{"id":112,"date":"2021-12-08T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T14:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/?page_id=112"},"modified":"2024-01-15T11:03:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T10:03:09","slug":"family","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/en\/jozef-czapski-a-native-of-prague-polish-painter-and-writer\/family\/","title":{"rendered":"Family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Europe in the Czapsky family<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

J\u00f3zef Czapski wrote in his essay Conversion to Polishness<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is very difficult for me to talk about Polishness because my Polishness grew in an unexpected way. We were all patriots, we all sang Jeszcze Polska nie zgin\u0119\u0142a<\/em>\u2026 and also Kde domov m\u016fj<\/em> because my mother was Austrian from Bohemia and considered herself Czech. My father, on the other hand, was ethnically undefined. A proper Pole, a nobleman, and that was that. After all, our grandfather was a high-ranking official of Tsarist Russia. [\u2026] My grandfather, when he was young, used to write about Russia as \u201cnotre patrie\u201d. Later, however, he completely abandoned Russia, and no word was strong enough for him to not use when speaking of Russia. Our Baltic-Russian aunts found it scandalous that anyone would speak like that in the presence of children. And those children \u2013  that was, for example, Tziczerin, later a Bolshevik commissar. It was quite a tangle. […] My grandmother was a Baltic German.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J\u00f3zef Czapski was born on 2 or 3 April 1896 in Prague, in the seat of the double Czech governor, Franz von Thun und Hohenstein, who \u2013 as he himself put it \u2013 together with his political rival Kazimierz Badeni, tried to achieve \u201ca fair settlement of Czech and German interests in Bohemia, especially by promoting the importance of Czech as an official language\u201d. The birthplace of the Polish painter is therefore the Thun Palace (also called Kolowrat Palace) at 20 Nerudova Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Czapski’s mother Josefa Thun-Czapska with little J\u00f3zef Czapski. Przy\u0142uki. End of 1896, photopaper, 11,2 x 7,9 cm., nr. inv. MNK VIII-rkps.2414\/1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Grandparents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His maternal grandfather was Bed\u0159ich Franti\u0161ek Josef of <\/strong>Thun-Hohenstein<\/strong>, born on 7 May 1810 in D\u011b\u010d\u00edn, an Austro-Hungarian politician and diplomat, president of the Frankfurt Diet and owner of the D\u011b\u010d\u00edn estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His grandmother was Leopoldina Countess von Lamberg<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They owned magnificent palaces in Prague and other estates both in the territory of the present-day Czech Republic and Austria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his father\u2019s side, his grandfather was Count Emeryk Hutten-Czapski<\/strong>, with a coat-of-arms connection to the Leliwa family. He had an excellent education, knew seven languages, and inherited a great wealth. After his studies, he entered the civil service in Tsarist Russia, where he rose to high positions. Among other things, he became deputy governor of St Petersburg in 1865. However, he became disillusioned with tsarist policy and the situation in the Russian occupation of partitioned Poland, describing it as follows: \u201cThe conditions in Russia under Alexander III were unbearable for Poles.\u201d So in 1879 he left the tsarist service and settled on his estate in Sta\u0144kow (in present-day Belarus), where for many years he amassed collections of Russian and Polish coins, medals and orders, banknotes, Russian and Polish prints, militaria, glass, rare fabrics, paintings, and old prints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis Polishness, which had been neglected for many years, was awakened in him, and he decided at that time \u2013 perhaps even as a form of statement \u2013 to sell his entire numismatic collection of Russian coins and to collect exclusively Polish coins and medals. He sold his Russian collection to the Grand Duke Georgy Romanov Mikhailovich.\u201d In 1872 Emeryk Hutten-Czapski, still a high-ranking official, could afford to buy the Przy\u0142uki estate with its fields, forests, and three farms, which was subsequently inherited by J\u00f3zef Czapski\u2019s father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1894, the painter\u2019s grandfather decided to move to Krak\u00f3w with his collections. He bought a two-storey mansion at 12 Wolska Street (now 12 Pi\u0142sudskiego Street). It was here that his wife El\u017cbieta Karolina von Meyendorff<\/strong>, J\u00f3zef Czapski’s grandmother, established the Emeryko Hutten-Czapski Museum for his collections after the nobleman\u2019s death, and bequeathed them to the city in 1903 (today they are part of the collections of the National Museum in Krak\u00f3w).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polish artist was the son of Countess Josefa Leopoldina of Thun-Hohenstein <\/strong>(Austrian) and Count Jerzy Hutten-Czapski <\/strong>(Polish).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the autumn of 1885, Jerzy Hutten-Czapski and his parents came to Slawuta, where the beautiful castle of the Sanguszko family stood. Countess Thun and her youngest daughter, Josefa (also known in Poland as J\u00f3zefa or Ju\u017ca), who was her eleventh descendant and was born in 1867, were staying there as guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it was here, in a place surrounded by beautiful forests and stables with purebred Arabians, that J\u00f3zef Czapski\u2019s parents met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHorseback riding allowed the young people to get to know each other, understand each other, and fall in love\u201d, wrote J\u00f3zef\u2019s sister, Maria Czapska. \u201cThey were both slim and tall, my father had auburn hair and my mother was a redheaded blonde with a braid braided into a crown. The blue eyes, still childlike in their elongated yet chubby face, stare out at us from period photographs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jerzy Hutten-Czapski asked Countess Thun to marry his daughter, but did not get her consent to the engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause for concern was the fact that this would be the second of Count Thun\u2019s daughters to marry a Pole. In 1868, Caroline, nineteen years older than Josephine\u2019s sister, had married a Pole \u2013 Prince Roman Sanguszko of Slawuta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMrs. Thun asked for a six-month deferral, a six-month trial period. My mother was eighteen, my father twenty-four,\u201d Maria Czapska wrote. \u201cIn the spring of 1886 the official engagement took place in Prague and the date of the wedding was set for the first days of August. It was to take place in D\u011b\u010d\u00edn. The Czapski grandparents had prepared their residence in Przy\u0142uki to host the newlyweds. […] The bride\u2019s wedding dress was prepared in Vienna. All the linen, crockery and cutlery bore the initials not of the bride, as was the custom in Poland, but \u2013 according to Austrian custom \u2013 the initials of the future husband, which in this case were two Js and two Cs intertwined with a monogram.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the wedding, the whole party went to Kvasice in Moravia, where the Thuns owned a large estate, and Josefina\u2019s mother and her youngest children had settled there following the death of Bed\u0159ich Franz Joseph of Thun-Hohenstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One evening, \u201ca tribute was paid to the newlyweds by the officers of the manor, speeches were made, fireworks were set off, and music was played. Jerzy Czapski spoke briefly and in German. His wife admired Countess Thun for her energy and organisation skills. She was marrying off her sixth daughter! The date of the marriage was set for 7 August, to be given by Archbishop Sch\u00f6nborn of Prague, who was related to the Thuns. From Kvasice they went to D\u011b\u010d\u00edn, where the bride\u2019s five older sisters with their husbands and children had arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The groom\u2019s brother and numerous cousins also came. The bride\u2019s brother, Franti\u0161ek Thun-Hohenstein, showed all the guests his estates in the Elbe Valley, the beautiful forests and the well-managed farms. They also visited the castle chapel with the family tomb, and in the evening music was played and everyone danced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven the groom, who did not dance, joined the others,\u201d wrote Maria Czapska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The marriage took place on Saturday, 7 August 1886. The weather was favourable to the newlyweds. Prior to the ceremony, the Archbishop had confirmed the groom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the ceremony, about 50 people sat down to the \u201cd\u00e9jeuner dinatoire\u201d and then the young couple left for Dresden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPoor Ju\u017ca,\u201d wrote Grandma Czapsk\u00e1, \u201cshed tears as she said goodbye to her beloved mother. And today they are in Dresden \u2013 happy and alone. May God help them. They have enveloped us here with warmth and expressions of trust; I am leaving with unforgettable memories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young couple did not go on a traditional honeymoon. From Dresden they continued via Berlin and Warsaw to Minsk and from there to Przy\u0142uk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inexperienced nineteen-year-old Countess Josefa stood \u2013 without any knowledge of Polish, or Belarusian \u2013 on the threshold of the neo-Gothic castle, which its previous owners had rebuilt from a former Basilian monastery. It was here that she was to bring up eight children and live with her husband for seventeen years. It was here that she was to give birth prematurely to her daughter Teresa, who, baptised with water, subsequently died, and it was here that \u201cmy mother was to die so young\u201d, as her daughter and J\u00f3zef’s sister Maria Czapska described it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of the two families was recorded in detail by Maria Czapska in her book Europa w <\/em>Rodzinie <\/em>(Europe in the Family).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Czapski family. From the left: Stanis\u0142aw (Sta\u0161ek), Josefina (Ju\u017ea), b. Thun-Hohenstein \u2013 mother, Karolina (Karla), El\u017cbieta (Lily), Leopoldina (Poldy), Ru\u017ea, Jerzy Czapski \u2013 father, J\u00f3zef a Maria, Przy\u0142uki 1902. photopaper, 12,6 x 16,6 cm., nr. inv. 2414-mnk-rkp#007 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Siblings:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Czapski had seven siblings, Leopoldyna Elisabeth (1887\u20131969), Elisabeth Maria (1888\u2013 1972), Karolina Maria (1891\u20131967), Maria Leopoldyna (1895\u20131981), Stanislaw Gedeon (1898\u20131959) and Rosa Maria (1901\u20131986).  His youngest sister Teresa lived only for a few hours. She died following her premature birth in 1903.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Birth of J\u00f3zef Czapski in Prague<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

J\u00f3zef Czapski was born on 2 or 3 April 1896, at a time when we would not have found Poland on the world map. After Poland was divided by the powers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, the Hutten-Czapski family\u2019s estates were on Russian-occupied territory. That is why the mother gave birth to her children in Prague, in the Thun family palace, at 20 Nerudova Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe nursery was located above the entrance gate to the palace, with the wings of two eagles above it. We used to sprinkle bun crumbs on the wings for the pigeons, so I remember them only from above.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jozef was christened on 4 April in St Nicholas Church in Prague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few months, the mother returned to Przy\u0142uk with the little J\u00f3zef, where the boy subsequently spent his childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
J\u00f3zef Czapski with his mother Josefa Thun-Czapska. Sepia photo, Berlin, around 1900. Photopaper, 17,5 x 12,5 cm, nr. inv. MNK VIII-rkps.2419\/65 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the firstborn son, he was his mother\u2019s pet. He could sit closest to her at mealtimes and spend plenty of time in her room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polish, German, and French were spoken in the Czapski household. The children were educated at home and their teachers were well vetted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Czapski recalled in an interview: \u201cMy mother was Austrian, my grandmother was Baltic German, my father was in Russia and then in Poland. I was born in Prague, where my grandmother lived. I can say in all seriousness that we had a lot of non-Polish blood in our veins. If we really became Poles, we owe it to our mother, with whom we sang Jeszcze Polska nie zgin\u0119\u0142a <\/em>and Kde domov muj<\/em>. And never in her life did she speak to us in any language other than Polish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my mother was the one who led us to Polishness. My father was quite undecided in this respect. He was a large landowner, he maintained relations with the Russians, although we never hosted Russians in our home. Nevertheless, it was a sort of family tradition \u2013 my grandfather was a Russian official. So the return to Poland occurred when my grandfather left the tsar\u2019s service, took all his collections and moved to Krak\u00f3w, where he founded the Czapski Museum. We, of course, loved Poland, we thought in Polish, we sang Polish songs, such as Cze\u015b\u0107 wam Panowie Magnaci<\/em>, we loved that one, but the desire to fight for Polish independence was spurred by Pi\u0142sudski in Halych. We didn\u2019t know anything like that. I actually became a Pole, and a devoted Pole at that, only when I came to Krak\u00f3w and met Stanis\u0142aw Brzozowski, and it was Brzozowski, \u017beromski and such who brought us to Polish national and social consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Czapski lost his mother at an early age in 1903. He was seven at the time. This was due to the birth of her eighth child, Teresa. \u201cUntil the end of her life she was in her right mind, saying goodbye to her children and giving them her last instructions,\u201d wrote Maria Czapska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the holidays of 1903, the Czapskis called Miss \u0160kroupov\u00e1 from Bohemia to take care of the children. She was the daughter of a composer and author of the melody of the Czech national anthem. It was she who took care of the children when their mother was dying in agony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Czapski remembered his childhood, despite losing his mother so early, as a happy one. He was always surrounded by good women, although after his death Czapski\u2019s sisters, especially Leopoldyna, El\u017cbieta and Karolina, took care of the children and were sometimes authoritative towards their siblings. Czapski, however, never complained. He only spoke negatively about his teacher, W\u0142adys\u0142aw Iwanowski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Czapski was asked whether he had always wanted to become a painter, he replied that he had practised the piano a lot in his youth until 1920 and thought he would devote his life to music (as his younger brother Stanis\u0142aw had done).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne summer,\u201d recalls Maria Czapska, \u201cJ\u00f3zef wanted to learn to sculpt [\u2026] An artistic sculptor came from Krak\u00f3w, recommended by a family friend, the sculptor Ludwik Puget. [\u2026] My father never denied us anything; he let us be free and was sympathetic to our wishes. [\u2026] We set up the sculpture studio in a spacious and bright, uninhabited, unheated room on the second floor; J\u00f3zef modelled in clay, I drew in charcoal, and the lame bell-ringer Mazurkiewicz served as our model.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began to learn drawing under the guidance of Jaros\u0142aw Tyszy\u0144ski, who came to Przy\u0142uki to shape the young J\u00f3zef\u2019s taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1920, the Bolsheviks confiscated the family\u2019s house and piano, which made Czapski all the more inclined towards the visual arts, even though his father had always associated his future with a career as a civil servant. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, however, forced his father to revise his plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Poland regained its independence and returned to the world map after 123 years, J\u00f3zef Czapski concealed the fact that he had studied at a Russian university and enrolled in February 1921 to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krak\u00f3w.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texts by El\u017cbieta Skoczek<\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe in the Czapsky family J\u00f3zef Czapski wrote in his essay Conversion to Polishness: \u201cIt is very difficult for me to talk about Polishness because my Polishness grew in an unexpected way. We were all patriots, we all sang Jeszcze Polska nie zgin\u0119\u0142a\u2026 and also Kde domov m\u016fj because my mother was Austrian from Bohemia… Pokra\u010dovat ve\u00a0\u010dten\u00ed Family<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":80,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-112","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112\/revisions\/328"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czapski.cz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}