In a charming corner of Moravia, bordering an area known to all for its wine-growing, a tourist from Poland (and not only) will encounter one of the many examples in the present-day Czech Republic of traces of Polish cultural heritage. Let's take a look at present-day Vranov.

The history of Vranov Castle

In the village known as Frain an der Thaya during the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, now Vranov on the Dyje River, there is a magnificent residence. Perched on a high rock and surrounded by a river at its foot, the castle has fulfilled important defensive functions since the Middle Ages. After a fire in 1665, the castle was rebuilt at the request of the owner, Count Michael von Althann, by the eminent Habsburg Baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. He is the author of, among other things, the magnificent, representative Hall of Ancestors and the Trinity Chapel of the castle. The costs of the reconstruction were so high that the Althanns were forced to sell the estate, which already had all the features of a monumental ancestral seat in the Baroque style.

Polish history of Vranov Castle

In 1799, the castle in Vranov was bought by Felicia Mniszkowa, née Siekierzynska, starostess of Vyšetsk and Horodlo, for 600,000 Austrian guilders, known as "Rhine guilders", and was in Polish possession until the Second World War. Its last owner was Adam Zbigniew Leon Count Stadnicki (1882-1982), descending from the Nivodov line of the Stadnicki family of the Szreniawa coat of arms.

The Stadnicki family owned the castle together with thousands of hectares of woodland in its surroundings from 1843. As its last owner recalled, 'the castle was beautifully furnished, mostly with old furniture (Louis XVI) from the times of the previous owners, and partly with Empire furniture already made by the Mniszeks. There were beautiful bronzes and silverware from those eras", wall paintings and pictures. To this day, you can still admire the magnificent library, which consists mostly of books in French from the 18th century.

Guest book of the chateau in Frain

The proximity to Vienna meant that the Moravian seat of the Stadnickis was very often used as an open house. Both close and distant relatives of the hosts, their friends and dignitaries of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy came here. The castle was also visited by random guests, for whom - especially in the absence of the owners - the castle was a major tourist attraction as well as a historical one. The guest book preserved to this day records the names of representatives of a whole range of Polish aristocratic and landed gentry families: Potocki, Jabłonowski, Krasicki, Baworowski, Lubomirski, Czartoryski, Sanguszko, Mańkowski, Tyszkiewicz, Borkowski, Żółtowski, Korybut-Woroniecki, Sapieha, Drohojowski, Lanckoroński, Działyński, Radziwiłłów, Tarnowski, Czetwertyński, Gołuchowski, Zamoyski and many others.

In 1809, we find the name of the Russian general Ivan Osipovich de Witt on the list of visitors to the Vranov chateau. He is immediately followed by the name of the famous savant, Princess Czartoryska Adamowa of Fleming (Izabela, or rather Elisabeth), founder of the first museum on Polish soil in the Sybil Temple in Puławy.

On two occasions, in 1889 and 1892, the Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz was a guest at the Frain Palace. In his correspondence (letter of 20 April 1892), the writer left a short description of the lady of the house at the time, Ludgarda of Miniszchów Stadnicka, who gave him a hard time during the Easter holidays: "Today I returned from Frain, where I spent the holidays, and met the greatest marvel and quack I have ever seen in my life - in the person of Mrs Stadnicka. She is a complete waryat and a terrible nuisance to the family. Somehow we parted quite well - and she even invited me to Nawojowa for the summer, assuring me that it was close to Iwonicz'. In turn, under the date 30 May 1910, Archduke Franz Ferdinand Habsburg, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and inspector general of the armed forces of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, who visited the place in the absence of his hosts, entered the guest book.

The fate of the Stadnickis' residence in the 20th century

During World War I, Stadnickýs' chateau in Vranov was a place of refuge for numerous relatives and acquaintances fleeing the war effort. The owner of the chateau himself did not take an active part in the war. Thanks to his family connections and the funds allocated for humanitarian aid, Adam Stadnicki was assigned as sub-commander to the railway medical transport managed by the Order of the Knights of Malta.

In 1945, after recovering the chateau (which had been expropriated by the Germans in 1939), Adam Stadnicki, sensing the imminent nationalisation of private property in what was then Czechoslovakia, but also in Poland, donated the entire library and chateau to the Polish government through the Polish embassy in Prague. Unfortunately, the donation was not accepted by the authorities of People's Poland. Soon the Communist authorities in Czechoslovakia also wrongfully declared Stadnicki a collaborator. He was sent to prison in Znojmo on charges of receiving Nazi functionaries in Vranov, whose names were found in the guest book of visitors to the chateau. After a four-month stay in prison, Adam Stadnicki was forced to leave for Poland. For the rest of his life he never visited the Moravian estate and chateau again.