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Adapted version of the text presented at the colloquium organised in Prague on 12 November 2019 by the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) on the 85th anniversary of PhDr. Karel Chytil’s death. The text deals with the institutional and cultural political aspects of Chytil’s career as an art historian, museologist, and lecturer.

The paper analyses the ways in which the idea of the technical museum developed in the industrial region of Ostrava in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The issue is determined by political, economic and cultural changes in the following time periods: from the end of Austro-Hungarian monarchy (until 1918); the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938); WWII (1938-1945); post-war development, the so called Third Republic (1945-1948); the communist era (1948-1989); and from 1989 to the present. The development was always determined by whether the idea of the regional technical museum was interesting to powerful and intellectual elites, and what the response was from broader society - hence the significance of newspaper articles and other period reflections of the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The study is focused on the work of Josef Obeth (1874-1961), from the point of view of stylistic changes (neobaroque, art nouveau, art deco, civilism). The work is viewed in the context of Central European sculpture of the first half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The catalogue of the library of Bruntál Castle documents the intellectual interests of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order after 1800, governors and other economic officials. It reveals the spectrum of interests and suggests the meaning of the books in the library (personal interests, practical need in the management of the estate, anticipation of educational institutions). It is a contribution to the history of intellectuality in Czech Silesia, whose best-known and most significant product was the Grammar School Museum in Opava. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discovery of convoluted construction plans relating to Quido Hamburger's food company in Fulnek enables indicating the construction activities of this company in the interwar twenty years (production and storage buildings, residential buildings). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photography in Czech Silesia is a topic of research that has received only sporadic attention. The text focuses on the topic and its subcomponents (personalities, types of photographic implementations, musealization of photography, social life) from the perspective of further future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Památky Středních Čech is the property of Narodni Pamatkovy Ustav and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing on previously unknown family mementos – a photograph that belonged to art historian Edmund Wilhelm Braun (1870–1957) and postcards owned by the Moravian politician and member of provincial Landtag and Imperial Council Václav Šílený (1849–1911) – the article recalls the different ways in which Auguste Rodin (1840– 1917) was received and presented as a modern artist of international renown in the German and Czech contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Václav Šílený was a lawyer, Moravian politician, member of the Moravian Diet and Imperial Council and organisation official. Based on the preserved fragments of written remnants and period media reports, the author highlights his relationship to the region of Czech Silesia and Ostrava, in particular, to the important issues of education and economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The noble family of Silva-Tarouca, or Silva-Tarouca-Unwerth, maintained a series of relationships to the Silesian milieu, conditioned by the service of its male members in the army, the engagiement in public life, and the family relations to other noble families. Henriette Skrbenská, aka Jetty Gallenbergová, the author of documentary drawings, excels in the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on an unpublished letter written by Alfons Mucha (1860-1939), which he addressed to Karel Chytil (1857-1934), an art historian and a professor at Charles University; the letter is reprinted in full. The letter contains comments on the Slav Epic, a subject that Karel Chytil wrote and lectured on. The comments primarily explain the differences in the size and format of the individual paintings in the Slav Epic. The letter is included among Chytil's papers in the Archives of the National Museum in Prague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is focused on the work of Josef Obeth (1874-1961), from the point of view of stylistic changes (neobaroque, art nouveau, art deco, civilism). The work is viewed in the context of Central European sculpture of the first half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A typology of associations in Austrian Silesia in the second half of the 19 th century is an attempt to reinterpret the function of an association in the region within its political, social and mental realities: the type of association, expressed by its name, is vital for understanding its function and for creating links between different types of associations within a complex national political and cultural representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study identifies footnotes included in the agricultural calendar published by the Moravian-Silesian Society for Advancement of Agriculture in Brno. On the basis of many features, it has been found out that the owner of the calendar and the author of notes was Johann Nepomuk Spatzier, who practiced in Krnov, a natural scientist and historian from the 1830s to the 1880s, one of the founders of local history in Bohemian Silesia. Notes are transcribed and followed by a comment which reveals author's interests (professional interests, contacts with friends and acquaintances in Krnov and its surroundings). Th ey enable his identifi cation with a romantically oriented natural science represented by German and Austrian authorities which are mentioned in the text, then observing natural phenomena themselves, and also with elites arousing from the civic society in Bohemian Silesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The château at Hradec nad Moravicí is presented from the perspective of changes to museum and gallery presentations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a museum sui generis or art gallery. It served this function when owned by the Lichnowskys as well as aft er the year 1945 when it became a state-owned château under the care of a regional educational organisation (Krajské středisko zámek Hradec, later Slezské kulturní středisko or Vlastivědný ústav Opava). This paper reviews the perception of the château as a site for intellectual and artistic activities in the periods of the Biedermeier style and Historicism in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Lichnowskys' relationship to the furnishings as specific cultural valuables surpasses their functional value related to private housing (with items linked to Prince Felix Lichnowsky, Ludwig van Beethoven and Ferenc Liszt) and points to changes to the château related to its opening to the public (from 1934 and then again aft er 1945 to 1979). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marketing campaign launched by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic ahead of the upcoming centenaries of the national geographic museums in Prague, Brno and Opava (1814-1818) is a most suitable starting point for a long overdue critical discussion of the current approach to the history of museums in the Czech Land in particular and Central Europe in general. The concept of a museum's foundation, establishment or first opening must be viewed historically because of the difference in its content in a society divided into estates (pre-1860) and in a civil society (post- 1860). This paper is a call for a more fine-grained analysis of the history of museums as institutions and a detailed comparative treatment of this concept with the aim of achieving a more objective phenomenology of the museum in 1800-1945 Central Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study deals with personalities Ernst and Franz Mückusch from Buchberg who participated in the establishment of the Grammar School Museum in Opava. The process of establishment includes years 1814-1818 and meant the climax of institutionalization of enlightened impulses, thoughts and values accepted (through reading) especially from the German environment thanks to personal contacts and friendly relations from Vienna, Wroclaw and Brno. Ernst represented a clerk, Hetman of Opava region and at the same time Chancellor of the Royal Silesian Agricultural Society in Opava, Franz Mückusch - a soldier by his profession - was a private scholar with the interest in nature, primarily botany and mineralogy of Jeseníky. On 1st May 1814, Ernst Mückusch donated the Krünitz encyclopaedia to the future Grammar School Museum; Franz Mückusch gave a herbarium and especially time necessary for the enlargement of collections and their systematic processing according to the scientific taxonomy. Thanks to Mückusch's contacts with scholars from Prussian Silesia, Brno or Vienna, the museum was renowned and became the part of the intellectual exchange and discussion about contemporary topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper criticizes the idea of the Silesian Museum as the oldest public museum in the Czech Republic. The analysis is based on the questioning truthfulness of the first May 1814 as a date of establishing museum, and further analyses the concept of the public. The paper explains why the myth of the oldest Museum in Opava took and survived several changes of regimes. Opava museum is presented as an institution rather concluding the previous development of museums of the 18th century than as anticipatory development of new museums as civic institutions in relation to the region. In this respect, the oldest museums are museums in Brno and Prague. The analysis deals with the researchers yet completely omitted written sources and at the same time with a new reading of printed sources, a contemporary periodicals and historical reports. The conclusion is clear: the year 2014 is a case of the two hundredth anniversary of the first written report of Opava museum, however the concept of establishing or founding such institution as museum in one day is a priori absurd: the museum is not found or established in a single act of creation or destruction, but museum is a constant, never-ending process of maturation, formation and crystallization and a process of a permanent defence of their own, truly spiritual sense and mission, which is especially true for the present of the Silesian Museum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]