1 – Březník
“God only knows what string of fate brought the forest warden Kořán to Pürstlink in 186*, half an hour from the Bavarian borders, amongst forests and moors, a place that thirty years ago men seldom found their way to. A high plain; through green meadows with grey moss, a garnet coloured stream makes its way: the young Otava, sprouting from the depths of the Luzný mountain where allegedly still lie deposits of gold which, in days of old, used to give the “crooked” river the excess of the precious metal. Today, there is no more excess of gold: you exit the lodge’s door, face the Luzný which closes the plain in the south. It stands there with its white bumpy head covered in white mists or black clouds. It stands unmoving, forever silent, as though grieving the changes of the last decades. From the right, western side, the plain is bordered by Plattenhausen, big and small Spitzberg, from the leff, eastern one by Moorkopf and Marberg, all covered in forests; no deep gorge, no chasm between these mountains, just narrow valleys on the heels of gentle slopes; nothing but a moory desert, terrible, unmoving, always dreadfully uniform. The pitiful forest cannot grow for the cold and damp; only the slithering dwarf pine, through which no trail can go, thrives. Unnumbered trunks moulder and rot on the ground; below and around them black waters slowly flow, occasionally stopping in deep puddles. No sound, no life, no birds, perhaps no insects – even the stingy mosquitos, which are such trouble further down, one would hardly find here.”
Thus Karel Klostermann describes the atmosphere of Březník in the third quarter of the 19th century in his novel From the World of Forest Plains.
Thus Karel Klostermann describes the atmosphere of Březník in the third quarter of the 19th century in his novel From the World of Forest Plains.
Březník / Pürstling
Březník, or Pürstling in German, was a woodworkers’ village. The wooden gamekeeper’s lodge has stood here since 1804 when prince Schwarzenberg divided his new lands into six forest districts and made Březník the centre of one of them. Hans Eisner was its first forest warden, from 1804 until 1810. Apart from game keeping (mainly monitoring the grouses which were common in the region and were becoming a popular target for the prince’s guests) his duties soon included controlling the speed of logging, transport and renewal of logged areas.
Many other forest wardens succeeded Eisner, some of them of Czech nationality. First was Franz Zoltarz (for 15 years), after him Franz Pankratz (for 1 year), Augustin Trampus (for 18 years), František Grantl (for 19 years), Jan Kolář (for 2 years), Václav Wolf (for 2 years). In 1870, the year of the second significant calamity, about which you will learn more in the following texts of this educational trail, Matyáš Říha served as the local forest warden. In 1885 he was succeeded by Adolf Schimann who stayed for another six years. Březník also had a number of forestry personal, the closest to the forester being the forester’s assistant. There was also a gamekeeper, for example Walter Paleček served as one for the Březník forest district for a long time.
In 1856, the original wooden lodge was replaced by a fifty-meter-long stone building which included a stable for horses and cattle, a barn, and a shelter for carriages and sleds. The gamekeeper’s lodge was not the only building in Březník. In 1890, sources mention in total five houses with 38 inhabitants, twenty years later it is three houses with thirteen inhabitants. During the First Republic era there were still two woodworkers’ houses with little bell towers, where the Frint and Hanza families lived. The lodge was inhabited by the Krickl family.
By the end of the 19th century there were already the first signs of tourism, which did not start in full until the First Republic era. This was no doubt in part thanks to Karel Klostermann and his work From the World of Forest Plains, about which you can read further down in the text. The development of Březník in this regard can be found out from contemporary tourist guides:
1896: “Here is it possible to receive small refreshments (bread, eggs, butter, beer), but no lodgings.”
1908: “A forest plain in a beautiful setting on the left bank of the Lužný stream. There is a gamekeeper’s house and a lodge. Private telephone. Czech tourists will be welcomed warmly at the gamekeeper’s house by the jovial gamekeepers Kohout and Vlášek. It is possible to receive beer, butter, bread, milk, eggs, and all around all that can be received in every Šumavian inn and for prices quite low. For the weary there be around 10 available lodgings. The fee for an overnight stay is 70 halers for the members of the National Šumava association. Czech tourists are recommended to stay in Pürstlink rather than in Modrá, which lacks the hospitality of the gamekeeper in Pürstlink.”
1923: “…gamekeeper’s lodge with two woodworkers’ cabins (all offering lodgings, 21 in total and 7 student beds), idyllic place, perhaps the most beautiful in Šumava. Wide meadows facing south with the bare peak of Luzný in the background.”
1935: “…a restaurant in the lodge and 13 beds (8 others in the two neighbouring houses).”
1938: “…cabins and a state gamekeeper’s lodge, 13 beds in 3 rooms, refreshments, renowned pancakes. The idyllic spot is the setting for Karel Klostermann’s From the World of Forest Plains. The lodge used to house the forest warden Kořán and the forest assistant Svijanský, the cabin below it belonged to gamekeeper Vavruch.” (all cited according to the website sumava-modravsko.cz)
In the days of the Protectorate it was home to Bavarian foresters, as Březník fell under the area which the Czechoslovakian state was forced to give to Germany following the Munich Agreement. After the end of World War II, gamekeeper Bohuslav Vrabec and his wife Emílie settled here. The couple stayed until 1951, when the place was taken over by the Border Guard.
During the existence of the Iron Curtain, the Březník company stayed here. The surrounding woodworkers’ houses were demolished, and a small wooden house was built for the officers by the stone building. Between 1960 and 1961, about 200 meters from the original building, a new company was built and the former lodge now only served as a stable for the Guard’s horses. As part of company reorganisation and relocation at the end of the 1970s, the Březník company stopped existing and the disused buildings began to fall into disrepair.
Between 1998 and 2002, the building was reconstructed and has since served as an information centre of the Šumava National Park. It includes an exposition dedicated to Karel Klostermann, who set a part of the story of his book From the World of Forest Plains in the Březník gamekeeper’s lodge, using it to describe the problems of life in remote places in Šumava. Klostermann describes the remoteness of Březník thus:
“Four weeks have passed, winter has assumed power; for days the lodge stood in the midst of a white whirlwind of snowflakes, falling down so thick that one could hardly see twenty steps ahead. At times it was falling slowly and quietly, sometimes the wind would blow through it, creating powerful whirlwinds. During such times it was dangerous to venture a hundred steps outside of one’s abode. No eye can see through the falling snow, as once opened it is immediately stung by hundreds of crystal needles causing acute pain; there is no air, no light, you cannot see or hear; your beard is immediately covered in white mass which blocks your mouth and nostrils, swallowing you almost whole. And when the discomfort ceases for a short while, you see a flat uniform plain; no sign of the blue-grey dwarf pine as all thicket shorter than four meters is buried so deep you will not see a single branch, the crowns of tall trees standing close together are connected by a single roof, which the trunks hold up like temple columns. Were you only able to reach them, you could walk in the shadows of snow-made vaults. But the snow is still loose, the layers do not hold together and he who would step onto the traitorous ground would surely find himself burrowed deep in it. Only when the sun shines again and the southern wind brings a thaw do the layers thicken; new frosts then cover the ground with icy crust and it is possible to dare. However new clouds soon bring new snow, there are new blizzards, and old layers are covered by new ones. At times, so much snow falls down, that branches of old trees break under its weight, and their cracking echoes far and wide during quiet nights, a mysterious sound to those not familiar with the sight.
All connections between the lodge and gamekeeper’s house have been disrupted, massive snowdrifts lie between buildings like impenetrable walls. If a fire was to break out, if an illness should come, or any other such misfortune, no two people would be able to help each other. Even the woodworkers, trapped in their cabins covered by snow so entirely that barely their chimneys stuck out, spent their time like ground squirrels in their winter holes. Time passed slowly, beech spills burned from dawn to dusk, and the nights were dark as the shadows of the underworld, void of the moon’s shine and stars’ glimmer.”
Karel Faustin Klostermann was born in 1848 in Haag am Hausruck, Austria. When he was a one-year-old, his family moved to Sušice. They then proceeded to move a couple more times, Karel switched between studying at the grammar schools in Sušice and Písek. After graduating in 1865 he left to study medicine in Vienna, as was his father’s wish. There he joined a patriotic society of Czech students, his opinions there diverting with his father’s. He was forced to interrupt his studies prematurely in 1870 – both because of long-term lack of financial means (his material struggles are a frequent subject of his letters to his parents) and his deteriorating eyesight, which made it impossible for him to study as well as later practice medicine.
Between 1870 and 1872 he worked as a tutor in Žamberk while dedicating himself to an intensive study of modern languages. He eventually succeeded in more-or-less mastering an admirable number of languages – he learned French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and party English, Polish, Romanian and later even Greek.
He then returned to Vienna for a short period of time to work as an editor of a pro-Czech newspaper Wanderer. However, for economic reasons it ceases publishing and Klostermann thus returns back to Šumava, to Kašperské Hory. After several months, in October 1873, he accepts a temporary position as a French teacher at the newly established school in Pilsen, where he also meets his future wife Marie Carmineová, daughter of the customs officer and imperial advisor. He takes responsibility for his younger, then thirteen-year-old brother Jakub and allows him to study at the Pilsen grammar school, and after the death of his brother František he starts caring for his niece Bedřiška. He passes the state exam for high school French teachers and German teachers at lower levels and is then given the position of a proper high school professor. Given his rather pressing financial situation he also teaches at other schools and gives private lessons. Around this time, he begins to write fiction. After publishing his patriotic novel “Searching for Fortune”, depicting the fates of Czechs looking for a better life in Vienna, he is criticised by the school executive for allegedly spreading hate towards the German population and is threatened with sanctions. Klostermann complains about this criticism at the Education Ministry as well as with prince Bedřich of Schwarzenberg; the novel was actually supposed to support the idea of peaceful coexistence between Czechs and Germans. The matter was finally settled thanks to various intercessions and Klostermann was allowed to remain at his post.
Many other forest wardens succeeded Eisner, some of them of Czech nationality. First was Franz Zoltarz (for 15 years), after him Franz Pankratz (for 1 year), Augustin Trampus (for 18 years), František Grantl (for 19 years), Jan Kolář (for 2 years), Václav Wolf (for 2 years). In 1870, the year of the second significant calamity, about which you will learn more in the following texts of this educational trail, Matyáš Říha served as the local forest warden. In 1885 he was succeeded by Adolf Schimann who stayed for another six years. Březník also had a number of forestry personal, the closest to the forester being the forester’s assistant. There was also a gamekeeper, for example Walter Paleček served as one for the Březník forest district for a long time.
In 1856, the original wooden lodge was replaced by a fifty-meter-long stone building which included a stable for horses and cattle, a barn, and a shelter for carriages and sleds. The gamekeeper’s lodge was not the only building in Březník. In 1890, sources mention in total five houses with 38 inhabitants, twenty years later it is three houses with thirteen inhabitants. During the First Republic era there were still two woodworkers’ houses with little bell towers, where the Frint and Hanza families lived. The lodge was inhabited by the Krickl family.
By the end of the 19th century there were already the first signs of tourism, which did not start in full until the First Republic era. This was no doubt in part thanks to Karel Klostermann and his work From the World of Forest Plains, about which you can read further down in the text. The development of Březník in this regard can be found out from contemporary tourist guides:
1896: “Here is it possible to receive small refreshments (bread, eggs, butter, beer), but no lodgings.”
1908: “A forest plain in a beautiful setting on the left bank of the Lužný stream. There is a gamekeeper’s house and a lodge. Private telephone. Czech tourists will be welcomed warmly at the gamekeeper’s house by the jovial gamekeepers Kohout and Vlášek. It is possible to receive beer, butter, bread, milk, eggs, and all around all that can be received in every Šumavian inn and for prices quite low. For the weary there be around 10 available lodgings. The fee for an overnight stay is 70 halers for the members of the National Šumava association. Czech tourists are recommended to stay in Pürstlink rather than in Modrá, which lacks the hospitality of the gamekeeper in Pürstlink.”
1923: “…gamekeeper’s lodge with two woodworkers’ cabins (all offering lodgings, 21 in total and 7 student beds), idyllic place, perhaps the most beautiful in Šumava. Wide meadows facing south with the bare peak of Luzný in the background.”
1935: “…a restaurant in the lodge and 13 beds (8 others in the two neighbouring houses).”
1938: “…cabins and a state gamekeeper’s lodge, 13 beds in 3 rooms, refreshments, renowned pancakes. The idyllic spot is the setting for Karel Klostermann’s From the World of Forest Plains. The lodge used to house the forest warden Kořán and the forest assistant Svijanský, the cabin below it belonged to gamekeeper Vavruch.” (all cited according to the website sumava-modravsko.cz)
In the days of the Protectorate it was home to Bavarian foresters, as Březník fell under the area which the Czechoslovakian state was forced to give to Germany following the Munich Agreement. After the end of World War II, gamekeeper Bohuslav Vrabec and his wife Emílie settled here. The couple stayed until 1951, when the place was taken over by the Border Guard.
During the existence of the Iron Curtain, the Březník company stayed here. The surrounding woodworkers’ houses were demolished, and a small wooden house was built for the officers by the stone building. Between 1960 and 1961, about 200 meters from the original building, a new company was built and the former lodge now only served as a stable for the Guard’s horses. As part of company reorganisation and relocation at the end of the 1970s, the Březník company stopped existing and the disused buildings began to fall into disrepair.
Between 1998 and 2002, the building was reconstructed and has since served as an information centre of the Šumava National Park. It includes an exposition dedicated to Karel Klostermann, who set a part of the story of his book From the World of Forest Plains in the Březník gamekeeper’s lodge, using it to describe the problems of life in remote places in Šumava. Klostermann describes the remoteness of Březník thus:
“Four weeks have passed, winter has assumed power; for days the lodge stood in the midst of a white whirlwind of snowflakes, falling down so thick that one could hardly see twenty steps ahead. At times it was falling slowly and quietly, sometimes the wind would blow through it, creating powerful whirlwinds. During such times it was dangerous to venture a hundred steps outside of one’s abode. No eye can see through the falling snow, as once opened it is immediately stung by hundreds of crystal needles causing acute pain; there is no air, no light, you cannot see or hear; your beard is immediately covered in white mass which blocks your mouth and nostrils, swallowing you almost whole. And when the discomfort ceases for a short while, you see a flat uniform plain; no sign of the blue-grey dwarf pine as all thicket shorter than four meters is buried so deep you will not see a single branch, the crowns of tall trees standing close together are connected by a single roof, which the trunks hold up like temple columns. Were you only able to reach them, you could walk in the shadows of snow-made vaults. But the snow is still loose, the layers do not hold together and he who would step onto the traitorous ground would surely find himself burrowed deep in it. Only when the sun shines again and the southern wind brings a thaw do the layers thicken; new frosts then cover the ground with icy crust and it is possible to dare. However new clouds soon bring new snow, there are new blizzards, and old layers are covered by new ones. At times, so much snow falls down, that branches of old trees break under its weight, and their cracking echoes far and wide during quiet nights, a mysterious sound to those not familiar with the sight.
All connections between the lodge and gamekeeper’s house have been disrupted, massive snowdrifts lie between buildings like impenetrable walls. If a fire was to break out, if an illness should come, or any other such misfortune, no two people would be able to help each other. Even the woodworkers, trapped in their cabins covered by snow so entirely that barely their chimneys stuck out, spent their time like ground squirrels in their winter holes. Time passed slowly, beech spills burned from dawn to dusk, and the nights were dark as the shadows of the underworld, void of the moon’s shine and stars’ glimmer.”
Karel Faustin Klostermann was born in 1848 in Haag am Hausruck, Austria. When he was a one-year-old, his family moved to Sušice. They then proceeded to move a couple more times, Karel switched between studying at the grammar schools in Sušice and Písek. After graduating in 1865 he left to study medicine in Vienna, as was his father’s wish. There he joined a patriotic society of Czech students, his opinions there diverting with his father’s. He was forced to interrupt his studies prematurely in 1870 – both because of long-term lack of financial means (his material struggles are a frequent subject of his letters to his parents) and his deteriorating eyesight, which made it impossible for him to study as well as later practice medicine.
Between 1870 and 1872 he worked as a tutor in Žamberk while dedicating himself to an intensive study of modern languages. He eventually succeeded in more-or-less mastering an admirable number of languages – he learned French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and party English, Polish, Romanian and later even Greek.
He then returned to Vienna for a short period of time to work as an editor of a pro-Czech newspaper Wanderer. However, for economic reasons it ceases publishing and Klostermann thus returns back to Šumava, to Kašperské Hory. After several months, in October 1873, he accepts a temporary position as a French teacher at the newly established school in Pilsen, where he also meets his future wife Marie Carmineová, daughter of the customs officer and imperial advisor. He takes responsibility for his younger, then thirteen-year-old brother Jakub and allows him to study at the Pilsen grammar school, and after the death of his brother František he starts caring for his niece Bedřiška. He passes the state exam for high school French teachers and German teachers at lower levels and is then given the position of a proper high school professor. Given his rather pressing financial situation he also teaches at other schools and gives private lessons. Around this time, he begins to write fiction. After publishing his patriotic novel “Searching for Fortune”, depicting the fates of Czechs looking for a better life in Vienna, he is criticised by the school executive for allegedly spreading hate towards the German population and is threatened with sanctions. Klostermann complains about this criticism at the Education Ministry as well as with prince Bedřich of Schwarzenberg; the novel was actually supposed to support the idea of peaceful coexistence between Czechs and Germans. The matter was finally settled thanks to various intercessions and Klostermann was allowed to remain at his post.
Březník / Pürstling
In 1898 he loses his first wife and five months later he gets married again, this time to the daughter of a factory owner Betty Juránková. Thanks to her dowry, Karel can now afford to quit his side jobs and fully focus on teaching at the school in Pilsen and his writing. Ten years later, after thirty-five years of teaching, he retires. He spends his summers in Štěkeň, Southern Bohemia.
In 1916 he gets pneumonia. He eventually recovers from this but, being a heavy smoker, he is diagnosed with emphysema three years later. On top of that, his eyesight keeps getting progressively worse, he has to be read to by either his wife or his students. In May 1923 he is transported from Pilsen to his bellowed Štěkeň, where Alfred Windischgrätz allows him to stay in the chateau and be cared for by his doctor.
Karel Klostermann dies at the age of 75 in July of the same year. He is moved to Pilsen, where he is buried in the St Wenceslas cemetery.
The plot of the novel From the World of Forest Plains takes place in the 1860s in Březník. It is the home of the forest warden Emil Kořán and his wife Zdenička, to whom comes a young assistant Karel Svijanský. Despite Kořán’s warnings that they will never be equals, Karel falls in love with Katy, the beautiful daughter of gamekeeper Vavruch. Vavruch is a typical Šumavian man – he can come across as unpleasant at first but is really only used to life in the middle of rough Šumavian wilderness. Svijanský attempts to educate the girl but does not succeed and Katy remains an uneducated and ordinary young woman.
He is not the only one with relationship troubles. Kořán’s young wife from České Budějovice is not happy with her life in the middle of rough Šumavian nature and tries to convince her husband to ask to be moved somewhere else and even leaves his for a while to stay with her mother in town. Kořán gets injured by poachers, one of whom is shot by Svijanský in self-defence. Zdenička returns to care for her husband. The court finds Svijanský innocent, but he is still forced to leave Březník for fear of retaliation. Kořán – to his wife’s happiness – also leaves, when he is transferred to Chýnovsko.
After Kořán and Svijanský leave, the old forest is wrecked by a gale and infested with bark beetle. After some time, Svijanský, who in the meantime becme the forest warden in Krumlov, returns. He wants to marry Katy, as he promised. But old Vavruch has died in the meantime (he gets weaker and dies together with the forest) and Katy got married in Bavaria.
Březník is said to be the wettest place in the Czech Republic, with the average annual rainfall being 1552 mm. It lies 1132 metres above sea level. Apart from the exposition in the lodge, one can enjoy the educational trail “The Transformation of Mountain Spruce Grove”, walk through the Luzný valley or climb the Luzný mountain itself, towering at 1373 meters above sea level.
In 1916 he gets pneumonia. He eventually recovers from this but, being a heavy smoker, he is diagnosed with emphysema three years later. On top of that, his eyesight keeps getting progressively worse, he has to be read to by either his wife or his students. In May 1923 he is transported from Pilsen to his bellowed Štěkeň, where Alfred Windischgrätz allows him to stay in the chateau and be cared for by his doctor.
Karel Klostermann dies at the age of 75 in July of the same year. He is moved to Pilsen, where he is buried in the St Wenceslas cemetery.
The plot of the novel From the World of Forest Plains takes place in the 1860s in Březník. It is the home of the forest warden Emil Kořán and his wife Zdenička, to whom comes a young assistant Karel Svijanský. Despite Kořán’s warnings that they will never be equals, Karel falls in love with Katy, the beautiful daughter of gamekeeper Vavruch. Vavruch is a typical Šumavian man – he can come across as unpleasant at first but is really only used to life in the middle of rough Šumavian wilderness. Svijanský attempts to educate the girl but does not succeed and Katy remains an uneducated and ordinary young woman.
He is not the only one with relationship troubles. Kořán’s young wife from České Budějovice is not happy with her life in the middle of rough Šumavian nature and tries to convince her husband to ask to be moved somewhere else and even leaves his for a while to stay with her mother in town. Kořán gets injured by poachers, one of whom is shot by Svijanský in self-defence. Zdenička returns to care for her husband. The court finds Svijanský innocent, but he is still forced to leave Březník for fear of retaliation. Kořán – to his wife’s happiness – also leaves, when he is transferred to Chýnovsko.
After Kořán and Svijanský leave, the old forest is wrecked by a gale and infested with bark beetle. After some time, Svijanský, who in the meantime becme the forest warden in Krumlov, returns. He wants to marry Katy, as he promised. But old Vavruch has died in the meantime (he gets weaker and dies together with the forest) and Katy got married in Bavaria.
Březník is said to be the wettest place in the Czech Republic, with the average annual rainfall being 1552 mm. It lies 1132 metres above sea level. Apart from the exposition in the lodge, one can enjoy the educational trail “The Transformation of Mountain Spruce Grove”, walk through the Luzný valley or climb the Luzný mountain itself, towering at 1373 meters above sea level.