The story
13th–14th centuries
The first written mention of Javorník is from 1290. However, it was probably established earlier, because the Church of the Holy Cross dates from the 1260s. A medieval fortress was built here at the turn of the 13th and 14th century and was first mentioned in 1307. The village and then the castle were owned by the Bishopric in Wrocław. Part of the settlement in the castle grounds gradually took on an urban character, and in 1373 Javorník was first mentioned as a town, although it was not granted town privileges until 1549.
15th–17th centuries
In 1428, during the Hussite Wars, Javorník and its fortress were conquered by the Hussites, who held it until 1432. In 1432, Javorník was returned to the bishops of Wrocław. In 1509, when Prince-Bishop Johann V Thurzo came to power, new development occurred. He had rebuilt the fortress into a Renaissance castle, known as Jánský Vrch Castle. He also helped develop silver mining and establish hammer mills in the area.
In 1576, most of the houses were destroyed by a fire. Worse disasters came in the 17th century, when the town was hit by Swedish incursions during the Thirty Years' War and the plague epidemic. However, the town soon recovered, even though it was considered ugly. Unlike other towns in the area, Javorník avoided Northern Moravia witch trials.
18th–19th centuries
In the 1720s, new representative building were built in Javorník, which reflected economic prosperity. The development of the town was stopped by the Silesian Wars. After the Prussian victory in the First Silesian War in 1742, Habsburg monarchy lost nearly all of its Silesian possessions. However, Javorník together with the so-called Bohemian Silesia remained under Habsburg control. After the Seven Years' War, during the rule of Prince-Bishop Philipp Gotthard of Schaffgotsch, a new prosperous period for the town began. In 1767, he moved his court on the Jánský Vrch and Javorník became not only the administrative centre, but also the cultural centre of Upper Silesia. Schaffgotsch hosted here many artistic personalities, the most famous was Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.
After Schaffgotsch's death in 1795, Javorník partially lost its importance, but remained economic centre with developed crafts and textile manufactories. In 1825 a devastating fire once again ravaged the town. Javorník was recovering only slowly and never regained the same importance in the region as it had during the golden age in the second half of the 18th century. Most of the manufacturies never fully recovered. In 1897, the local railway was built, which helped to create various smaller businesses.
20th century
According to the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, the town had 2,052 inhabitants, 1,956 of whom had permanent residence there and were German-speaking. Most populous religious group were Roman Catholics with 2,019 (98.4%).
During World War II, approximately 30 French and Soviet POWs were interned at the old town prison in Javorník. Other and larger prisoner-of-war camps were located in Zálesí, Travná, and in the hamlet of Račí údolí.
From 1938 to 1945 it was annexed by Nazi Germany and adminitered as part of the Reichsgau Sudetenland. By 1938, local ethnic-German population became overwhelmingly pro-Nazi with many locals joining the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, a para-military Nazi-Germany sponsored and trained organisation that was conducting terrorist attacks against the Czechoslovak authorities. One of the most notable attacks of the Freikorps in the town took place on 22 September 1938. A group of 12 members of the Czechoslovak Border Guard was retreating through the town after being attacked from Germany when it was ambushed by over 100 local members of Freikorps. The Czechoslovak soldiers were disarmed and abducted to Germany where they were interned by local authorities in the concentration camp in Paczków.
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After 1945, under the Beneš decrees most Sudeten Germans were held at several internment camps and then expelled. Many of them were also beaten and killed by numerous militias and paramilitary groups with strong ties to the Communist Party and the Red Army. The town was repopulated by Czech families.
Following the Communist coup d'état of 1948, Czechoslovak government confiscated most of the property which belonged to the Archdiocese of Wrocław, their forests were divided among state-owned enterprises. No larger company remained in Javorník.
From Wikipedia’s article on Javorník (Jeseník District), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5