Teschen Chamber
The Teschener Kammer ( Polish Komora Cieszyńska , Czech Těšínská komora ) was a latifundy of the Habsburgs on the territory of the Duchy of Teschen from 1654 to 1918.
history
After the last Duchess of Teschen , Elisabeth Lukretia , of the Silesian Piast dynasty, died in 1653, the Duchy of Teschen fell to the Habsburgs as kings of Bohemia. In 1654, the Habsburgs set up the Teschen Chamber as a latifundy to manage their property in the Duchy of Teschen. The first administrator was Kaspar Tłuk. The chamber originally included four cities (Teschen, Skotschau , Schwarzwasser and Jablunkau ) as well as 31 villages in two parts of the country: the larger one around Teschen and Jablunkau and the smaller one around Skotschau and Schwarzwasser. The purpose of the chamber was to increase the income of the Habsburgs from the goods through a higher tax burden on the population and to enforce the Counter-Reformation. Both of these factors meant that the Duchy of Teschen, which was already badly affected in the Thirty Years' War , was unable to recover, as there was a strong emigration of the mostly Lutheran population. The situation only improved in the 18th century. In 1737 the chamber already comprised 49 villages. The Counter Reformation weakened and the tax burden was eased in 1771 after the largest peasant revolt of 1766 to date. Serfdom was finally lifted in 1781. The Chamber benefited from the First Partition of Poland in 1772, as the Duchy now became a link between the Habsburg lands of Bohemia and Galicia ; it was on the route from Vienna to Cracow and Lemberg . In the same year, with the construction of the ironworks in Ustroń, industrialization began in the chamber. Albert Casimir von Sachsen began to expand the area of the chamber from 1791 by buying numerous private villages. In 1797 he bought the civil lordship of Friedek with 25 villages. Due to its clever economic policy and favorable location, the area became one of the most economically successful in the Habsburg monarchy in the course of industrialization. In the 19th century, Ludwig Hohenegger , whom Archduke Karl brought to the Duchy of Teschen in 1838 , made a name for himself in developing mining in the chamber. In the same year Karl acquired the Saybusch land in the Saybuscher Basin in western Galicia east of the duchy for the chamber. The chamber holdings also grew outside of Silesia, including in Hungary ( Mosonmagyaróvár , Bellye , Véghles and Topolovac ), in Moravia ( Židlochovice ) and in Austria ( Klachau - Wörschach ). The Cieszyn Castle Brewery and the Żywiec Brewery were established for the Chamber. From 1840 the Habsburg hunting lodge in Teschen was the administrative seat of the chamber. The chamber was dissolved after the First World War. The chamber property was partly nationalized, partly it remained in the ownership of the Habsburgs, such as the Żywiec brewery, until 1944.
Individual evidence
literature
- Janusz Spyra: Śląsk Cieszyński w okresie 1653–1848 . Starostwo Powiatowe w Cieszynie, Cieszyn 2012, ISBN 978-83-935147-1-7 .
