Old castle passing from hand to hand
If we follow the example of the American writer Mary Dodge, who called Holland the “Land of Oddities” in her novel "Silver Skates", then everyone will probably be able to give his equally capacious characterization to any other country. But how justified it will be is another conversation. By the way, why did Mary Dodge call Holland "The Land of Oddities or the Land of Contradictions"? In the novel itself, she lists them in a multitude, but the biggest strangeness catches the eye right away and she also mentions it:, he is not in any danger; but the frog croaking in the neighboring reeds is closer to the stars than this stork. " And immediately after all it is clear why this is so ?! By the way, the same name - "Country of strangeness" can be given to our Russia, only the explanations here will, of course, be different. But what is the same short and capacious name you can think of for the Czech Republic? Well, of course, the overwhelming majority of Russians will answer - "The Czech Republic is a country of beer!" That's right, 100%, but we'll talk about Czech beer some other time. Now we will talk about castles and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the Czech Republic is also the "Land of Castles". Throughout Europe, there are 15,000 of them, both completely intact and in the form of ruins. But in the relatively small Czech Republic, there are more than 2000 of them! A lot, isn't it? And this despite the fact that all of its territory is not too much and by straining, you can freely drive a car in one day.
There are different castles in the Czech Republic. Some are left only with picturesque ruins. Others live in their … former owners, to whom they were returned by the Czech government after the communist regime collapsed in the country. Some castles belong to the state and are used for tourist and socially significant purposes.
Hluboka Castle. Sometimes, even in guidebooks in Russian, it is called Gluboka nad Vltavou. But this is actually the name of a nearby town, not a castle. Front entrance.
The Gluboka Castle is a completely unusual creation, both outside and inside, and therefore deserves the most detailed story about itself.
Well, it should start with the mention of the fact that it is located on a rock eighty-three meters high, towering above the Bohemian-Budejovice basin near the town of Podgrabi, and is mentioned in written sources already in 1285. That is, it was founded in the XIII century and, like all castles of that time, was a fortified dwelling of local feudal lords, and its medieval history is quite interesting and instructive in all respects.
In the 13th century, it was called Frauenberg and belonged to the nobleman Cech from Budejovice. For the ambitious kings of the Přemyslid clan, this castle was an obvious "eyesore" until the "iron and gold" king Přemysl Otakar II (1253 - 1278) simply confiscated it for his royal needs. A few years later, the castle was received by a certain Budiva, a descendant of Vitka from Prčice, a direct ancestor of the powerful Rožmberk family, who also had other lands in South Bohemia. After his death, the castle was owned by his two sons - Vitek and Zavish from Falkenstein - an extremely powerful and ambitious man. Finding himself, by the will of fate, at the throne of the young King Wenceslas, he not only became his favorite, but directly subordinated him to his will, so much so that Zawish decided all his affairs, and the king just signed the documents he had drawn up. Moreover, the Queen Dowager Kunguta herself, who even secretly married him, could not resist his charm!
Let's go around the castle, going to the right from the main entrance through the park, and when we finish it, we will see this - a romantic metal balcony between its two rear towers.
However, Zawish soon realized that as soon as the young king grew up, his rapid career could end in one day, and began to strive for marriage … with a young Hungarian princess, who was at that time behind the monastery walls. The papal curia in the Vatican was indignant, the dowager queen fell into jealousy, and the grown-up king simply ordered Zawish to be arrested and thrown into prison. The feudal lords of South Bohemia celebrated this unfriendly step with a mass uprising, since they saw in him their leader and guardian of their interests. The king went to suppress the rebellion, putting Zawish in an iron cage. It was put up in a prominent place near every rebellious castle and announced that if its ruler did not immediately show obedience to the king, then … this man would be immediately beheaded. This technique (certainly honoring the young monarch) worked flawlessly up to the very castle of his brother Vitek. The latter, seeing his brother in the cage, and heard a threat to chop off his head, replied: "Chop!" and King Wenceslas had no choice but to carry out his threat. And he was executed in 1290 right in front of his own castle in the so-called penalty meadow.
View of the castle from the south-east.
Soon after that, Hluboka Castle again became part of the royal estate of the Přemysls, but not for long. In 1310, it was laid down again due to the extravagance of the then king and was redeemed from the pledge only by Charles IV, the enlightened Czech monarch, and due to its importance, the castle was added to a special list of inalienable royal property, so that even his subsequent heirs could not mortgage or sell it !
We continue bypassing from the south-east to the north-west, since here the path goes right along the building … Ahead is the castle chapel.
However, nothing came of this intention, since the period of the Hussite wars soon began and the Gluboka castle began to pass from one hand to another, and even when the Hussites themselves had long been defeated! During the Renaissance, the castle was renovated according to the then fashion, but due to the exorbitant debts of its then owner in 1598, it was sold to a wealthy rural landowner Boguslav Malovets from Maklowice, which caused considerable anger among the noble but impoverished nobility nearby.
The style in which the castle chapel is built is quite eclectic. There are elements of Tudor Gothic and later Elizabethan Renaissance motifs, but the general style is English.
When this purchase was recorded in the Land Registers in 1601, Hluboka was a lucrative estate with a castle, a vast farm yard, vineyards, hop mills and vegetable gardens, a brewery and a mill, a sawmill, a water pump, fish ponds and hunting grounds. However, this purchase did not bring happiness to the vain Boguslav. When the Thirty Years' War began in 1618, Catholics everywhere began to exterminate Protestants and take away their property, and he and his children turned out to be Protestants and lost everything overnight. First, Gluboka went to Emperor Ferdinand II, who presented it to the Spanish general Don Balthazar de Marradas as a reward for his labors. However, this gift was "so-so", because in its description it was said that "the castle from the military people on glass, stoves, locks and doors, destroyed and plundered."
Indoor passage to the winter greenhouse.
General Marradas, being a knight of the Order of St. John, and, above all, a military man, ordered to build a special building in front of the castle called Fructus Belli ("The fruits of war"). Under him, the defensive system of the castle was strengthened, the moat faced with stone was deepened and a drawbridge was built leading to the gates of the new building. However, his heirs did not like Gluboka, in 1661 the estate was sold, "namely the castle, that is, the castle of Gluboka, together with the courtyard - with everything that was in the Gluboka castle and around it was built and improved or arose" for 85,000 gold pieces to Jan Adolf von Schwarzenberg, who received the title of Imperial Count in 1670 and who had already acquired an estate nearby a year earlier.
Since the Schwarzenbergs were a large family, then over time there was an urgent need to divide all the property belonging to it. And this is how it is often shown in the novels of Agatha Christie (and the films made based on them!) The whole family gathered and decided to divide the land property in half between the older clan branch headed by Joseph Schwarzenberg and the younger, headed by Karl I Schwarzenberg. Representatives of the first went to Hluboka, Třebo and Český Krumlov, the second to Orlik and Zvikov castles. It happened in 1802, and since then, the castle Hluboka until World War II belonged to the senior clan branch of the Schwarzenberg family.
But the most, so to speak, "golden page" in the history of the castle should be considered the time since 1833, when it fell into the hands of Prince Jan Adolf II Schwarzenberg and his wife Princess Eleanor of Liechtenstein. He was an educated man, had a brilliant career and was a skilled manager. Under him, extensive reclamation work was carried out in the surrounding swamps, fields were fertilized, new crops were cultivated, sugar factories, breweries and cheese dairies were built. All this later led to the mechanization of production on the estate, as a result, at the end of the 19th century, as many as 13 cheese factories and 3 dairies were working in the lands of Prince Schwarzenberg.
And then, accompanied by his wife, who was in no way inferior to her husband in intelligence and who was the absolute trendsetter in court society, in 1838, on behalf of the emperor, went to England to visit Queen Victoria. There they traveled all over the country and … were literally fascinated by English architecture and especially by the Royal Castle of Windsor. As a result, upon returning to their estate in 1838, they began a complete rebuilding of their castle in the neo-Gothic style, following the English model.
And this is the building of the greenhouse itself, where a restaurant and numerous shops and stalls for tourists are now located.
In accordance with the plans that were entrusted to develop the Viennese architects, it was supposed to resemble the old English castle in Windsor - the family property of the British royal family. It was not possible to achieve an exact resemblance, but, nevertheless, a beautiful white three-story building in the form of an elongated quadrangle with two courtyards and more than a dozen crenellated towers has grown on the site of the old castle. Construction work was completed by 1863, and since then the appearance of the Hluboka castle has remained practically unchanged to the present day.
Here is a modern sculpture sitting here. Original, to be sure!
The last owner of the Hluboka castle was Prince Adolf Schwarzenberg, who took possession of it in 1938. Immediately after the outbreak of World War II, he went abroad and never returned to his homeland. In 1940, all the property of the older family was taken over by the German state secret police, and a German administrator was appointed to the castle. On May 8, 1945, all the property of the senior Schwarzenbergs was nationalized. As a result, the castle of Hluboka first came under the jurisdiction of the district administration in Ceske Budejovice, and then in 1974, by the decision of the Regional People's Committee, it was transferred to the Regional Center for the State Protection of Monuments. Its current successor is the National Institute for the Conservation of Monuments, which manages the castle today.
Castle courtyard and doors to the main staircase. On the walls there are sculptural heads of deer taken by the owner of the castle with real horns! To photograph this place without people you have to really, really try!
