Execution of 27 Protestant Leaders (21.6.1621) on the Old Town Square

Catalogue number	0686
Date of issue	1.6.2011
Face value	26 CZK
Print sheets	4 stamps
Size of picture	50 x 40 mm
Graphic designer	Zdeněk Ziegler
Engraver Printing method	Václav Fajt recess print from flat plate in black combined with offset in red

The stamp commemorates the 390th anniversary of the execution of 27 Czech Protestant leaders on the Prague's Old Town Square. The mass execution of June 21st, 1621 became a symbolic end of the series of events that begun with the second defenestration of Prague on May 23rd, 1618, central to the start of the Thirty Years' War in 1618, and ended with the Protestant armies' defeat at the Battle on White Mountain near Prague, November 8th, 1620.
The execution was to become a shocking and frightening performance intended to prove to the contemporary Europe that the Habsburgs were not impressed by the leading Protestant aristocracy's revolt and that no rebellion, staged by Protestants, was able to jeopardize their authority. It led to a stronger position of the Habsburg dynasty on the Czech throne and suppression of any form of resistance on the side of a potential opposition.
A set of cobblestones, installed at the place where the scaffold (dismantled after the execution and given to the Prague's Monastery of Merciful Brothers) stood, commemorates the execution site and the sad end to the Czech Protestants' uprising.

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