Jan Zizka interesting facts. Jan Zizka: national hero of the Czech Republic

, Holy Roman Empire

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Biography

Born into an impoverished noble family.

At a young age, having sold the property left over from his parents, he moved to the court and spent his youth as a page at the court of Wenceslas IV.

According to unconfirmed reports, in 1410 Zizka took part in the Battle of Grunwald on the side of the Order German knights, then participated in the Hungarian campaigns against the Turks and distinguished himself in the British war against the French.

Before joining the Hussites, for several years Zizka led a gang of robbers operating on one of the highways in the Czech Republic. After some time, he was amnestied by the king and re-entered into service.

After some time, Zizka joined the extreme party of the Hussites and, having become one of the leaders, very soon turned into a threat to his enemies. He organized poorly armed detachments of peasants and set up a fortified camp. At the head of 4,000 people, Zizka defeated in July 1420 on Mount Vitkov in front of Prague (next to which the village of Zizkov, now part of Prague, was later founded) a 30,000-strong army of crusaders sent by Emperor Sigismund to capture the city; in November he again defeated the imperial troops at Pankrac and captured the Visegrad fortress.

He was buried in Caslav and his favorite weapon, an iron pole, was hung over the tomb. In 1623, by order of King Ferdinand II of Habsburg, Zizka's tomb was destroyed and his remains were thrown out.

Memory

• The most famous monuments to Jan Žižka in the Czech Republic are located in Prague (as part of the National Monument on Vitkov, 1929-1933), in Trocnov (Monument to Jan Žižka, Borovani, 1958-1969), near Sudomerz (Strakonice district, 1925), near Příbislav (1874), and also in Tabor.
• The life of Zizka, who became a character folk poetry, outlined by Alfred Meissner (German). Alfred Meißner ) in the poem “Zizka” / “Ziska” (7th ed.).
• Jan Zizka is depicted in the famous painting by Jan Matejko “Battle of Grunwald”.

In fiction

• The character of Jan Žižka is mentioned in Andrzej Sapkowski's trilogy The Reinevan Saga as one of the leaders of the Hussite movement in the Czech Republic during the Hussite Wars. Also mentioned in the novel Consuelo by J. Sand.
• Dedicated to Jan Zizka historical novel Sergei Alexandrovich Tsarevich "For the Fatherland", published by the publishing house "Children's Literature" in 1971

In cinema

• “War for Faith: Master” / “Jan Hus” (Czechoslovakia; 1954) directed by Otakar Vavra, in the role of Jan Zizka - Zdenek Stepanek.
• “War for Faith: Commander” / “Jan Žižka” (Czechoslovakia; 1957) directed by Otakar Vavra, in the role of Jan Zizka - Zdenek Stepanek.
• “War for Faith: Against Everyone” / “Proti vsem” (Czechoslovakia; 1958) directed by Otakar Vavra, in the role of Jan Zizka - Zdenek Stepanek.
• “Crusaders” / “Krzyzacy” (Poland;) directed by Alexander Ford, in the role of Jan Zizka - Tadeusz Schmidt.
• “On Zizka’s War Wagon” / Czechoslovakia

In computer games

• The character of Jan Zizka appears in the game Medieval: Total War, as the commander of the main rebel army for the restoration of Poland, he was shown in the game year 1427, right at the end of the game.

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Notes

Literature

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

Links

Excerpt characterizing Zizka, Jan

Denisov did not answer; he rode up to Petya, got off his horse and with trembling hands turned Petya’s already pale face, stained with blood and dirt, towards him.
“I’m used to something sweet. Excellent raisins, take them all,” he remembered. And the Cossacks looked back in surprise at the sounds similar to the barking of a dog, with which Denisov quickly turned away, walked up to the fence and grabbed it.
Among the Russian prisoners recaptured by Denisov and Dolokhov was Pierre Bezukhov.

During the entire movement from Moscow, there was no new order from the French authorities about the party of prisoners in which Pierre was. This party on October 22 was no longer with the same troops and convoys with which it left Moscow. Half of the convoy with breadcrumbs, which followed them during the first marches, was repulsed by the Cossacks, the other half went ahead; there were no more foot cavalrymen who walked in front; they all disappeared. The artillery, which was visible ahead during the first marches, was now replaced by a huge convoy of Marshal Junot, escorted by the Westphalians. Behind the prisoners was a convoy of cavalry equipment.
From Vyazma French troops, who had previously marched in three columns, now walked in one heap. Those signs of disorder that Pierre noticed at the first stop from Moscow have now reached the last degree.
The road along which they walked was littered with dead horses on both sides; ragged people lagging behind different teams, constantly changing, then joined, then again lagged behind the marching column.
Several times during the campaign there were false alarms, and the soldiers of the convoy raised their guns, shot and ran headlong, crushing each other, but then they gathered again and scolded each other for their vain fear.
These three gatherings, marching together - the cavalry depot, the prisoner depot and Junot's train - still formed something separate and integral, although both of them, and the third, were quickly melting away.
The depot, which had initially contained one hundred and twenty carts, now had no more than sixty left; the rest were repulsed or abandoned. Several carts from Junot's convoy were also abandoned and recaptured. Three carts were plundered by the backward soldiers from Davout's corps who came running. From conversations of the Germans, Pierre heard that this convoy was put on guard more than the prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, was shot on the orders of the marshal himself because a silver spoon that belonged to the marshal was found on the soldier.
Of these three gatherings, the prisoner depot melted the most. Of the three hundred and thirty people who left Moscow, there were now less than a hundred left. The prisoners were even more of a burden to the escorting soldiers than the saddles of the cavalry depot and Junot's baggage train. Junot’s saddles and spoons, they understood that they could be useful for something, but why did the hungry and cold soldiers of the convoy stand guard and guard the same cold and hungry Russians who were dying and lagged behind on the road, whom they were ordered to shoot? not only incomprehensible, but also disgusting. And the guards, as if afraid in the sad situation in which they themselves were, not to give in to their feeling of pity for the prisoners and thereby worsen their situation, treated them especially gloomily and strictly.
In Dorogobuzh, while the convoy soldiers, having locked the prisoners in a stable, went off to rob their own stores, several captured soldiers dug under the wall and ran away, but were captured by the French and shot.
The previous order, introduced upon leaving Moscow, for captured officers to march separately from the soldiers, had long been destroyed; all those who could walk walked together, and Pierre, from the third transition, had already united again with Karataev and the lilac bow-legged dog, which had chosen Karataev as its owner.
Karataev, on the third day of leaving Moscow, developed the same fever from which he was lying in the Moscow hospital, and as Karataev weakened, Pierre moved away from him. Pierre didn’t know why, but since Karataev began to weaken, Pierre had to make an effort on himself to approach him. And approaching him and listening to those quiet moans with which Karataev usually lay down at rest, and feeling the now intensified smell that Karataev emitted from himself, Pierre moved away from him and did not think about him.
In captivity, in a booth, Pierre learned not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in the satisfaction of natural human needs, and that all misfortune comes not from lack, but from excess; but now, in these last three weeks of the campaign, he learned another new, comforting truth - he learned that there is nothing terrible in the world. He learned that just as there is no situation in which a person would be happy and completely free, there is also no situation in which he would be unhappy and not free. He learned that there is a limit to suffering and a limit to freedom, and that this limit is very close; that the man who suffered because one leaf was wrapped in his pink bed suffered in the same way as he suffered now, falling asleep on the bare, damp earth, cooling one side and warming the other; that when he used to put on his narrow ballroom shoes, he suffered in exactly the same way as now, when he walked completely barefoot (his shoes had long since become disheveled), with feet covered with sores. He learned that when, as it seemed to him, he had married his wife of his own free will, he was no more free than now, when he was locked in the stable at night. Of all the things that he later called suffering, but which he hardly felt then, the main thing was his bare, worn, scabby feet. (Horse meat was tasty and nutritious, the saltpeter bouquet of gunpowder, used instead of salt, was even pleasant, there was not much cold, and during the day it was always hot while walking, and at night there were fires; the lice that ate the body warmed pleasantly.) One thing was hard. at first it’s the legs.
On the second day of the march, after examining his sores by the fire, Pierre thought it impossible to step on them; but when everyone got up, he walked with a limp, and then, when he warmed up, he walked without pain, although in the evening it was even worse to look at his legs. But he did not look at them and thought about something else.
Now only Pierre understood the full power of human vitality and the saving power of shifting attention invested in a person, similar to that a rescue valve in steam engines, which releases excess steam as soon as its density exceeds a known norm.
He did not see or hear how the backward prisoners were shot, although more than a hundred of them had already died in this way. He did not think about Karataev, who was weakening every day and, obviously, was soon to suffer the same fate. Pierre thought even less about himself. The more difficult his situation became, the more terrible the future was, the more, regardless of the situation in which he was, joyful and soothing thoughts, memories and ideas came to him.

In the history of the Czech state, perhaps, there is no more famous warrior-hero than Jan Žižka, whom the enemies of his fatherland nicknamed “the terrible blind man.” He was born in Southern Bohemia, descended from the family of a bankrupt knight, the owner of a small wooden castle in Troncov. Early showed a desire for national independence native land. By the beginning of the Hussite Wars in the Czech Republic, Zizka already had extensive combat experience, having fought a lot outside the Czech Republic.

Jan Zizka took part in the famous Battle of Grunwald July 15, 1410, in which Czech-Moravian troops fought on the side of the Polish-Lithuanian-Russian army under the command of Polish king Vladislav II Jagiello and the Great Lithuanian prince Vytautas against German Teutonic Order. In that battle, two Žižka banners (detachments) distinguished themselves on the left flank of the allied army, where the crusading knights under the command of Liechtenstein were defeated. The Czech knight was seriously wounded in the head and became blind in his left eye.

The legendary Czech knight took part in another great battle on European fields - at Agincourt.

Žižka became one of the closest associates of Jan Hus (who was burned at the stake as a heretic at the Council of Constance in 1415), the leader of the Reformation of 1400-1419 in the Czech Republic. His supporters were called Hussites. Their main demands were the secularization of a huge land ownership Catholic Church in the country and its deprivation political power. As the struggle intensified, the Hussite movement split into two wings: moderate (Chashniki) and radical (Taborites - from the city of Tabor, the center of their movement). One of the most influential military figures of the Hussite movement, the hero of the Battle of Grunwald, Jan Zizka, sided with the Taborites.

He glorified himself in the history of his fatherland for being the organizer of the struggle of the Czech people against the crusaders who attacked his homeland in 1419-1434.

The Taborite army under the command of Jan Zizka won its first victory in a battle near the city of Sudomerza in 1420, where their detachment of 400 people, retreating from the city of Pilsen, successfully fought off a 2,000-strong detachment of royal knightly cavalry. This battle was notable for the fact that the Taborites were the first to use here a field fortification of carts, which became an insurmountable obstacle for the mounted knights. This tactical technique Zizka and other Taborite leaders successfully used it during all the Hussite wars.

After the formation of the Hussite military camp in 1420 - Tabora (now a city in the Czech Republic 75 kilometers from Prague), Jan Zizka became one of the four Hussite hetmans, and in fact their main commander. The three other hetmans did not challenge his true authority in the army and voluntarily submitted to him.

In the same year, the Hussite army won its first significant victory in the defense of Vitkova Gora (now Žižkova Gora), when the outcome of the battle for the Czech capital, the city of Prague, was being decided. Its rebel inhabitants besieged the royal garrison in the Prague Fortress. Having learned about this, the Taborites hastened to their aid. The Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund I, who led the First Crusade against the Hussite Czech Republic, against opponents of the power of the Catholic Church, also hurried to Prague. This campaign, like all subsequent ones (and there were only five of them), was carried out with the blessing of the Pope.

The emperor's army included with their troops the Brandenburg, Palatinate, Trier, Cologne and Main electors, Italian mercenaries, as well as the Austrian and Bavarian dukes. The Crusaders attacked the Czech Republic from two sides - from the northeast and from the south.

Jan Zizka, at the head of the Taborite army, approached Prague much earlier than his opponents, but did not station his troops in the city itself outside its fortress walls. For a hiking camp, he chose Vitkova Mountain near the capital, to which it was facing with its eastern slope. The length of the mountain was 4 kilometers. The Taborites fortified themselves on the top of Vitkova Mountain, building two wooden frames on the Prague side, which they reinforced with walls of stone and clay, and digging deep ditches. It turned out to be a small field fortress. After this, the Czech warriors began to wait for the attack of the crusader knights.

The first enemy attack was repulsed by a detachment of Taborites, armed with heavy peasant flails for threshing grain. When the second attack of the knights followed on the top of the mountain, the inhabitants of Prague came to the aid of Jan Zizka’s army, among whom were big number archers. Before this, Prague residents watched the progress of the battle from the fortress walls and towers. As a result, the battle on Vitkova Mountain ended in complete victory for the Taborites and townspeople.

After this failure, many German feudal lords and their troops left the imperial army. Sigismund I considered it best to leave Prague and go to his own possessions.

The victory of the Czech warriors at Vitkova Gora over the superior forces of the crusader knights glorified the military leader of the Hussites and demonstrated his military leadership abilities.

Jan Zizka began his hetmanship with the reorganization of the Taborite army. Under his leadership, the Hussites created a standing army, recruited from volunteers. The commanders of the detachments - hetmans - were elected.

The Hussite army was significantly different from the Crusader troops. Its main strength was not the heavily armed knightly cavalry, but well-organized infantry. The primary tactical unit of the Hussite army was a cart with a “crew” of 18-20 people: a commander, 2 shooters from arquebuses or arquebuses, 4-8 archers, 2-4 chainmen who fought in battle with heavy peasant flails, 4 spearmen, 2 shieldmen who covered in battle with large wooden shields of horses and people, 2 riders who controlled the horses and coupled the carts in the parking lot.

The carts were organizationally united into dozens with a common commander, and the dozens into ranks, larger military detachments. The ranks as a tactical unit of the Hussite army could independently solve combat missions.

All infantry was divided into tactical units - fifty. The Hussite infantry was commanded by the hetman. The Hussites' cavalry was light and few in number, unlike the enemy's, knightly cavalry. It usually formed the reserve of the commander-in-chief in battle and was used to conduct counterattacks and pursue the defeated enemy.

The pride of Jan Zizka's army was its artillery, consisting of field and siege weapons. The first included a short-barreled gaufnitsa (howitzer), which fired stone cannonballs, and a long-barreled “tarasnitsa” on a wooden carriage, which fired stone and iron cannonballs. There was one such field weapon for every 5 carts. The main siege weapon was bombards with a caliber of up to 850 millimeters (one per row) with a firing range of 200-500 meters. The Hussites successfully used their numerous artillery in clashes with the enemy’s heavy cavalry, which on the battlefield was not maneuverable and was a good target.

Typically, the Hussite army consisted of 4-8 thousand people - well trained, disciplined and organized. However, if necessary, commander Jan Žižka could call upon significantly more Hussite soldiers, primarily militias from nearby cities and villages, under his banner.

The battle formation of the Hussite army was unusual for that time. Depending on the terrain conditions, they created various fortifications from heavy carts linked together with chains and belts. This fortification later received the name Wagenburg. Artillery pieces were placed between the carts, behind which the infantry and cavalry were securely hidden. In this case, the knights had to dismount and attack the Hussites in obviously unfavorable conditions.

The Hussite army was trained to lead fighting day and night, in any weather. According to their military regulations, field fortifications made of interlocking carts had to rest against natural obstacles and, if possible, be installed in high places.

In battle, the Hussites usually waited for the attack of the knightly cavalry and met it with the fire of their numerous artillery, bullets from arquebuses and arquebuses, and arrows with blunt armor-piercing tips. When it came to hand-to-hand combat, chainmen and spearmen entered the battle. The Hussites pursued and destroyed the defeated enemy, while the knights, after a won battle, did not pursue the fleeing enemies, but robbed the killed, wounded and captured opponents.

The Hussites successfully besieged the knights' castles and bravely stormed them. In the summer of 1421, during the siege of Rabi Castle, Hetman Jan Zizka was wounded and completely lost his sight, but remained at the head of the Hussite army. He saw the battlefield through the eyes of his closest aides and gave the right orders.

In January 1422, Hussite troops defeated the main forces of the European Catholic knighthood participating in the Second Crusade in the decisive battle of Gabra (the pursuit of the defeated crusaders was carried out to the German Ford). In the same year, Jan Zizka lifted the blockade with a sudden blow from the Czech city of the fortress of Žatec (Hare), besieged by the crusaders of Emperor Sigismund I, and then successfully avoided enemy encirclement near the city of Kolin.

Then the crusaders suffered another setback when they surrounded the Taborite camp on Mount Vladar near the city of Zlutits. In this battle, the Taborites, unexpectedly for the enemy, began an attack from the top along with their carts. The crusaders fled in fear, fearing an inglorious death under the wheels of heavy carts rushing towards them. Those who avoided collision with the carts and did not seek salvation in retreat were struck down by foot and horse-drawn Taborites.

In 1422, a squad consisting of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian soldiers came to the aid of the Taborites from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For about eight years they fought side by side with the Czechs against the Crusaders.

The defeat of the Crusader army, commanded by Rino Spana di Ozora, at the German Brod and the capture of the fortified city of the German Brod by the Hussites were so impressive that the Third Crusade to the Czech Republic took place only in 1426. For a long time, the Holy Roman Empire could not forget the complete defeat of the Second Crusade.

This time the crusaders gathered into a huge army of 70 thousand, which, it seemed, could destroy everything in its path. However, Jan Zizka, at the head of a 25,000-strong army of Taborites, decisively moved towards her. A big battle took place near the city of Usti. The Hussite commander once again used his usual battle tactics.

The knights, clad in armor, were also powerless this time in attacking the field fortress, built from 500 wagons firmly fastened to each other, and against the well-aimed fire of the Czech field artillery. The counterattack of the Hussite cavalry tipped the balance in the battle. Despite their almost threefold superiority, the crusaders were completely defeated and had to retreat.

By that time, a new split had occurred in the Hussite camp. Jan Žižka led its left wing and founded in 1423 in the north-eastern part of the Czech Republic the so-called Orebit Brotherhood with its center in the city of Hradec Králové (Maly Tabor). Now the enemies of the independent Czech Republic had a good chance of defeating the anti-Catholic Hussite movement.

To prevent new crusades against the Czech Republic, Jan Zizka moved military operations to the territory of his enemy. In the middle of 1423, he undertook a large campaign in Moravia and Hungary. Having crossed the Small Carpathians, the Taborite army reached the Danube. Then it went deeper into Hungarian territory for 130-140 kilometers. Local feudal lords gathered large forces to repel the attack.

During the Taborite campaign, the Hungarians constantly attacked them, but were never able to break through the defensive ring of their carts. During the campaign, the Czech warriors fired their cannons so accurately on the move that the Hungarian cavalry had to stop parallel pursuit of the Hussite army.

During the Third and Fourth crusades- in 1427 and 1431 - the Hussite army, led by its hetmans, successfully repelled enemy attacks, and the crusaders had to leave the Czech Republic. The third campaign ended for them in a lost battle near Takhov, where the Hussites were commanded by Prokop the Great and Prokop the Small.

The Fourth Crusade ended with the great battle of Domažlica. A huge Hussite army fought here - 50 thousand infantry and 5 thousand horsemen. The Hussites had about 3 thousand carts and more than 600 different weapons. Their blind commander was no longer in their ranks, but the hetmans trained by him remained...

The last victorious battle of the Czech commander Jan Zizka was the Battle of Malesov in June 1424. This time the opponents of the first hetman were not Germans and other European crusading knights, and their fellow citizens, teacup drinkers, former allies according to the Reformation.

The Taborites habitually fortified themselves on the top of a mountain that had gentle slopes. Zizka decided to give the initiative to the enemy. The Chashniki were the first to attack the Wagenburg Taborites on the top of the mountain, forming a column. When she approached Wagenburg, Jan Zizka ordered carts loaded with stones to be lowered onto the attacking chashniki going up the mountain. The enemy column immediately fell into complete disarray and came under counterattack by the Taborite infantry and cavalry. To top it off, the chashniki were fired upon from heavy bombards. The Battle of Maleshov ended in complete victory for Jan Zizka's troops.

That same year, the first hetman of the Hussite army died during a plague epidemic in the besieged fortified city of Příbislav in central Bohemia. So the Taborite army was left without its famous commander, whose name alone struck fear into the crusaders. There was no worthy replacement for Jan Zizka, the Czech national hero, in the Hussite army. This circumstance largely predetermined her defeat.

The Hussite Wars ended with the complete defeat of the Taborites at the Battle of Lipani in 1434. But it was they who ultimately brought the Czech Republic long-awaited state independence.

Born into an impoverished noble family.

At a young age, having sold the property left over from his parents, he moved to the court and spent his youth as a page at the court of Wenceslas IV.

In 1410, Zizka, as part of Czech volunteers, fought under the banners of Jagiello and Vytautas against the German crusaders (Battle of Grunwald, where he lost his left eye), then participated in the Hungarian campaigns against the Turks and distinguished himself in the war of the British against the French.

Before joining the Hussites, for several years Zizka led a gang of robbers operating on one of the highways in the Czech Republic. After some time, he was amnestied by the king and re-entered into service.

After some time, Zizka joined the extreme party of the Hussites and, having become one of the leaders, very soon turned into a threat to his enemies. He organized poorly armed detachments of peasants and set up a fortified camp. At the head of 4,000 people, Zizka defeated in July 1420 on Mount Vitkov in front of Prague (next to which the village of Zizkov, now part of Prague, was later founded) a 30,000-strong army of crusaders sent by Emperor Sigismund to capture the city; in November he again defeated the imperial troops at Pankrac and captured the Visegrad fortress.

Having lost his second eye during the siege of Rabi Castle, the blind Zizka continued to lead the army and himself participated in all the battles, transported in a cart in full view of the entire army. In 1422 he won a brilliant victory over Sigismund at Deutschbrod and invaded Moravia and Austria, betraying everything in his path to destruction.

Žižka was one of the authors military tactics Taborites. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​​​using Wagenburg - carts fastened with chains as a defensive fortification and seizing a bridgehead for subsequent attacks. According to other sources, he took this tactic from the nomadic peoples of the southern Russian steppes - the Cumans, Pechenegs, ancient Bulgarians, Khazars and Huns, who used it long before that. The Hussite cart was a prototype of later military vehicles, Cossack carts, carts from the times of the Russian Civil War the beginning of the 20th century and modern tanks. The crew consisted of 8-14 people, among whom were two crossbowmen, several spearmen, two soldiers who rode horses, several people who supported shields, and the landing party itself. Žižka also developed field regulations for the Hussite army.

In 1423-1424 Zizka broke up with the leadership of the moderate Hussites. Therefore, Zizka persecuted the Prague residents or Calixtins no less cruelly and occupied Prague in 1424. In the same year he died of the plague during the siege of Przybyslav. An excellent commander, undaunted, with an iron will, Zizka was extremely cruel when dealing with enemies; Many stories have been preserved about his gloomy character and severity. Because of his severity, gloominess, blindness in both eyes and ability to defeat his enemies outright, he for some time bore the nickname “Terrible Blind Man.”

He was buried in Caslav and his favorite weapon, an iron club, was hung over the tomb. In 1623, by order of the emperor, Zizka's tomb was destroyed and his remains were thrown out.

Memory

• A monument was erected to him near Přibyslav.
• The life of Žižka, who became a character in folk poetry, is recounted by Alfred Meissner (German). Alfred Meißner ) in the poem “Zizka” / “Ziska” (7th ed.).

Literature

• Millauer, “Diplomatisch-historische Aufsätze über Job. Z." ();
• Tomek, "J. Žižka" (in Czech,; German translation: Prohazka,).
• `Everything is so` with Natalya Basovskaya: Jan Zizka - patriot and commander (“Echo of Moscow”)

In computer games

The character of Jan Zizka appears in the game Medieval total war, as the commander of the main rebel army for the restoration of Poland, he was shown in the game year 1427, just at the end of the game.

Links

• Jan Zizka - patriot and commander. “Echo of Moscow” program from the series “Everything is so”

Categories:

• Personalities in alphabetical order
• Born in 1360
• Born in the South Bohemian Region
• Died on October 11
• Died in 1424
• Died in Příbislav
• Born in the 1360s
• Military leaders of the Czech Republic
• Hussites
• Blind
• Deaths from the plague

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See what “Zizka, Jan” is in other dictionaries: Zizka Jan - Zizka Jan. From a painting by R. Bem Zizka Jan. From a painting by R. Bem Zizka Jan () national hero Czech people, commander, active participant in the Hussite movement. After its formation, Tabora became one of its prominent leaders and military leaders. Zizka... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

"The World History" - (1360-1424) national hero of the Czech people, commander, active participant in the Hussite movement. After its formation, Tabora became one of its prominent leaders and military leaders. Žižka led military operations to defend the Hussite Czech Republic... ...

Historical Dictionary Zizka (Žižka) Jan (about 1360, Trocpov, South Bohemia, 10/11/1424, Příbislav), Hussite figure revolutionary movement , commander, national hero of the Czech people. He came from among minor nobles. Fought in the Battle of Grunwald 1410. From... ...

Great Soviet Encyclopedia Surname. Known media famous leader Hussite, commander, national hero of the Czech people. Zhizka, Mikhail Vasilievich (1903?) Soviet writer, historian; author of the books “Radishchev” and “Emelyan Pugachev”. See also... ... Wikipedia

ZIZHKA, zishka male, tver. ost. (Chukhon whitefish?) piglet, piglet. The piglets call: zhuga, zhugyushka. Dictionary Dalia. IN AND. Dal. 1863 1866 … Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

Jan Zizka was born in 1360 in the city of Trocnov in Southern Bohemia. His family was from impoverished nobles. Almost no information has been preserved about most of Jan’s life. In 1410, he fought as a member of Czech volunteers against the crusaders and distinguished himself in the Battle of Grunwald, where he lost his left eye, then participated in the Hungarian campaigns against the Turks and in the war of the British against the French.

Back to top Hussite wars In the Czech Republic, Zizka already had extensive combat experience, having fought a lot outside the country. He joined the Hussite party, becoming the closest associate of Jan Hus. As the struggle intensified, Žižka became one of the most influential Hussite military figures. After the formation of the Tabor military camp in 1420, he became one of its four hetmans, and in fact their main commander, and began the organized struggle of the Czech people against the crusaders, 1419–1434. The first major victory of the Taborite army under the command of Zizka was the battle of Sudomerz in March 1420. In this battle, the Taborites for the first time used field fortifications made of carts, which became an insurmountable obstacle for the mounted knights. Zizka and other hetmans successfully used this tactical technique during all the Hussite wars. In the same year, Jan's army won another significant victory in the defense of Vitkova Gora, when the outcome of the battle for Prague was decided. This victory of the Czech soldiers over the superior forces of the crusaders glorified the military leader of the Taborites and demonstrated his military leadership abilities. In December 1420, Žižka became the first Taborite hetman.

In all subsequent years, Jan continuously fought, not only with the royal army and the crusaders, but also with opponents in the ranks of the Hussite camp itself. Zizka knew how to be ruthless. He executed and burned dozens of people. Gradually, more and more power was concentrated in the hands of the hetman. Zizka's fame was such that sometimes the enemy chose not to even engage in battle with him. In the summer of 1421, during the siege of the castle, Rabi Zizka was wounded and lost his second eye. Although he was completely blind, he remained at the head of the army and continued to repel invasions of knightly troops into the country. But the strength gradually left the blind commander. His last victorious battle was the Battle of Maleshov in June 1424.

During his hetmanship, Zizka created a permanent army - well organized and trained, distinguished by iron discipline. Along with the infantry and cavalry, the wagon and pushkar types of troops appeared in his troops. Zizka developed the first military regulations in Western Europe, which clearly defined the rules of conduct for soldiers in battle, on campaign and on vacation. The Hussite army was accustomed to fight day and night, and in any weather. He became one of the authors of Taborite military tactics. It was Zizka who came up with the idea of ​​​​using Wagenburg - carts fastened with chains as a defensive fortification and seizing a bridgehead for subsequent attacks. He also skillfully used military equipment, in particular, introduced light cannons on carts.

Jan Zizka is rightfully considered an outstanding military talent in Czech history. An excellent commander with an iron will, he was extremely cruel when dealing with enemies. Many stories have been preserved about his gloomy character and severity, which is why he even bore the nickname “Terrible Blind” for some time.

Jan Žižka died on October 11, 1424 during a plague epidemic during the siege of the Příbislav fortress in the Czech Republic. A monument to the great commander was erected near Příbislav, and on Vitkov Hill in the north of Prague there is a National Memorial with an equestrian statue of Jan Žižka.

Why is 1403 chosen as the date in Kingdom Come: Deliverance? And how is this connected with the Hussite wars, the shadow of which hovers over the Bohemia we saw? They will begin only in 1419, but their foundation is being laid right now, precisely during game events. The main villain, Sigismund, kidnaps his own brother-king and simultaneously burns the village of the protagonist. It looks like a personal showdown between the lords, but this dispute between the brothers is the spark from which the civil war will flare up.

And then all that remains is to wait for the five crusades against the Czech Republic, during which the great rebel Jan Zizka will show the whole world what the triumph of a peasant with gunpowder over a lord's steel cuirass means.

The betrayal of Emperor Sigismund:
what started the Hussite wars

The Holy Roman Empire was torn to pieces, eroded by new church teachings and agreements that the elites concluded among themselves, bypassing the interests of the state.

The supreme power, in the person of Emperor Sigismund the First (the same main villain from Kingdom Come), took drastic measures to preserve the integrity of the state.

The Council of Constance was convened, at which it was possible to calm the warring parties and restore the unity of the church, however decisions made were beneficial only to the “center” and hit the new teachings that were gaining strength.

The reformist views of the prominent Czech preacher Jan Hus and the English theologian John Wycliffe were recognized as heretical and were banned.

The indignation of the followers of the ideas of the Reformation reached its peak when Jan Hus, invited to the council, to whom Sigismund personally granted a safe-conduct, was burned along with his works.

The letter turned out to be fictitious, and Gus was called only to physically remove him from the political chessboard.

Sigismund’s cruel decision was understandable: the ideas of the preacher from the Czech Republic were gaining more and more power over the minds of people, but they contradicted church dogmas, which did not help in the unification of the country. The emperor was mistaken in only one thing. The influence of new religious thought was so extensive that with one command Sigismund literally blew up Europe.

Jan Hus trusted honestly emperor, but was burned

The Hussite Wars, in which the followers of John Hus clashed with the Catholics, became the bloody result of severe contradictions in the empire. The center of Europe was swept by a wave of full-scale crusades, where representatives of all classes and classes clashed, and where handguns began to be used on a large scale for the first time.

How did Jan Zizka turn uncouth Czech men into a victorious army?

Jan Zizka - the great blind man and rebel

The nobles and other classes close to the throne moved to suppress the rebellious Hussites under the leadership of Sigismund himself. The Czech Republic, where Catholic influence was not as strong as in other areas, raised the ideas of the Church Reformation to the banners, and Jan Žižka led the troops. outstanding commander The Middle Ages and the national hero of the modern Czech Republic.

This skillful and experienced warrior, under his leadership, was able in a few years to turn uneducated peasants into real fighters, whom the knights of Europe respected and feared. This is evidenced by several crusades defeated by rebels, which the church organized to curb the rebellious Czechs. How did Zizka manage to turn village men into a real army? The answer is simple: the highly motivated rebels, plus the tactical genius of Jan Zizka, who relied on the most advanced achievements military science those years.

In general, foot peasants in a battle field are simply scarecrows for whipping for any detachment of heavy cavalry, of which there were plenty in the ranks of the imperial troops. Only good fortifications, like fortress walls, from behind which you could safely fire at the attackers, could level the chances. Where can you get them in the table-flat steppe? And that’s where the peasant carts are!

I
Placed strategic emphasis on Wagenburgs
- fortresses on wheels

The very idea of ​​the Wagenburg, as this brilliant idea came to be called, is not new. The same Rus' had its own walking cities, and nomads and the Chinese often used this method of protecting infantry from cavalry in the middle of the steppe. However, only Jan Zizka was able to create a serious military fortification out of this, which would become a full-fledged fort in the field.

The essence of all tactics is simple - the foot army always moved surrounded by special carts. A strong wooden wall with loopholes on one side and gangways on the other was placed on an ordinary peasant four-wheeler. The cart itself housed about two dozen soldiers, with various weapons.

At the slightest danger, which was reported by intelligence, the carts were placed in two circles - a large outer one and a small inner one. The horses were hidden in the inner one so that in the roar of battle they would not get scared and run away, and the outer one would meet the enemies.

At the same time, the carts were connected with strong chains and it was impossible to pull them apart, and tall shields were installed in the passages, behind which stood halberdiers, who did not allow the enemy to break through in the very weak point construction. Having thus held back several waves of enemy attacks and exhausted him, the Hussites launched a counterattack and finished off the fleeing enemies.

This tactic worked well on March 25, 1420 in the Battle of Sudomerz, where about two thousand well-armed warriors fought against four hundred Czechs, among whom were women and children.

Jan Žižka placed his men between two semi-drained swampy lakes, and ordered the women to remove their large headscarves and leave them. When the knights got tired of banging their heads on the carts, they decided to cross the lake. But it was not worth going there on horses, and they went on foot - and then Zizka’s trap worked.

Damp scarves began to cling to the spurs, and each knight was soon dragging several kilograms of rags on his feet, which did not add agility and maneuverability. When everyone was completely exhausted, peasants with flails attacked them, and with the onset of darkness, the Hussites safely retreated.

II
Brilliantly saw the strengths of the peasants

It is worth noting that Jan Zizka did not teach the peasants to fight like knights - that would have taken too much time and resources. He decided to use them strengths, namely, the ability to work in the field.

So one of the most terrible weapons became a peasant flail for threshing grain - a long stick on which a beat was attached with the help of a short chain - a wooden mallet as long as a human forearm. The threshers, trained over decades of hard peasant labor, beat the armored lords so much that they had to retreat under a hail of powerful blows.

To help the threshers, spearmen were dispatched, whose weapons were supplemented with hooks, with which they pulled unwary riders from their horses, just under the blow of the flails.

III
Turned gunpowder into the worst nightmare of knights

But the main force was the pinnacle of scientific and technical thought of the Middle Ages - firearms. And not only bombard cannons firing steel or stone cannonballs, but also hand weapons - squeaks. They were steel tubes on sticks that were fired from a fuse or stick. Despite their low efficiency by modern standards, such guns could penetrate almost any armor at point-blank range.

As a result, a knight on horseback and in armor, who stumbled upon a Wagenburg, received a hail of bullets, cannonballs and crossbow bolts in his direction, while his opponents were well protected in their mobile fortress. This is what helped the Hussites in the Battle of Kutna Hora at the end of 1421.

Jan Zizka, already completely blind, defended the city of Kutna Hora from the German crusaders. Leaving a small garrison in the city, he placed his Wagenburg in front of the walls, expecting the enemy, but the Catholics in the city rebelled and tried to stab the Hussites in the back. Then Jan resorted to a military stratagem and mounted all the guns on carts, after which his numerous wooden tanks rushed at the advancing Germans, firing as they went, which had never been done before. A hail of cannonballs and bullets, as well as heavy carts with mad horses, broke the ranks of the crusaders, after which the Czechs emerged from the encirclement.

IV
Created the first military regulations in Western Europe

To a large extent on military organization The ranks of the Hussites were influenced by the military regulations created by Jan Žižka. It specifically described how many people were traveling in the cart, who was standing where, and what needed to be done in a given situation. The motley crowd of peasants was divided into hundreds and dozens and attached to their cart. Therefore, when the battle began, each of the trained fighters knew where to run, where to stand and what to do.

New distribution logic military duties acted like a clock. After several years of the Hussite wars, just at the sight of the Hussites, the imperial troops began to think ten times whether it was worth engaging in battle.

The Hussites also could not be denied motivation. The common Czech people, one of whose spiritual leaders was burned by the Catholics, was furious at how Emperor Sigismund treated them.

The defeat of Zizka and the victory of his ideas
- How did the Hussite Wars end?

The long confrontation with the Catholics brought confusion into the ranks of the Hussites. Thus began the civil war, which divided the rebels into moderates (Chasniks) and radicals (Taborites), which Zizka joined. In the battle of the city of Mateshi on June 7, 1424, the Taborites completely defeated the Chashniks by launching carts full of stones at them from the mountain and attacking their cavalry with the enemies fleeing in horror.

As a result, after the death of Jan Zizka from the plague and numerous betrayals of the Chashniki, the rebel Czechs were defeated, but the world ceased to be the same, and war carts took a place in military tactics for two centuries and showed themselves well. An excellent example is the Battle of Molodi, which took place between July 29 and August 2, 1572, where the troops of the Moscow principality utterly defeated the invading Crimean Khan.

Under the leadership of Jan Zizka, the Hussites on the battlefield demonstrated the ferocity and rage that the Czech people felt towards central government. After his death, Zizka himself allegedly even bequeathed to remove the skin from his dead body and stretch it onto a drum, to the sound of which the Czechs would terrify their enemies.

But most importantly: Jan Zizka and his rules changed everything - the principles of war, the religious agenda and the entire future of Europe. Having seen the peasants defeat five crusades in a row, people throughout Europe begin to wonder: is God really on the side of the papists? A little more - and the flame of Protestantism flares up. The new teachings no longer fear crusades, but Western Europe will be shocked by a series of events on the level of the collapse of the Roman Empire. And all because Sigismund decided to kidnap his drunkard brother and replace him on the throne. And we, in Kingdom Come, are just given a look at the very beginning of the whole story.