Mácha Country in real life: Čtyřlístek and the poem May

Around Doksy and Bezděz Castle, two famous Czech stories meet. The comic Čtyřlístek (Four-Leaf Clover) based its town of Třeskoprsky, the Blaťák pond and Bezzub Castle on the real Doksy, Mácha Lake and Bezděz. And Karel Hynek Mácha’s poem May (1836), the best-known work of Czech Romanticism, is set “near the town of Hirschberg”, today’s Doksy – and is most likely based on a real murder from 1774.

Here are 4 places from both works. We separate what is documented from what is only a hypothesis.

Doksy, Bezděz and Mácha Lake

Bezděz and Doksy are about 6 km apart; the castle overlooks the whole lake.

• Bezděz Castle in the comic: Bezzub Castle documented (page in Czech)
  Čtyřlístek’s author Jaroslav Němeček said it himself: “Go round that corner and you’ll see Bezděz, that is Bezzub, and next to it Mácha Lake, the Blaťák. Doksy is Třeskoprsky.” He has a cottage near Doksy.
• Bezděz Castle in the poem: the castle hills above the poem’s setting documented (page in Czech)
  In his note on May, Mácha set the poem near the town of Hirschberg (today’s Doksy), “among hills crowned by the castles of Bezděz, Perštejn…”. He sketched Bezděz in his notebook on climbs in 1832 and 1835.
• Karel Hynek Mácha Memorial in the poem: Hirschberg, the town of May documented
  According to Mácha, May is set near Hirschberg, today’s Doksy. Its model was most likely a real murder: on 7 May 1774, 21-year-old Hynek (officially Ignaz) Schiffner from Dubá killed his father with a hop pole, and on 19 July he was executed in Mladá Boleslav. Josef Panáček found the record in the Dubá parish chronicle in 1962.

Mladá Boleslav

• Old Town Hall, Mladá Boleslav in the poem: Vilém’s prison (a hypothesis) not documented
  In May, Vilém awaits execution in a prison tower. Some historians believe the model was the stair tower of the old town hall, which held prison cells. The real Schiffner was executed on 19 July 1774 on a hill called Na spravedlnosti. Mácha sketched Mladá Boleslav Castle in August 1833.

More places

• Čtyřlístek Museum in Doksy Château – seasonal; daily in July and August. Current hours at doksy.com.
• Mácha Lake – the Great Pond founded by Charles IV in 1366, with a 15 km comic-themed trail around it.
• St Procopius statue near Dubá – in the fields near the site of the 1774 murder (a copy; the 1761 original has stood in front of the Mácha Memorial in Doksy since 1989).

Pamatky.cz is not affiliated with the authors or publishers of these works. Updated 29 October 2026.