Druget Castle (Uzhgorod)
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UKRDOUG
N 48° 37.268 E 022° 18.356
34U E 596240 N 5386163
The Druget Family, formerly of Naples, ruled vast territories from this castle from the beginning of the 14th century until nearly the end of the 17th century.
Waymark Code: WMDG0Y
Location: Ukraine
Date Posted: 01/11/2012
Views: 8
Druget Castle (Uzhgorod)
A castle existed on this site as early as the 9th century. The castle has a famous ghost story from this early period. A Polish nobleman had snuck into the castle only to be discovered by the beautiful daughter of the local prince. The two fall in love and eventually the princess reveals the secret entrance to the castle. The tryst is discovered in time and the nobleman is executed. As punishment for her treachery, the princess was entombed in the walls of the tower. At every stroke of midnight, her ghost is seen throughout the castle in search of her lost love.
The Hungarian king Bela IV built a fortified structure here in the 13th century to protect his Kingdom from the Mongol hordes who had taken Kyiv and the Galicia in the north who began to sour towards Hungary.
The Hungarian King Charles I gave the land to the Druget Family in the 14th century. They built the rectangular defensive structure with rhomboid towers similar to the castles back home in their native Naples. The castle was never taken during their 360-year reign. The last Druget died without a male heir in 1691 and the castle fell into the possession of his daughter who married the Transylvanian Count Miklos Berscenyi. This union made him the third richest man in Hungary.
In the church which now lies in ruin in the courtyard of the castle, was signed the Uzhgorod Union in 1646 which allowed the Greek Catholic Church to spread into Hungarian lands. The Greek Catholic Church first came into existence in the Ukrainian lands of the Commonwealth of Lithuania and Poland with the Union of Lublin in 1569. The Orthodox Church had been dominant in Ukraine when the Roman Catholic Commonwealth absorbed it. The Lublin Union was a compromise that allowed the Ukrainians to maintain their Orthodox liturgy in exchange for recognizing the preeminence of the Pope in Rome.
At the onset of the Hungarian Revolution in 1704 led by the Transylvanian Count Frances II Rakoczi, the Uzhgorod castle was taken and Berscenyi joined the revolution to maintain his estates. It was here where representatives of the Russian czar Peter the Great and the French King Louis XIV met to form an anti-Hapsburg alliance. Berscenyi was forced to flee Hungary in 1711 when the rebellion was defeated and the Hapsburgs confiscated his estates. The church in the courtyard was burned down during this period.
Left uninhabited, the third story of the palace burned down in 1728. As the Austrian Hapsburg Empire spread east, the Uzh Castle was no longer needed as a border defense. In 1773 Austrian Empress Maria Teresa and gave the castle grounds to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church that opened a seminary there. After the fall of the Austrian Hapsburgs at the conclusion of World War I, Uzhgorod became part of the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia. One of the graduates of the seminary, Andre Voloshin, would become the first and only president of the short-lived country of Carpatia-Ukraine created upon the German invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The German Nazis closed down the seminary in 1944 and used the castle grounds as a military barracks. The Soviets would also use it as a barracks as they pushed the Germans back. After the war the Soviets briefly allowed the seminary to reopen, but moved it to the central Greek-Catholic church in 1947 until it was completely shut down after the assassination of the last Bishop Romzha in 1949. The seminary reopened again in 1990s after Ukrainian Independence in the nearby village of Mynai.
The Castle Grounds and Palace Exhibition are open Tuesday through Sunday 10:00 - 17:00. The cost of admission is 15 UAH for adults and 5 UAH for children. There is an additional 10 UAH charge for cameras and 20 UAH for video cameras. Group rates and tours are also available. The torture exhibits in the casemates, entered from the courtyard of the palace, are an additional 5 UAH entrance fee. This information is accurate as of January 10, 2012.
The palace exhibitions include the History of Uzhgorod Castle, History of the Uzhgorod Seminary, Icons and Religious Books, History of the Schoenborn Family, Furniture of the 18th-20th centuries, Weapons of the 16th-20th Centuries, History of Zarcarpatia, Musical Instruments of Zarcarpatia, and Clothing of Zarcarpatia.
Accessibility: Full access
Condition: Intact
Admission Charge?: yes
Website: Not listed
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