History the Castle in Kunín

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History the Castle in Kunín [ History ]

A Background

The Castle in Kunín ranks among the most valuable Baroque castles within whole North Moravia and Silesia. Earls from Harrach had a small country castle made at a place of an old single-storey fortress in
a period of 1726 - 1734. No big residential seat, just something like
a place for rest for members of the family which was related by its offices to then European metropolises. A castle architect was renowned Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt (author of the famous castle Belveder of Prince Evžen Savojský in Vienna), who also acted in services of the Harrach family for thirty years. He also reconstructed a summer residence of archbishops - well-known palace Mirabell for the uncle of the constructor, Salzburg archbishop František Antonín Harrach.
A garden face of the Kunín castle remembers significantly the famous Salzburg residence. It is no coincidence that Austrian tourists call is also as "small Moravian Mirabell".

The Castle where Palacký Studied.

The Castle constructors, Earl Friedrich August Harrach and his wife, Princess Eleonora from Liechtenstein, are even now reminded at
a face by a beautiful alliance sign of the husband and wife. However, an epoch of the biggest fame only came in a period of a grand-daughter of the constructors, Marie Walburga, Countess from Waldburg-Zeil (1762 - 1828). One of the greatest and most remarkable personalities of the Moravian Enlightenment experienced a tragic fate at the Castle. Her three small children died already when she was young, her marriage was broken, her last son was took away by his father to far Schwabia and died at the age of 18 years. The life of the unhappy woman was entered by Brno Freemasons and secret illuminators, who gained the Countess for ideas of philanthropy. The Countess established an educational institute at her castle according to German models - philanthropic institute (1792 -1814), which became a center of education in that part of Moravia. An extraordinary spirit of tolerance prevailed in the institute. Children from all social classes studied together there: children of serfs, orphans, children of burghers, clerks as well as noblemen; Catholics, Evangelists, Jews; boys and girls at the age of 5 to 15 years; Czechs and Germans. It is marvelous to know that rightly there, in former German Kunvald ( the name of the village is current, after the World War II, the village was forcedly renamed to Kunín), the later Father of the Czech nation and native from nearby Hodslavice, historic František Palacký, gained excellent bases of his education there. Later he wrote that years spent at the Castle school had been "
a beautiful spring time of my life".
However, teaching at the Castle school was extraordinarily strict. Lessons began already at five o´clock in the morning, and ended at
7 o´clock in the evening. Lessons were given from Monday to Saturday from all subjects - mathematics, natural sciences, languages, history, geography, music, final arts, and gymnastic exercises were introduced in teaching for the first time in Morava. Lessons were often given at the nature, trips were arranged to Helfštýn, Radhošť, Lysá Hora. Children camped there under the open sky, learning to know the surrounding nature and landscape. Rules of diet, i.e. healthy nutrition, hardening, were applied there, the Countess performed at her masonry the very fist public inoculation of children in Moravia. She tried to make people in her surrounding happy; the happiness alchemy is mentioned. However, she herself never experienced any family happiness. An anthropologic research of the remains indicated that she had suffered from crude Paget ´s illness bringing the unspeakable pain. In a period of the last ten years of her life, the Countess could not move with her legs, and a big wicker basket was made for her in which she was carried. After her death, nobody called her in other way than "our good Countess."

Further Fates of the Castle

At a conclusion of her life, Marie Walburga fastened her attention to the son of her secretary, small Friedrich Emil Schindler (1809-1867). She brought up him as his deputy, adopted him and left him the Kunín castle. Emil Schindler followed the steps of his patroness, devoted to philanthropy. At a place of the Countess ´s grave, he had an interesting Empire tomb built in a style of an open column hall for his family. Three years after his death in 1870, his children sold the Castle, and the family moved to far Korutany. Nowadays, two women of the family promoted in the noble family with title of Schindler von Kunewald, still live there.
A landgrave from Fürstenberg from the Austrian terciogeniture of the family became a new owner of the Castle. The Castle was bough for landgrave Ernst Egon (1816 -1889) by his brother, famous Olomouc archbishop and cardinal Friedrich Egon. In that time, the Castle served as a summer seat for the family members who lived in Vienna in winter. Ernst Egon, like a number of his relatives, was an excellent national economist. However, as the very fist member of the family, he concluded a morganatic marriage with a woman of a civil origin. Still before his marriage, also his son Josef Friedrich, called Fritz was born (1860 -1906). He was given a name of a landgrave from Fürstenberg only after a later marriage of his parents. However, he was never considered to be an equal family member. Fritz, who loved horses, was one of the best racing riders in the Austrian army. However, horses became fatal for him. The Castle had to be sold because of debts in 1895. Soon after that, he married a beautiful daughter of a farrier from Kateřinky nearby Opava, Marie Sdražilová. She survived her husband by many years, and she died at her relatives in the Opava region in 1941. Unique inheritance of that woman was recently found at great-nieces of the landgravine: personal things, textiles, dining room furnishings, furniture, as well as photos from the estate of Kunín Fürstenbergs, all of that preserved from pieta at the attic of their house. The inheritance which fulfilled two lorries, was gained in collections of the Castle in Kunín, where it returned after 110 years...
The Kunín Castle was sold by the landgrave to the business family of Knights of Bauers from Brno. It became something like a summer and holiday seat for them, too. The last owner of the Castle, Dr.Victor Bauer (1876 - 1939), died in Kunín in August 1939. He was an extraordinarily interesting personality. He devoted to ideas of unified Europe, kept relations with Adolf Loos (significant Austrian architect), who was to create new furnishings for the Kunín Castle and built a famous villa for him in Hrušovany nearby Brno, performed reconstructions of his seat in the castle at the area of the Brno exhibition site (the exhibition site lands were owned by the family by 1918). The family of Bauers removed a number of Kunín collections to its another castle in Spálov at the Nový Jičín region, and in Brno main seat. Also these former collections are currently returned back to the Castle in Kunín.

The Castle in Devastation

At the end of the World War II, the Castle was visited by Soviet solders. They were riding on horses on the main staircase until the top level, bayoneted pictures, threw out the furniture from windows, copped it in the Castle park, used valuable books from the Castle library instead of toilet paper. This was followed by incursions of people from the surrounding who robbed Castle movable chattels in the not protected building. A rest of the damaged collections was concentrated in a room on the first floor when a ceiling collapsed. Therefore, it was necessary to call an army to pull away pictures from ruins, removing them into depositaries of castles and chateaus in Moravia. For a long time period, the collections lost their contact not only with the Castle but also with the whole area. The Castle served as a farm residential building, cooking place and storage of medicaments. In 1970s, it was intended to reconstruct it for a student ´s hostel. At the beginning of 1990s, it looked rather as a building ruin. The Castle was almost razed to the ground. However, miracles occur. The Castle rose like Phoenix from the ashes. In September 2001, Bauer family members arrived from America, who provided photos documenting the furnishings of all Castle rooms before the War... In May 2004, Earl Franz-Joseph Waldburg-Zeil (direct great-grandson of the Empress Sisi and descendant of the family from which a husband of our good Countess was born, and who is an owner of the family castle Hohenems) together with grandsons of the last owner of the Castle, Dr.Victor Bauer and other ancient family members, took part in
a great mass in the Kunín church of the Saint Cross Promotion. The Ostrava-Opava bishop Prince František Václav from Lobkowicz served there great Te deum for the Castle renovation. The Castle opened its gates to visitors.