance turned homeopathic. Why? Well, gone are the days when his charisma could bewitch audiences — we're left clutching at his words, a handful of portraits, and, in what now seems an act of reverence in the guise of nascent positivism, his pickled brain.¹⁰

It took rereading four dense biographies to even scratch the surface of the man beneath the remnants of a myth. As the ship of Theseus sails on, issues of 19th century Europe seem almost quaint against the scale and stakes of current global predicaments. Yet, the troubled undercurrents of geopolitics remind us once again: Et in Arcadia ego.

Hodslavice remembers — but how? Does the community owe it to its beloved son to keep telling his story, or is its duty simply to not forget? Is it fair to expect a village to shape the legacy of a man who shaped a nation? And what does remembering even mean? Preserving memorabilia? Embodying ideals?

I grew up in Hostašovice, a village a heartbeat from Hodslavice. When I think of 'there,' two recollections arise, neither tied to Palacký. The first is the ennui of St. Andrew's Mass in late November — an amalgam of awe and boyish restlessness, fragrant with old timber and varnish. Outside, the season's first snow slices through beams of light, washing the church's wooden façades, otherwise inky black. A freezing, fleeting augenblick, caught between the warmth of Advent and the winter night — absolute, consuming. The second memory hijacks me back to a once-ambitious brutalist mall. Half-empty and crumbling, its concrete sprawl bore witness to bruised knees, failed attempts at fitting in, and my own fledgling dreams of skateboarding.

Palacký's bronze gaze loomed distant and arrogant over the village square. The statue,¹¹ years in the making, was unveiled in September 1968 — days after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, a bitter irony lost on my young self. His birthplace, a hard-to-believe schoolhouse turned museum, exuded an aura of forced importance. Yet, for all their prominence, these landmarks left no imprint on my childhood psyche.

Perhaps they shouldn't have. Palacký's relevance proved elusive, despite the village's efforts. Under various political winds, Hodslavice hosted symposiums and celebrations, drawing intellectuals and officials from their ivory towers. Festive as these occasions were, they felt alien to daily life. In truth, Palacký's heritage resembled a childhood soccer trophy, gathering dust on a shelf in the preserved room of a long-departed kid — a shrine of bygone familial bliss, vainly pleading with time to reverse its course.

When tasked with crafting the visual identity of Hodslavice, I found myself grappling with a question: 'Would Palacký OK this?' This inquiry led me to his early philosophical work on aesthetics. He posited beauty as a distinct field of study, applicable to all areas of human life and serving as an impassable bridge between flawed humanity and immaculate divinity. As I immersed myself in his writings, I sought to create a visual system that would embody both the emotional and conceptual aspects of Hodslavice's heritage. This allowed me, as a designer, to dwell in Palacký's intellectual presence, letting his philosophy guide the work. The journey began where Hodslavice's visual history started: its 18th century seal.

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 unleashed a torrent of possibilities for Czechoslovakia. As civil freedoms surged forward in a seemingly unending '90s rave, individual and collective responsibilities often took a back seat. The nouveau riche concocted an architectural pseudo-style mockingly dubbed "Entrepreneurial Baroque," while the nouveau not-so-riche expressed their newfound freedom by daubing their houses in a cacophony of colors. Amid this transformation, municipalities were granted the right to use coats of arms. Since many didn't historically have one, this often meant creating emblems from thin air. Surprisingly, over the last three decades, most of these newly minted heraldic designs have been the work of a single artisan. Hodslavice was no exception.

On May 19th, 1998, it too was granted its flag and coat of arms: In a shield azure, beneath a chief chequy argent and gules, a stag or courant to sinister, with an open book argent below — the stag resurrected from a forlorn seal.

The Czech legislature considers blazons definitive, though their visual interpretation allows considerable latitude. Consulting PhDr. Karel Müller, former director of the Provincial Archives in Opava and long-time member of the Chamber of Deputies' Sub-Committee for Heraldry and Vexillology, we sought not to revive the ungulate’s form but to distill its essence.

The figure on the 1740s seal isn't a stag triumphant — more a fawnish deer in a happy jump. The animal - crisp, smooth, elegant - now serves not only as a charge au cœur in the reworked coat of arms, but is also a brand asset in a broad spectrum of visual comms both in print and digital, carrying the centuries-old joy of pure being forward.

Palacký's legacy, we determined, would subtly infuse every aspect of Hodslavice's renewal — from typography to urbanism. His conviction in style's cultural weight became our lodestar in reimagining Hodslavice's visual vernacular. Selecting Editorial New as the village's voice was a deliberate invocation of gravitas and wit — qualities that defined František. This suave serif typeface now articulates Hodslavice's identity with quiet authority, from wayfinding signs to the minutiae of the local bulletin. It subtly elevates discourse, compelling more considered language use.

The culmination of this effort is a visual lexicon ↗ that honors intellectual heritage while engaging in a Sisyphean struggle against the ever-encroaching threat of provincial kitsch — a battle that, for now, remains at an uneasy stalemate.

We sought ways for Palacký's ethos to infuse Hodslavice anew. In the village library, I came across a worn, century-old booklet — a play depicting the town during František's formative years with remarkable precision. The Council saw something in it and green-lit its republication. Now, this literary artifact ↗ serves as Hodslavice's cultural handshake: a particular gift for particular guests.

Bridging past and future, the civic landscape became the focus of another project. A team of designers, planners, and landscape architects joined our ranks to craft a guide for nurturing its shared habitats that blends pre-totalitarian wisdom with current best practices. The result? A local playbook ↗ with universal appeal, now in the hands of every Municipal Assembly member. Part historical wake-up call, part blueprint, it nudges the village to reclaim long lost wisdom in communal care — for better or worse.

History books aren't exactly go-to reads. It's hard to say just how popular Palacký's Histories were or how many people actually read them cover to cover. But the numerous re-editions suggest they at least found homes in many libraries. Palacký wrote for the modern revivalist,¹² striking that fine line between challenging and engaging his readers, all while anchoring his narrative twists with solid evidence. This balance of rigor and charm¹³ inspired the narrative features now dotted around the village.

The Czech countryside is a hiker's paradise, crisscrossed with well-marked trails and educational panels. These well-intentioned boards often fall short, drowning visitors in academic prose that goes unread. We decided to break this mold. Here in Hodslavice, we've installed six anthracite monoliths. Stark against the rural backdrop, they stand out, impossible to ignore — structures offering a fresh way to engage with history in its original setting, providing an alternative to conventional signage.

The installations serve as portals to Hodslavice's past, conjuring glimpses of moments that time had nearly erased. Drawing inspiration from Palacký's narrative prowess, we've woven together stories and scenes that connect the village's local lore with broader historical events. A startling headline here, a rare image there; each element carefully chosen to spark curiosity. One such display, visible to arrivals from the train station, chronicles Palacký's travels. Yet it holds a secret: its reverse side, facing the hills — once a hiding place, bears excerpts from Josef Bartoň's unearthed memoir of the local WWII resistance cell. This concealed record, much like the fighters it honors, reveals itself only to those who venture beyond the beaten path. It heeds Palacký's own method of making history accessible yet profound. Like his writings, our historical markers invite varying levels of engagement - from a casual glance to a deep dive - allowing Palacký’s legacy of historical inquiry to gently touch each visitor's experience.

Working on these panels, we've aimed for a balance that we hope the Father of the Nation would approve — scholarly yet accessible, informative yet engaging. Their dark, matte surfaces present snapshots of the past that invite visitors to stop, read, and think — and maybe even come back for another look.

In this age of relentless presentism, František Palacký remains a cipher¹⁴ as remote as the empire he helped to dismantle; yet oddly prescient. Our task in Hodslavice turned out not to preserve his mirror image, but to shatter it — its fragments refracting kindred dilemmas, blatant in the harsh light of today.

Redesigning Hodslavice’s identity, it was the rough edges that guided us. The visual language became a calibrated jolt, forcing re-engagement with the narratives we've inherited. An invitation to question, to debate, to rethink what we accept as given.

Hodslavice unfolds as a living dialogue, the past neither idolized nor discarded, but critically engaged. We hope to keep the titan on life support through participation — allowing ourselves to be unsettled by his thoughts, embracing the discomfort true understanding demands and finding common ground in the search for shared values.

Here's what we believe: under those unblinking bronze eyes, the conversation will continue. So that maybe, just maybe, Palacký's gaze will meet ours once more. In that fleeting, electric moment, where the future won't be a distant country. It will be here, upon us — not to be algorithmed away, but again, faced.