Cultural monument • Valašská Bystřice • by the church
The grave of the commander of a guard that watched the border between Moravia and Hungary for almost two centuries.
In front of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Valašská Bystřice, on the site of a graveyard long since closed, lie two stone tomb chests with skulls on crossed bones.
Under one lies Jiří Křenek, the fojt of Bystřice, who commanded the portáši from 1769 to 1791; who lies under the other, the sources do not agree.
Why come here
Under one of the two stones by the church lies the real grave of the fojt and lieutenant Jiří Křenek – a place to honour the memory of the man who led the portáš corps into its finest years.
When to come
The graves are freely accessible all year. The second weekend in July belongs to the Portášské slavnosti – a procession, folklore and displays in period costume.
What not to miss
Both front slabs carry the same words from the biblical Book of Job: “SMILVGTE SE NADEMNAV ASPON WI PRZATELE MOGI” – have pity on me, at least you, my friends.
The emperor hired Wallachians to guard the mountains against other Wallachians. It lasted almost two hundred years.
1638: a rescript from Vienna
After 1620 there was no quiet in eastern Moravia: Wallachian revolts, raids from the Hungarian side, robbery in the mountains. Regular troops are of no use in country where a whole band can vanish. Only people who know the mountains as well as the brigands they are to catch can help.
By a rescript of 31 March 1638 Emperor Ferdinand III ordered the Moravian land captain to hire a hundred Wallachians, taking care to tell the reliable from the unreliable. They formed a detachment of “loyal Wallachians”. From roughly the second half of the 17th century they came to be called portáši.
The name comes from the Latin porta, a gate: they guarded the mountain passes that served as gates into the land and out of it. At first the corps was called up only as needed, mainly in the years of the Turkish and Kuruc raids. In 1717 it became a standing security corps with a lajtnant at its head.
The service
The corps was divided into squads of ten men, among others in Valašská Bystřice, Velké Karlovice, Rusava, Jasenná and Čeladná. Duty alternated: five men in the field, five at home, swapping after a month. Even those at home had to be ready.
In quiet times the portáši watched over order and warned of fire risk in the cottages; later they caught deserters and escorted soldiers. When cattle plague spread, they closed the border. If a man they had seized resisted, they were allowed to kill him; they then answered to their superior, not to a court.
On duty they slept in manorial buildings, in the villages, or in čartáky – wooden huts on the hilltops, of the kind that stood on today's Čarták above Soláň. They wore ordinary Wallachian dress with no badges of rank: they knew each other. They bought their weapons and kit themselves: a long-barrelled musket, a valaška axe and a sabre. For catching runaways they used a rope with a lead ball at the end.
The Křeneks
In 1769 the portáši came to be led by Jiří Křenek, the fojt of Valašská Bystřice. His time is described as the finest period of the whole corps – and the Křenek family of Bystřice gave the portáši more men than any other: two lieutenants, a sergeant and corporals.
The fojt was the first man in the village – its head, its manager, the go-between for the lord and the community. That he of all people commanded the armed guard of the whole borderland made Valašská Bystřice the natural centre of portáš tradition: the revived Bystřické desátnictvo is based here to this day, and the village holds the Portášské slavnosti every year.
The rank of lieutenant stayed with the Křeneks until the corps ended in 1830. Jiří Křenek did not live to see it: he died in 1791 and was buried by the church he attended. The rank PORTASKI LIEUTENANT – portáš lieutenant – is still legible on the lid of his tomb.
1830: the end
In October 1830 the corps was finally disbanded – above all over money. It also played a part that the Moravian-Hungarian borderland had at last grown quieter. On discharge each portáš received a one-off payment according to his years of service.
No fortress or barracks was left of the corps – only names in the registers, songs and a few objects in museums. In Valašská Bystřice two tombs remained. In 1958 the state listed them among cultural monuments.
The tombs
Both graves take the form of a stone coffin, with a sandstone slab some fifteen centimetres thick standing in front of it in a volute frame. At its top sits a skull on crossed bones, from which a cast-iron cross rises.
Who is in the second grave is not known. The parish chronicle and the list of cultural monuments agree on Křenek's wife Marina (†1781), while a number of tourist sources write rather of his son Ondřej, a portáš corporal and blacksmith.
Burials now take place across the road. The parish founded the new graveyard there in the middle of the 19th century, among other reasons because of a typhus epidemic. Both portáš graves stayed where they were, though – in the grass in front of the church.
Timeline
31 March 1638
Ferdinand III orders a hundred Wallachians to be hired – a detachment of “loyal Wallachians” is formed, which becomes the portáši.
2nd half of the 17th c.
The corps is called up as the situation demands. It guards the Moravian border in the years of the Turkish and Kuruc raids and puts down robbers and smugglers.
1717
The portáši become a standing security corps: a lieutenant at the head, below him a sergeant, a junior sergeant and five corporals. Valašská Bystřice has a squad too.
1769
The fojt of Valašská Bystřice becomes lieutenant of the corps. His time is regarded as the finest period of portáš history.
1791
Jiří Křenek dies and is buried by the church in Valašská Bystřice. The lid of the tomb chest, from the late 18th century, carries the rank of portáš lieutenant.
October 1830
The corps is dissolved – mainly over cost (more than 67 thousand guldens over the last twenty years). The rank of lieutenant stayed with the Křeneks to the end.
1958
Both graves are listed among state-protected cultural monuments.
November 2003
Enthusiasts for military history found a modern Valašský sbor portášský; its first unit is the Bystřické desátnictvo.
today
The second weekend in July belongs to the Portášské slavnosti in the village – a procession, folklore, a fair and displays in period costume.
An armed corps that guarded the Moravian-Hungarian border, the passes and the mountains from 1638 to 1830. The name comes from the Latin porta, a gate.
In one, Jiří Křenek, the fojt of Bystřice and lieutenant of the portáši († 1791). Who lies in the other is not certain – both his wife Marina and his son Ondřej are named.
The same inscription on both: SMILVGTE SE NADEMNAV ASPON WI PRZATELE MOGI – have pity on me, at least you, my friends. A verse from the biblical Book of Job.
In 1830, mainly over cost (more than 67 thousand guldens over the last twenty years) and a quieter situation on the borderland.
In a modern form, yes – Valašský sbor portášský was founded in 2003, and the village holds the Portášské slavnosti every second weekend in July.
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