Stránský, Pavel

(also Stránský ze Zap). Born 1583; died 1657. Czech writer, historian, and political figure.

The son of free peasants, Stránský graduated from Charles University in 1607 and became a master of liberal arts in 1608. In 1614 and from 1620 to 1625 he was a member of the Litomèfice city council. In March 1618, during the Czech uprising of 1618–20, he attended a congress of non-Catholic clergy. After the suppression of the uprising he was deprived of two-thirds of his property, and in 1627 he was expelled from Bohemia for being a member of the Unity of Czech Brethren. In his main work, the treatise On the Czech State (Leiden, 1634), Stránský supported independence for Bohemia. In this work he also presented geographical descriptions of Bohemia and a detailed account of the history of the Czech State.