Museum of the Market Town of Besednice

The decisive impulse for establishing the museum in Besednice was an exhibition about Lt. Col. Vojtěch Smolík DFC, a Czechoslovak RAF pilot, a native of Besednice, and an honorary citizen of the town. The exhibition took place on April 6, 2018, in the ceremonial hall of the town hall, and after it ended, there was consideration of moving it to more suitable premises. The most appropriate location turned out to be unused basement spaces that previously housed a civil defense storage area. Given the conditions, the idea arose to build a small museum with a permanent exhibition dedicated to Lt. Col. Vojtěch Smolík DFC as its core.

Today, the museum also hosts a permanent exhibition on civil defense, created from remnants of the original CO (civil defense) warehouse. These CO warehouses used to exist in all municipalities, industrial and agricultural enterprises, public institutions, schools, etc., throughout the former Czechoslovak Republic. By order of the relevant ministries, CO warehouses were dismantled in the 1990s and all materials were handed over to the army. A small sample of what these warehouses contained and how they were organized can be seen in this exhibition.

The third permanent exhibition is dedicated to the year 1928 and the so-called Poříčská disaster, in which eleven bricklayers and stonemasons from Besednice and Nesměň perished. Their remains are interred in a mass grave in the cemetery of Besednice. In their honor, Besednice hosts an annual gathering of diatonic accordion (heligonka) players from all over the country. Over the years, this event has gained great popularity among enthusiasts of this musical instrument.

The fourth exhibition is dedicated to the history of the Gendarmerie Station, which was established in Besednice in 1898 during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and remained there as a district station of the Public Security (VB) until the mid-1960s.

Visitors to the museum can also see a copy of a charter by Henry III of Rosenberg containing the first written mention of the village of Besednice from 1394. The document is a faithful copy of the original, which is stored in the District State Archive in Český Krumlov.

In the future, the museum aims to continue documenting and presenting the history of the market town of Besednice, focusing on the lives, customs, and traditions of its inhabitants.