Domoradovice

Domoradovice – history

    Domoradovice is the only village of this name in the Czech Republic. The name was probably derived from the personal name Domarad. The village stretches on the eastern slope of the Vítkov hills; its centre lies 460 m above sea level, its highest place is 28 metres higher.

    The area was settled by the Slavs in the 7th – 8th centuries; the exact date is not known. The first settlers must have cleared the forest. 

    The first written record dates back to 1377 (according to some sources to 1357). The village had always been a part of Hradec estate. 

    The six-syllable name of the village was changed and garbled during centuries. In the oldest Latin document it says Damrawitz, in 1771 it states Damadrovitium. 

    The legend has it that the village was burnt to the ground three times – by the Avars, the Tartars and the Swedes. After the Thirty Years´ War it was sold with his subjects for 6,000 to the owners of Hradec estate, the Pruskovský family, later it became a property of the Neffzern family. The villagers lived in bondage to the Princes Lichnowsky family from 1777 until the abolition of compulsory labour in 1848. 

    At the end of the 19th century the life in the village was influenced by the construction of Žimrovice paper mill which was begun by the construction of the sluice and the 3-km-long upper part of the mill race, the bigger part of which lies in the land register of Domoradovice. The school was built in 1893, the chapel in baroque style in 1845.

    German was used as the official language until 1899.

    A voluntary fire brigade was set up in 1904. 

    67 men aged 18 – 50 were called up to WWI; fourteen of them were killed in action or died as a result of war hardships, eleven of them were wounded and ten were taken prisoners of war. 

    In 1959 the local cooperative farm started building a cow house for a hundred cows.

    After the Velvet Revolution, in the 1990s, a football pitch, now nicknamed Maracaná, was established in the village, in the place of a former rubbish dump. These days it is the members of voluntary fire brigade who take care of social life in the village. Their activities include – among others – a rally of motorcyclists, which is held every summer. A scout club is also active. In May 2009 Domoradovice had a population of 219.


St. Barbara´s Chapel
    Domoradovice belongs to Melč parish. The chapel is consecrated to St. Barbara. It was built in 1845. Its tower was originally of an onion shape, which was replaced by a cone-shaped one in 1905. Until 1944 there were two bells in the chapel, but when the bigger one was taken away by the Germans, only a small cast-iron death bell remained. As late as in 1999, at the suggestion of local religious community, a new bell was purchased and, on 26th August 2000, it was consecrated and later hung in the tower.