Supported projects

Kostelecké Horky - “The Fate of Horky Soldiers in WWI,” a project of the Society of the House of the Blue Stone in Kostelecké Horky.

Project: Osudy horeckých vojáků za první světové války
Organization: Spolek Dům z Modrého kamene

The photo shows Josef Mimra, a student of philosophy, still just a boy. He used to visit his brother in Kostelecké Horky over the holidays. From Kostelecké Horky, a town of 300 inhabitants in 1914, over a third of its citizens went off to war. 112 fathers, sons, and brothers were sent to battle: five from the Frankota family, eight from the Sládek family, three from the Mimra family. The tragedy that would become known as the Great War claimed 18 Kostelecké Horky’s men and boys.

The idea to publish this book, entitled “The Fate of the Horky Soldiers in WWI,” came about during an exhibition of photographs and documents detailing Horky soldiers during the First World War. The exhibition had been organized two years earlier by the Kostelecké Horky Historical Society. Šárka Kulíšková, a member of the local Society of the House of the Blue Stone recognized the need to do something to honor the sacrifice of this lost generation of the town, and creating a book was her first thought. For Šárka and the other four members of the project, there remained the comprehensive work of research into the Horky town chronicles, recording the memories of the soldiers' relatives, collecting letters, diaries, photographs, and documents, mapping out the monuments to the fallen in the region.

A monument to the 18 fallen soldiers stands in the center of Kostelecké Horky. On it is the inscription: “Our dearly remembered, we will not forget them”. This book also honors their sacrifice. 112 men – soldiers from Kostelecké Horky – are more than just meaningless numbers; they remain people alive in our memories.

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