ŽIŽKA, JAN Z TROCNOVA. - First leader of the Hussites, b. ca. 1353-58 at Trocnov (southern Bohemia), d. of plague on 11 Oct. 1424 during the siege of the castle of Přibyslav.
Ž., descended from the minor Czech nobility, first served in the troops of the powerful local lords, then in the militias of the king of Poland and in those of the king of Bohemia Wenceslaus IV. In 1419 he took part in the first Hussite riots in Prague (v. HUS) and soon became their military and political leader. Ž. followed the most radical current of the Hussites, centered at Tabor (whence Taborites) in southern Bohemia, in opposition to the moderate Praguers. The Taborites, for the most part peasants and artisans, proclaiming themselves "soldiers of God and of His law," fought fanatically for the Hussite reform, and Ž. believed himself called by God to make it triumph by sword and fire. Although from 1421 completely blind, Ž. won great victories over the numerically superior armies of King Sigismund and his partisans. Besides Ž.'s strategic genius, his particular military technique also contributed to this: armored wagons equipped with bombards and loaded with troops, which he moved and arrayed with great skill. In the cities he stormed, Ž. put to the sword all those who refused to join the Hussite movement and destroyed all "worldly vanities," that is, monuments of art, libraries, archives, etc. Ž., paternally solicitous for his soldiers, served the Hussite movement sincerely and disinterestedly, but Taborite sectarian fanaticism did not allow him to draw from his military successes any lasting advantages, not even for the political and national aims of the movement. Without Ž. the Hussite movement would in all likelihood not have emerged from the field of theological discussions and ecclesiastical reforms, nor degenerated into long fratricidal wars, which profoundly convulsed the religious, cultural and political life of the Kingdom of Bohemia, causing enormous material and moral damage.