1997 Women's European Volleyball Championship

The 1997 Women's European Volleyball Championship was the 20th edition of the event, organised by Europe's governing volleyball body, the Confédération Européenne de Volleyball. It was hosted in Brno and Zlín, Czech Republic from 27 September to 5 October 1997.

Format
The tournament was played in two different stages. In the first stage, the twelve participants were divided in two groups of six teams each. A single round-robin format was played within each group to determine the teams' group position. The second stage of the tournament consisted of two sets of semifinals to determine the tournament final ranking. The group stage firsts and seconds played the semifinals for 1st to 4th place, group stage thirds and fourths played the 5th to 8th place semifinals and the remaining four teams which finished group stages as fifth and sixth ended all tied in final ranking at 9th place. The pairing of the semifinals was made so teams played against the opposite group teams which finished in a different position (1st played against 2nd, 3rd played against 4th).

Preliminary round

 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

Pool A

 * venue location: Zlín, Czech Republic

Pool B

 * venue location: Brno, Czech Republic

Final round

 * venue location: Brno, Czech Republic
 * All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).

5th–8th place

 * Pools A and B third and fourth positions play each other.

Final

 * Pools A and B first and second positions play each other.

Individual awards

 * Most valuable player: Barbara Jelić
 * Best spiker: 🇷🇺 Evgenya Artamonova (RUS)
 * Best blocker: 🇨🇿 Michaela Večerková (CZE)
 * Best setter: Irina Kirillova