Trosky Castle

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Trosky Castle
South tower
View from the lower tower to the higher tower

The ruins of Trosky Castle are located near Rovensko pod Troskami in Okres Semily , Czech Republic , between Turnov and Jičín . The castle with its unmistakable silhouette is the symbol of the Český ráj Protected Landscape Area .

description

The basalt massif formed under the surface of the earth in the Tertiary when two vents were filled with magma; the two towers were exposed through weathering of the surrounding rock. The castle is located at an altitude of 514 m above sea level. On the cones, which protrude 47 m (Baba, Czech for old woman) and 57 m (Panna, Czech for virgin) from the landscape, there are the remains of two medieval towers.

The original beech forest on the slopes was cut down for strategic reasons when the castle was built in the 14th century and reforested with monocultures such as larches and robinia. Warmth-loving plant species thrive on the exposed basalt. The area surrounding the ruin has been a nature reserve on 3.49 hectares since 1998 .

history

The castle, built between two rugged basalt cones, was first mentioned in 1396 as the property of Vincent von Wartenberg . Even then it was called Trosky ( ruins ). It is believed that it originated in the second half of the 14th century. After Vincent's death in 1399, the castle fell to the Bohemian King Wenceslaus IV. He sold the castle and the rule to Otto the Elder from Bergow .

His son Otto the Younger von Bergow was a strict Catholic. He was able to withstand a siege by the Hussites in 1424 . In 1428 a fire destroyed the castle except for the Maiden Tower. In 1438 the robber baron Christoph Schof von Helfenburg ( Kryštof Šof z Helfenburka ) and his friend, the Swiss ( Švejcar ) captured the castle and captured Otto the Younger von Bergow. In 1440, the attempt to evict them from the castle failed. With the support of the Upper Lusatian Six Cities Association , the castle could be recaptured in 1444.

In 1452 Otto's son, Johann von Bergow, sold the castle and the associated rule to Johann Zajíc von Hasenburg on board . In 1469 the castle was taken by the royal general Jiří z Poděbrad . After that, the castle changed hands several times until Jindřich Smiřický von Smiřice bought it in 1559 and incorporated it into his rule. Its center was not far from Trosky in Hrubá Skála , and so the castle lost its former importance; henceforth it was only the residence of the stately officials and the administrative center. It stayed that way even after the Smiřický family owned property in 1618 to Wallenstein . Nevertheless, Trosky played a military role in the Thirty Years' War: in 1639, 1642 and 1648 it was captured by the Swedes and held as a fortress. The imperial army drove out the Swedish army in 1648 and set fire to the castle during which important documents were destroyed. During the escape, numerous paintings depicting the appearance of the castle at that time were taken away. During a visit in 1681, Bohuslav Balbín described Trosky as largely repairable, but it was not repaired, so the castle was abandoned and fell into disrepair.

panorama

and display information about the image
Panorama of Trosky Castle, taken from the north of the two towers

literature

  • Fritz u. Elisabeth Böhmer: Robber barons' castles in Bohemia and Upper Lusatia , 1990
  • Zdeněk Fiala et al .: Hrady, zámky a tvrze v Čechách, na Moravě a ve Slezsku. Svoboda, Prague 1984

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.trosky.cz: History. Retrieved December 1, 2010

Web links

Commons : Trosky  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 30 ′ 58.5 ″  N , 15 ° 13 ′ 51 ″  E