Moravská Třebová

Moravská Třebová (Mährisch Trübau) is a town in Svitavy District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 9,700 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation.

Administrative parts
Moravská Třebová is made up of the town parts of Město and Předměstí, and the villages of Boršov, Sušice and Udánky.

Geography
Moravská Třebová is located about 14 km east of Svitavy and 60 km north of Brno. It lies mostly in the Orlické Foothills. The westernmost part of the municipal territory extends into the Svitavy Uplands and includes the Rohová National Nature Reserve. In the nature reserve is located the highest point of Moravská Třebová, the hill Roh at 660 m above sea level.

The town is situated on the Třebůvka River, which supplies the Moravská Třebová Pond on the southern outskirts of the town.

History
Moravská Třebová was founded around 1257 by Boreš of Rýzmburk as a typical colonization town. The greatest boom occurred during the rule of the Lords of Boskovice and Ladislav Velen of Zierotin between 1486 and 1622, when the town was the centre of humanistic scholarship and earned the nickname "Moravian Athens".

In 1840 and 1844, the town was severely damaged by fires, which destroyed part of the castle and Renaissance façades of the houses.

Since its foundation it was part of the Kingdom of Bohemia. In 1469 it passed under Hungarian rule, and in 1490 it returned to Bohemia. From 1804, along with Bohemia, it was ruled by the Austrian Empire, and after the compromise of 1867 it was part of the Austrian portion of Austria-Hungary, within which it was the seat of the district with the same name, one of the 34 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in Moravia. Following World War I, from 1918, it formed part of newly independent Czechoslovakia.

Moravská Třebová was located in the largest German linguistic enclave within Bohemia and Moravia. Until the expulsion of the Germans in 1945 according to the Beneš decrees and Potsdam Agreement, it was mainly inhabited by German-speaking population.

During the German occupation (World War II), the occupiers operated the Oflag VIII-F prisoner-of-war camp for Allied officers and E391 forced labour subcamp of the Stalag VIII-B/344 POW camp in the town.

The town was largely shaped by the textile industry. However, most factories eventually went bankrupt.

Between 1850 and 1960, Moravská Třebová was a district town.

Transport
The I/35 road (part of the European route E442) passes through the town. It replaces the unfinished section of the D35 motorway from Olomouc to the Hradec Králové Region.

Moravská Třebová is the starting point of the railway line of local importance heading to Česká Třebová.

Sights
The main landmark is the Moravská Třebová Castle. The original castle from the 13th century was reconstructed in the early Renaissance style in the late 15th century. In 1611–1618 it was expanded with an arcade wing. The castle is one of the oldest Renaissance monument in the country.

The historic town centre is formed by the regular rectangular T. G. Masaryka Square and adjacent streets. On the square is the plague column built in 1719–1720. The landmark of the square is the town hall. It is a late Gothic building from around 1520, reconstructed in the Renaissance style around 1560. The square includes series of Gothic and Renaissance burgher houses.

The town fortifications were built in the early 16th century. Nowadays, only fragments of the walls and three bastions are preserved.

The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was a Gothic building from the 13th century. It was reconstructed in the Baroque style after the fire in 1726. it was a cemetery church until 1500, when the cemetery was relocated to the newly built Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the Křížový vrch Hill.

Notable people

 * Carl Giskra (1820–1879), Austrian politician
 * Walther Hensel (1887–1956), music researcher
 * Magda B. Arnold (1903–2002), psychologist
 * Friedrich Lang (1915–2003), Luftwaffe pilot
 * Gert Wilden (1917–2015), composer and conductor
 * Jaroslava Maxová (born 1957), opera singer and vocal coach
 * Marcel Kolaja (born 1980), politician
 * Roman Kreuziger (born 1986), road cyclist
 * Leopold König (born 1987), road cyclist

Twin towns – sister cities
Moravská Třebová is twinned with:
 * 🇸🇰 Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia
 * 🇩🇪 Staufenberg, Germany
 * Vlaardingen, Netherlands