History of villages: Vnorovy, Moravia

Vnorovy, since 1960 consolidated with Lidéřovice, is a small town with 3045 inhabitants. You can find it in South Moravian Region, in Hodonín district, about 2,5km South-West from Veselí nad Moravou. Vnorovy is surrounded by water courses, especially on the North-West (river Morava, Baťa Canal, irrigation canals) and South (river Velička). Its altitude is 167-226 meters.

Location of Vnorovy in the Czech Republic (Source: maps.google.cz)

First written mention about Vnorovy is in the forgery dated to 1st September 1249, but created between years 1267 to 1275. There are different theories about the Vnorovy name origin (written also Wnorowy, Znorovy, Norow, Wznorow, Unirov), the most probable seems to be the one based on the common Polish proper name Wnór, which was the origin of Polish villages names like Wnórov, Wnory. Also Polish immigrant villages are not unknown in South Moravia (see e.g. Otrokovice). Other theory operates with the Czech word "vnořit" (to sink into sth.) and rumours about running sands subsidences in the village area.

Vnorovy on a map from 2nd military mapping (Source: Mapy.cz)

Because of richness of local rivers, forests and soil and also moderate weather, this area has been inhabited very soon, at first by diluvial hunters, then with climate changes and progresses in agriculture techniques by farmers. This is proved by many archeological findings, mostly animal bones, pottery and tools remains.

Vnorovy coat of arms
(Source: www.vnorovy.cz)

Since Middle Ages, this area has been on the border-line between Moravia and Hungary, crossed by many trade channels.

At first, Vnorovy belonged to the Veselí estate (first known owners were brothers from Horka, one of them, Pardus, is called "from Vnorovy" in the above mentioned falsified document). During centuries Vnorovy had many owners from different local noble houses, the earlier ones are known mostly from mutual legal disputes.

The owners of Vnorovy started to clear surrounding forests and artificially form the landscape with new meadows, orchards, vineyards and ponds, that especially enriched their property.

From the beginning of the 17th century on, Vnorovy (as well as other nearby villages) was tormented by bad crops, plague and invasion of different troops, Turkish, Tatar and Hungarian, French, Prussian...

The last owner of Vnorovy was Friedrich, Count Chorinský, whose youngest child, Maria Anna, is still alive.

Aerial view of the village (Source: Mapy.cz)

Landmarks:

In Vnorovy, you can visit a church of St. Elisabeth of Thuringia (baroque-revival with Art Nouveau elements), built in 1909, a sculpture of the Holy Trinity from 1745, a sculpture of John Nepomucene from 1749, a chapel of Virgin Mary, built in 1898.

Tourist map with details about Vnorovy surroundings (Source: Mapy.cz)

Folklore:

Vnorovy still keeps the original South-Moravian folklore habits, garps and handcrafts, such as Easter eggs painting or special figures made from dried corn peels ("šustí").

It is good to know, that in Vnorovy lived for 18 years (1870 - 1888) the famous composer Leoš Janáček (1854 - 1928), and that here was born Jan Skácel (1922 - 1989), one of the greatest Moravian poets.

Here is information from the censuses about the number of inhabitants and houses during the years:

	1869	1880	1890	1900	1910	1921	1930	1950	1961	1970	1980	1991	2001
People	2213	2637	2701	2951	3179	2992	2789	2630	3003	2987	3035	3102	3082
Houses	431	499	535	578	635	643	655	671	686	716	774	875	897

Source: Statistic book called "Historický lexikon obcí České republiky" (Historical lexicon of the Czech Republic villages)

Vnorovy 1915 (Source: www.fotohistorie.cz)

Genealogical information

Vnorovy belongs under Moravian Land Archives. It had its own parish since the end of 14th century (also with Bohemian Brethren intermezzo), but because of the burn-out of whole church by Turkish troops, in between 1627 to 1731 it belonged to Veselí nad Moravou parish.

The parish books available online are: BMD 1699-1732 under Veselí nad Moravou; Vnorovy itself - births till 1892, marriages till 1895 and deaths till 1902.

Most common among the oldest surnames are: Bártek, Chmela, Gajdorus, Hadaš, Hladík, Holub, Holubovský, Horáček, Hudeček, Ján, Janíček, Kapún, Klimek, Kočí, Kolařík, Komínka, Kostka, Kovář, Krajíček, Kučera, Kuňas, Kurec, Kůrka, Mravec, Papánek, Přibil, Slezák, Solařík, Studnička, Šaštík, Tesařík, Tomek, Urbančík.