V4: four countries, four castles
The Visegrad Group is a regional platform for political and people-to-people cooperation that includes Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. It came to be in 1991, at the Visegrad Castle, and it celebrates its 30th birthday today at Kraków’s Wawel Castle!
The Visegrad Group, or V4, took its name after the Visegrad Castle in Hungary, where John I of Bohemia, Charles I of Hungary and Casimir III of Poland met back in 1335, and where the presidents of Poland and Czechoslovakia and the Prime Minister of Hungary met on February 15, 1991, to sign the Visegrad Declaration, which marked the beginning of the V4 cooperation.
The four countries have come a long way, transitioning away from communism and back to Europe, joining NATO and the European Union, and, above all, building bonds of friendship between the four nations. Thirty years on, the Visegrad Group still stands strong and so do the… castles!
The Visegrad Castle, Hungary
This is where everything started 30 years ago! Located just outside of Budapest, on the Danube, this beautiful fortress served as a royal residence for Hungarian kings who continued to enlarge the castle, palace and its fortifications until the 1540 invasion by the Ottoman Empire, which left it severely damaged. It was never inhabited after that. Since the castle sits atop a hill, the view of the Danube Bend is breathtaking!
The Prague Castle, Czech Republic
The Prague Castle, one of the world’s largest castle complexes, bigger than seven football fields, apparently, is located on the Vltava’s left bank. The castle, built as a fortified settlement in the 9th century, has been the seat of Czech monarchs and the official residence of the Czech head of state. It grew larger with each of the four major reconstructions to become the fairy-tale fortress and mixture of architectural styles that it is today.
The Bratislava Castle, Slovakia
The castle started off as a border fortress built by the Romans where two important trade routes crossed: one led along the Danube and the other connected the Roman Empire with the Baltic Sea. The hillfort was first turned into a stone castle and then into a heavily fortified stronghold as well as an imperial residence of the Habsburgs. The 1811 fire destroyed most of the castle buildings, which were magnificently rebuilt in Renaissance in the 1960s and turned into a museum.
The Wawel Castle, Poland
In his last will, in 1138, King Boleslaus the Wrymouth divided the country into districts and designated Kraków as the seat of the senior prince. For centuries, the Wawel Hill, with its towering royal castle and cathedral, was the political and cultural heart of Poland, the symbol of Polish statehood, and the country’s capital until 1795. Today’s Renaissance palace dates from the 16th century and it houses a museum, guarded by a fire-spitting dragon which lives at the foot of the hill.
Throughout centuries, the history and culture of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have been intertwined in many ways, and the Visegrad Group is an embodiment of the four countries’ many shared interests and ambitions. The 30 years of cooperation, which was inaugurated at the Visegrad Castle in 1991, and which brought the four Prime Ministers, as well as the President of the European Council, to the Wawel Castle for the 2021 anniversary celebrations under the Polish presidency of the Group, are a milestone and a starting point for new challenges.
Happy birthday, Visegrad Group, and good luck!
17.02.2021
Other articles in this section
Michniów, one of 817 Polish villages that ceased to exist
In 1943, Michniów was rased to the ground by German police and gendarmerie, the villagers killed, arrested and transferred to KL Auschwitz-Birkenau or other Nazi German concentration camps, including KL Gusen. Today, the village houses the Mausoleum of Polish Rural Martyrology and preserves the memory of 817 Polish villages pacified during World War II.
The Gdańsk Agreement: birth of Solidarity
On August 31, 1980, after two weeks of negotiations, an agreement was signed between the strikers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk and the communist authorities. This ultimately led to the establishment of the Solidarity trade union and set off unstoppable and irreversible change in all of Eastern Europe.
W-hour
Every year, at 5 p.m. on August 1st, to mark the anniversary of the Warsaw Rising, alarm sirens are heard on the streets of Warsaw. The city comes to a halt. In holding a minute of silence, Warsaw residents pay tribute to the fallen insurgents and those who survived.
Warsaw, like a Phoenix
“I have seen many towns destroyed, but nowhere have I been faced with such destruction.” – General Dwight Eisenhower said after his visit in the capital of Poland after the end of Second World War. The city was totally destroyed by Germans in retaliation after the Warsaw Rising. The biggest freedom surge in the history of World War II broke out 75 years ago.
June 1976 and the Workers’ Defence Committee
On June 25, 1976, some 80,000 people in Poland took to the streets in protest against food price hikes. Demonstrations in Radom, Płock and Ursus turned into clashes with police forces, which led to arrests, detentions and dismissals. In response to these measures, the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR) emerged to help the repressed workers and their families. The Committee operated until 1981, when its tasks were taken over by the trade union Solidarność.