Karlburg Castle

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Karlburg Castle

The Charles Castle (Slovak: Rusovský kaštieľ ) is a castle in Slovakia . It is located in Rusovce (Hungarian: Oroszvár , German: Karlburg ), a district of Bratislava on the right bank of the Danube not far from the border with Austria.

history

The Oroszvár estate was bought in 1646 by Count Stefan Zichy as a country estate, whose family remained the owners for more than 200 years.

Coat of arms of Count Emanuel Zichy de Ferraris
Water tower in the park

The present castle was built from 1841 to 1846 for Count Emanuel Zichy de Ferraris (1808–1877) in the Tudor style , the neo-Gothic style that was predominant in England at the time ; Facade: Arch. Franz Beer, Vienna , construction work by Ignaz Feigler the Elder. Ä., Preßburg ( Feigler (family) #Ignaz Feigler the Elder ); a tribute from the client to his English wife, Lady Charlotte Strachan († November 12, 1851). The building, surrounded by an extensive English landscaped park (the estate area comprised 24 square kilometers on both sides of the Danube) replaced a previous building erected in 1521 at the same location. The foundation stone was laid on June 11, 1843 by the Austrian Chancellor Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich , who was a brother-in-law of the lord of the castle. As the property of the Zichys, Karlburg Castle was often the place of birth and marriage of members of the aristocracy. It was nicknamed the "Hungarian Windsor".

In 1872 the Zichy family sold the property to the entrepreneur Count Hugo Henckel von Donnersmarck , who ran a well-known nationwide stud farm for racing horses here until 1890 and then sold the estate. In 1906 the property was bought by Count Elemér Lónyay (from 1917: Prince) and his wife Stephanie of Belgium , the widow after Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary . The two married in 1900.

Karlburg Castle was the couple's residence until 1945. Bertha von Suttner visited them there at Christmas 1906 and wrote about it in the Viennese daily Neue Freie Presse , which prompted Karl Kraus to smug polemics in his magazine Fackel . Archduke heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa enjoyed staying here until 1914 (because both couples were not properly married according to the rules of the imperial family).

The Prince, who died in Budapest in 1946 , bequeathed the palace and park to the Benedictine order , who housed the couple in their Pannonhalma Abbey in 1945 on their flight from the Red Army at the end of World War II . The Oroszvár Castle Library (3,300 titles, 4,500 volumes) has been preserved in Pannonhalma to this day. Karlburg, or Oroszvár in Hungarian , belonged to Hungary until 1947 , then it was added to Czechoslovakia (see: Bratislava bridgehead ). The property was confiscated by the state in 1948.

Current condition

The current owner has been the Slovak government since 1995, which wanted and wants to use the castle for representational purposes. Between 1995 and 2000 the government invested around 30 million euros in the restoration, with a further 50 million planned. The castle is not open to the public.

The Benedictines wanted to appeal to the European Court of Justice in 2009 after the Slovak Constitutional Court refused to return it to the Order. The court ruled in favor of Slovakia in the last instance. According to a report by the Pressburg Hungarian daily Újszo on June 27, 2018, the renovation work has already started. 75 million euros were made available (55 million for the castle and the rest for the surrounding park). The completion of the renovation work is expected in 2023. After that, the castle will be used for representative purposes of the Slovak government.

literature

  • Juraj Hradský, Jozef Mallinerits: Rusovce - Oroszvár - Karlburg. Marenčin, Bratislava 2007, ISBN 978-80-89218-52-3 . (Slovak)
  • Renáta Herczeg: A magyar Windsor; Az oroszvári Zichy-Ferraris-Kastély, in "múlt-kor" (history magazine), spring 2019, p. 128ff, ISSN 2061-3563 (Hungarian)

swell

  1. ↑ Rusovce Park website
  2. ↑ Count Emanuel Zichy-Ferraris, who was anglophilically inclined, was in constant financial difficulties and was heavily indebted, met the extremely rich English lady Charlotte Strachan in England. Thanks to the huge dowry of his bride, he was not only able to sort out his financial problems, but also decided - against his wife's will - to build the castle in Karlsburg. This created differences between the spouses right at the beginning of the marriage. The marriage was not a lucky star from the start, and from the beginning of the relationship there were arguments among the spouses.
  3. ↑ Charlotte Strachan was the daughter of a Scottish admiral and married Emanuel Zichy-Ferraris on April 2, 1837. Lady Charlotte was a very beautiful but also intelligent woman and was admired and revered by many gentlemen in society at the time. The Hungarian composer Ferenc Erkel was so taken with Charlotte that he intended to dedicate his opera Maria Batori to her . Soon, however, another man unexpectedly entered her life. She fell in love with the world traveler and orientalist Manó Graf Andrássy (1821-1891), the older brother of the famous politician Gyula Andrássy . Charlotte left her husband and traveled the world with Andrássy. The love ended tragically, Lady Charlotte died by suicide with poison on November 12, 1851. The disappointed and betrayed husband had her buried in the crypt of the Reformed Church on Calvin Platz ( ung. Kálvintéri református templom ) during the plague and built a pompous one for her there Tomb. He sold the Karlsburg estate to his younger brother Felix (* 1810, † 1885) and in 1851 moved to Somlószőlős in Veszprém County . (according to Múlt-kor, történelmi magazin (history magazine ), spring 2013, ISSN  2061-3563 )
  4. ↑ Melanie Zichy-Ferraris (1805-1854) was the sister of Emanuel Zichy and the third wife of Metternich.
  5. ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. 5th edition. 9th volume, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1896, p. 939.
  6. ↑ The Suttner. In: The torch . Vienna, 23 January 1907, eighth year, no.217. (Textlog.de)
  7. ↑ Details on the library of the Pannonhalma Archabbey
  8. ↑ Dispute over a potential gold mine. In: The Standard . Vienna, December 16, 2008, p. 8. (derstandard.at)

Web links

Commons : Schloss Karlburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 3 '8.8 "  N , 17 ° 9' 3.8"  E