How do you perceive Jan Žižka’s personality when you are practically surrounded by him?
I am inspired a lot by Petr Čornej’s latest research and the results of his research. My colleagues and I try to present Žižka permanently in our permanent exhibition. Currently, we also have a medium-term exhibition that lasts until June next year. It is intended directly for children to understand Žižka’s time.
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We try to perceive him as a significant, perhaps one of the most significant personalities of our history, and at the same time in the context and significance in which he entered history – as an invincible military leader who was respected in this sense by the subordinates of his army. We also try to understand Žižka’s myth or a whole series of mythologies and instrumentalizations that have come in modern history.
Let’s speculate a little. What would the Hussite movement and our history look like in the 15th century if the didn’t Jan Žižka build the heads of the Hussites?
They would probably go in a different direction. Although there were a number of very capable hetmans in the Hussite wars, probably there would not have been such a number of successes in the first phase of the Hussite wars. The Hussite Camp would perhaps have fallen as early as 1420, thus this radical base of Hussites would not have been strong enough.
Sigismund of Luxemburg would probably have become king of Bohemia much earlier and there would have been no result, which was the Basel Compact, which in a weakened form mediated the program of the four articles of Prague.
What was Žižka’s great military strategy that he never lost a battle? It probably wasn’t just about charisma…
It was mainly about great experience and clairvoyance. He was able to make decisions quickly and decisively when the battle was going somewhere, it was necessary to change something and take action. At the same time, he was able to quickly estimate when he would take too many unnecessary risks. He didn’t get into encounters where he knew in advance that he wouldn’t stand a chance. Thus he avoided defeat.
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We must look at Jan Žižka mainly in the context of the time in which he lived. Tell me which questions around him are still unanswered or satisfactorily answered?
It is a whole series of issues, because we do not know his life without a gap. In the time before the Hussite revolution at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, it disappears from our horizon for 15 to 20 years. One big question arises here. It is assumed that he gained military experience abroad, but we do not know on which battlefields.
Another big question is how the turnaround happened, when Žižka was first a servant of Jindřich of Rožmberk, then declared hostility to him. Another question is the operation of the Lochk group of Matěj Řídje, of which he was a member.
We also do not know to what extent he participated in the Polish-Lithuanian War against the Teutonic Knights. We know that he was there and was by the side of Jan Sokol from Lamberk. However, we cannot satisfactorily and 100% prove that he fought directly at the Battle of Grunwald, although we can assume this with high probability.
