President Petr Pavel has decided to hold an annual exhibition of the Czech crown jewels to mark St Wenceslas Day, 28 September, which is commemorated as Czech Statehood Day, the communications department of the Presidential Office said in a press release yesterday.
This year, the jewels will be on display from 17-30 September.
According to Pavel’s decision, the exhibition will take place every year in connection with the September national holiday. This year, it will start on 17 September.
“A day earlier, the jewels will be ceremonially picked up from the Crown Chamber in the Cathedral of St Vitus, Wenceslas and Vojtech and transferred to the Vladislav Hall of the Old Royal Palace,” the Presidential Office said.
The crown jewels have been displayed at Prague Castle eight times since the establishment of the independent Czech Republic: twice under Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, four times under Milos Zeman, and most recently last January on the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Republic. The longest time they have been on display so far was in May 2016, when the exhibition lasted 15 days.
The tradition of the exhibition dates back to interwar Czechoslovakia; the first public exhibition of the jewels took place in 1929 on the 1,000th anniversary of the death of St. Wenceslas. The jewels were also exhibited after the end of World War II in 1945, twice in the 1950s (1955 and 1958), in the breakthrough year of 1968, and during the normalisation period (1975 and 1978). Tens of thousands of people came to see them each time.
The crown jewels were used as symbols of the rule and power of Czech kings. They include the Crown of Saint Wenceslas, the royal orb and sceptre, the coronation vestments of the Kings of Bohemia, and their accessories. The oldest among them is the crown, which was created on King Charles IV’s order in 1346.
