1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Znaim

ZNAIM (Czech Znojmo), a town of Austria, in Moravia, 50 m. S.W. of Brünn by rail. Pop. (1900) 16,261, mostly German. It is picturesquely situated on the left bank of the Thaya. The site of the former fortifications is occupied by a promenade. The Rauberturm is a relic of the old castle of the margraves of Moravia; the round castle chapel, known as the heathen temple (Heiden Tempel), in the Romanesque style of the 12th century, was at one time considered the most ancient building in Moravia. The Gothic church of St Nicholas was built about 1348 by the emperor Charles IV.; the town house, with a Gothic tower, 250 ft. high, dates from about 1446. The ancient and once powerful Premonstratensian abbey of Bruck, east of the town, is now occupied as barracks.

The present town of Znaim was founded in 1226 by Ottacar I. of Bohemia on the site of Znojmo, the ancient capital of the tributary margraves of Moravia, which had been destroyed in 1145. Znaim is best known to history for the armistice concluded here in 1809 after the battle of Wagram between Napoleon I. and the archduke Charles. In 1866 the Prussians occupied the town from July 13th till September 3rd. The novelist Karl Postl (1793–1864), who wrote under the pseudonym of Charles Sealsfield, was born at Poppitz, 21/2 m. S.W.