Ropice
is a village in the Czech Republic. It lies in the Frýdek-Místek District of the Moravian-Silesian Region. Ropice has a population of 1,417, 28.9% of which are Poles. Ropičanka River flows into the Olza River in the village. It lies in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia.
Name is of topographic origins derived from petroleum.History
The village was first mentioned in a Latin document of Diocese of Wrocław called Liber fundationis episcopatus Vratislaviensis from around 1305 as item in Ropiza. It meant that the village was in the process of location. The creation of the village was a part of a larger settlement campaign taking place in the late 13th century on the territory of what will be later known as Upper Silesia.
Politically the village belonged initially to the Duchy of Teschen, formed in 1290 in the process of feudal fragmentation of Poland and was ruled by a local branch of Piast dynasty. In 1327 the duchy became a fee of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which after 1526 A.D became part of the Habsburg Monarchy.
The village became a seat of a Catholic parish, mentioned in the register of Peter's Pence payment from 1447 among 50 parishes of Teschen deanery as Ropicza. After the 1540s Protestant Reformation prevailed in the Duchy of Teschen and a local Catholic church was taken over by Lutherans. It was taken from them by a special commission and given back to the Roman Catholic Church on 26 March 1654.
Owners of Ropica in the 15th century, the Sobek family, built a fort in the village. It was rebuilt to a baroque château around 1700 and then to a classicist one in 1810. It remains in that style today, although it dilapidated during the communist era and is now completely devastated.
After Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire a modern municipal division was introduced in the re-established Austrian Silesia. The village as a municipality was subscribed to the political and legal district of Cieszyn. According to the censuses conducted in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910 the population of the municipality grew from 1,158 in 1880 to 1,289 in 1910 with a majority being native Polish-speakers accompanied by a small German-speaking minority and Czech-speaking people. In terms of religion in 1910 the majority were Roman Catholics, followed by Protestants. The village was also traditionally inhabited by Cieszyn Vlachs, speaking Cieszyn Silesian dialect.
After World War I, fall of Austria-Hungary, Polish–Czechoslovak War and the division of Cieszyn Silesia in 1920, it became a part of Czechoslovakia. Following the Munich Agreement, in October 1938 together with the Zaolzie region it was annexed by Poland, administratively adjoined to Cieszyn County of Silesian Voivodeship. It was then annexed by Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II. After the war it was restored to Czechoslovakia.
There is a modern golf course in Ropice.Footnotes
