On the Ancestors
of JD Eduard Brzorád, a Young Czech member of the
Austrian Imperial Council
and the Diet of Bohemia.
Chronicles of the von Herites, von Krziwanek, Delorme and Brzorád families.
Written by Jan Steinbauer, translation © Mary Petersen
Welcome to the English version of the title
page of the
website O předcích.
This project is still open to new findings, which
are being added into the section
Supplements
. All your topic
related comments and queries are therefore most welcome on Opredcich@seznam.cz
.
This edition
is an English version of the project O Předcích / On the Ancestors covering it for the years 2002 – 2017. The original
version of this work was self-published in Czech language by printing a small
edition in the spring of 2009. As an additional
bonus, a CD featuring pdf copies of family correspondence was included with the
book. It is available as part of the
collection of the National Library in Prague under: Steinbauer, Jan. O předcích zemského a říšského mladočeského poslance JUDr. Eduarda Brzoráda: Děje rodů von Herites,
von Krziwanek, Delorme a Brzorád. Praha: vlastním nákladem, 2009. 298 s..
New additions, however, keep springing up. I want to try to update these in the Czech version
on an annual basis at least; they can also be found in the Supplements. Material for future additions, corrections and
comments sent to my email opredcich@seznam.cz, are greatly appreciated.
Foreword (excerpt from the original foreword)
Many pretexts exist
for dusting cobwebs off old
folios, turning the pages of
fungi tainted old books, birth
records, registers, commemorative books, land records and funeral records.
In these pages we meet four
clans of ancestors, each of whom tried to improve the status of their offspring
whilst they revered God, honored
the Emperor and respected and treasured private ownership. Theirs were the values
of the Imperial Age but were for the
most part opposite to their
descendent, Deputy Brzorád,
the zealous nationalist and late 19th century radical politician.
To uncover
names, events and dates, already long forgotten, however, brings unexpected joy in itself. Our goal of tracking
the ancestral genealogy of the deputy
Brzorád gives us a window
to past history and a sense
of our own
place in that history. There is a point at which
any author has to resist the temptation to collect every piece
of information he or she finds,
whether relevant or not. Hopefully what is collected here
will give us insight to the
era of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, a period which
perhaps, has been neglected in the last century. Maybe now the
time has come to look back at
that era more closely and see how much of what
was once cast off as restrictive
might be useful today. In any event, we
hope that this effort will lead to further research and a better future edition
of this book
A few
more practical remarks: Not
being historians, we do not intend to present a historical interpretation, but rather a careful collection and sorting of information.
The effort to remain true to the meanings marked
and styled the whole work, and for this reason,
the readability, let’s admit it,
somewhat suffered.
One
source of distraction could be the
use of German and Czech forms
of proper names. Rather than settling on one interpretation, we have chosen to present these names as they appear
in the original documents. Hopefully these varied spellings will also better reflect
the contemporary linguistic ambiguity of the times. We have also left
unchanged the various forms of
noble titles. Pointing them out for better
orientation, or just listing simply at least part of the hierarchy “from the bottom”:
• “Nobles” - as is the case with Křivánek - they were in Czech called ze Křivánků and also Edler / Edle von Krziwanek.
• “Knights”
– e.g. Rytíř z Komersů (ladies
did not use the title of Knight,
they were only called "z" /
"von") was Ritter von Komers
(The title of Ritter is equivalent
to the British baronet, i.e., hereditary knight).
• “Barons”
- e.g. svobodný pán z Heritesu,
was also baron z
Heritesu or in German Freiherr or Baron von Herites, for the ladies
a distinction between baronesses exists, a Freifrau being a baroness by marriage and Freiin (sometimes Baronin or Baroness)
being a baroness by birth.
Any text with a large
number of characters can be confusing. That's why there is
a separate section of schematic pedigrees,
which will facilitate the understanding of gender
relations. All characters
in the text are also included in the list of names (name
index) at the end of the book.
This work is divided into four
chapters, based on the grandparents of the politician
J.D. Eduard Brzorád.
We will start our pilgrimage with his maternal grandmother, born Baroness von Herites. Although she lost her baronial
title with her marriage to his grandfather Krziwanek, he later became a nobleman and both he and his children would become noteworthy
characters.
His paternal grandmother,
born Delorme, reportedly was a descendant of poor
Huguenot nobility.
But when his grandfather
Brzorád of the Lochkov estate married her as a sixteen year old beauty,
she was already
from a perfectly well "socially placed" Prague family.
The Czech version is
available here:
