Finnish Anthropology Conference 2015; poster: TRANSFORMATION OF THE ŠUMAVA MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE (SW Czech Republic): TESTIMONY OF THE 19TH CENTURY TIMBER TRADE, LUMBERMAN SETTLEMENT AND POST WORLD WAR II ORDER
Abstract
The industrialisation of Bohemia in the 19th century spurred not only the building of factories, urban expansion, development of mining areas and extension of transport infrastructure in the form of railways MINUS SIGN it also had an influence which reached more remote areas. Such remote areas are not usually defined as industrial at all.
The project focuses on interdisciplinary study of unique wood transport system. The large canal system enabled the transport of timber - using water power MINUS SIGN from these remote mountain locations to the urban timber markets.
The Vchynicko-Tetovský Canal, 15 km long, transported firewood to the Otava and Vltava rivers, and Prague. But the canal system was not only the canal itself, which bypasses an unnavigable section of the river Vydra.
But also eight artificial water reservoirs were constructed along mountain streams at an altitude of approximately 1100 metres above sea level to enable float and navigate the timber. Also new villages, paths and lonely homesteads in the mounais were built.
The timber logging there lasted till the World War II. After the War the mountain landscape near the Czech-German border became a forbidden zone.
The residets were evacuated (those with German nationality away from Bohemia) and many timberman villages were destroyed by army. The landscape became a desert guarded military area Nera the iron Curtain.
The development here was broken and suspended for more than 40 years. Now is the area situated in National park Šumava.
The study is interdisciplinary. We made a field research (non destructive archaeological research) and we have compared the data with cartographic and written sources, photos and memories of witnesses (oral history) and we can say, that the landscape surway can tell us important informations about the landscape of 19th and 1st half of 20th century, which has changed the landscape till today.