Ostrava 1880-1939

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A fully trilingual album (parallel text in Czech, English and German) of 438 historical postcards depicting Moravian Ostrava, along with its 33 associated communities. All postcards come from private collections and are dated between 1880 and 1939. Each image is supplemented with short texts that attempt to characterize the places, objects or occasions captured on the cards and to elucidate their history. There is also a brief introduction to the history and evolution of the local postcards, bibliography and a directory of streets and squares (current & historical names). -- "The appearance of Ostrava and its unmistakable atmosphere in the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and in the first years of independent Czechoslovakia, in a time when it was literally evolving overnight from a small provincial town into a leading industrial centre, has survived among the dusty documents of historical archives, in dateless photographs and postcards. And it is the postcards that probably best portray the uniqueness of Ostrava, slowly fading away, yet as if still within reach..."