Mladá Boleslav

Template:Geobox Mladá Boleslav (IPA: [ˈmladaː ˈbolɛslaf], German: Jungbunzlau, Hebrew, Latin: Bumsla) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, on the left bank of the Jizera river about 50 km northeast of Prague.

Founded in the second half of the 10th century by King Boleslav II as a royal castle. Because there already was a castle known as Boleslav near Prague, this new castle was named Mladá (young) to distinguish it from the older Boleslav, which became known in the 15th century as Stará Boleslav (Old Boleslav). The town received partial city rights in 1334 and 1436, becoming an important site on the road from Prague to northern Bohemia, Lusatia, and Brandenburg. In the 16th century the town was a leading centre of the Unitas Fratrum / Unity of the Brethren / Moravian Church church, hosting the Brethren's bishop, Renaissance church, and printing house. After being re-Catholicized in the 17th century, the town's population declined.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Mladá Boleslav was an important Jewish center. In this period, about one half of the town's population was Jewish. In the 19th century (in fact, the period of decline of the Jewish community), Mladá Boleslav was dubbed "Jerusalem on Jizera". In 1634, Jacob Bashevi von Treuenberg (born 1580 in Verona, Italy), the first ennobled Jew in the Hapsburg monarchy, was buried on the Jewish cemetery in Mladá Boleslav.

In the 19th century new prosperity came: the town became an important regional centre as new schools, theatres, museums, and the Laurin & Klement (today Škoda) automobile factory were founded. After the communist revolution in 1948, the town suffered a mass decline, however it has been improving since the 1990s as the factory is making it one of the richest Czech towns.

The local football team FK Mladá Boleslav qualified for the 2006/7 Uefa Cup via the Uefa Champions League and surprisingly beat Olympique de Marseille 4-3 on aggregate in the first round.

Visitors sights

Templ Municipal History Museum - new holographic exhibition in gothic town-palace;
Škoda Museum - Car museum;
Brethren renaissance cathedral - public open gallery;
Regional Museum - Historical, cultural and social history collections

Important personalities

Ctibor Tovačovský z Cimburka (1437 - 1494), important law theorist
Lucas of Prague (1460 - 1528), Brethren bishop, theologian and writer
Jiří Kezelius-Bydžovský (1576 - 1655), historian
Jan Norbert z Neuberka (1796 - 1859), politician, co-founder of Bohemian National Museum, historian
Vincenc Zahradník (1790 - 1836), writer
Alois Vojtěch Šmilovský (1837 - 1883), writer
Siegfried Kapper (1821 - 1879), writer
František Gellner (1881 - after 1914), important poet
Alfréd Meissner (1871 - 1950), law theorist, leader of the Social Democratic Party, justice minister and minister of social welfare in the 1st Czechoslovak republic, deputy Jewish Elder in the Terezín ghetto in 1944 to 1945
Adina Mandlová (1910 - 1991), actress, was born there.
Mila Rechcigl (1930-), scientist and long-term president of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) was born here.
Jan Železný (1966-), three-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion in the javelin
Martin Havlát (1981-), NHL player for the Chicago Blackhawks
Radim Vrbata (1981-), NHL player for the Chicago Blackhawks
Marek Schwarz (1986-), NHL goalie for the St. Louis Blues