The Lobkowicz family belongs to the oldest living Czech aristocratic families. As the only Czech family, the Lobkowicz family kept their family motto in Czech: “I am ashes and I will be ashes”. This biblical message is not only an interesting pun, but also draws attention to the line founded by Jan Popel. The name Lobkowicz comes from medieval Czech and refers to the small village of Lobkovice located a few kilometers from Mělník.
During its long history, the Lobkowicz family is proud of many important politicians, diplomats, soldiers, scientists, clergy, but also poets and travelers. A number of them supported art, culture, economic and construction development. 17 of them received the highest award, the Order of the Golden Fleece. For centuries, nothing divided this family, they never cooperated with the Nazis and defended the rights of the lands of the Czech Crown within the framework of the monarchy.
Detailed family history
The oldest documented ancestor of the family was the knight Mareš from Újezd and he lived during the reign of Charles IV. He had 3 sons, and the youngest, Mikuláš, called poor, became the urban scribe in Kutná Hora in 1401. For his services, he received from King Wenceslas IV. among other things, the farm Lobkovice nad Labem (about 1410), according to which it began to be written and thus the family name arose.
His 2 sons founded 2 main medieval lines of the family: the branch of the Hasištejnski from Lobkowicz and the Popel from Lobkowicz (later the Lobkowicz).
16th century
In the 16th century, however, the Hasištejnský branch leaned towards the Reformation and its descendants left Bohemia. The Popel family remained Catholic, such as: Jiří Popel Lobkowicz (1540-1607), chief hofmeister of Rudolf II, Jiří younger Popel Lobkowicz (1556-1590), president of the Court of Appeal and also another great personality of the family, Zdeněk Vojtěch (1568-1628 ), first prince of Lobkowicz (1624), court councilor and supreme chancellor of the Kingdom of Bohemia.
His son, the second prince, Václav Eusebius (1609-1677), supreme court master, minister and president of the secret and war council, was one of the greatest figures in our history.
17th century
The son of Václav Eusebius, Ferdinand August, Prince of Lobkowicz, was in 1692-1698 the Imperial Envoy to the Permanent Reich Diet in Režno and then in 1699-1708 the Supreme Court Master of the Queen and Empress Vilemína Amália.
He had 13 children and his successor was the eldest son Filip Hyacint, the 4th prince and owner of the fideikomis of Roudnice. His youngest son Jan Jiří Kristián (1686-1753) was an imperial officer and military leader, a governor in Sicily, Lombardy and Transylvania and founded the second Lobkowicz fideikomis (money) and thus the second genitura – the younger line of the Lobkowicz princely family.
18th century
His son August Anton Josef (1729-1803), ambassador to Spain, supreme marshal and bearer of the Order of the Golden Fleece, married Maria Ludmila Černínová from Chudenice, the heiress of the Mělnice estate, which thus passed to the Lobkowicz family.
They had 20 children together, and the son Anton Isidor (1773-1819), who mainly devoted himself to property management and artistic interests (he was one of the founding members and later the executive of the Society of Patriotic Friends of Art, today the National Gallery in Prague), married Sidonia Countess Kinsky . Their son, August Longin (1797-1848) was the director of the National Museum and also became Imperial Chancellor and President of the Court Chamber of Mines and Mint.
With his wife, Anna Bertha, Princess Schwarzenberg, he had a son, Jiří Kristián (1835-1908), who held the position of supreme land marshal of the Kingdom of Bohemia and member of the Czech Diet, defender of Czech state law.
19th century
He was succeeded by his son Bedřich Lobkowicz (1881-1923) and after him by his grandson Jiří Kristián (1907-1932), a passionate sportsman and well-known car racer, who tragically died on the Berlin AVUS race track.
Jiří Kristián’s cousin Otakar kníže Lobkowicz (1922-1995) became the heir, but since he was only 10 years old at the time, his father Jan kníže Lobkowicz (1885-1952) took over the administration of the property.
Modern history of the family
From 1940-1945, during II. World War, the entire property was under forced administration by the Nazis. The whole family moved to Prague and in 1948, after the communist coup, they were forced to emigrate and all property was nationalized by the state.
Prince Otakar worked as a banker while in exile in Switzerland and longed to return to his homeland all his life. His property was returned to him in 1991 and he donated it in its entirety to his son Jiří in 1993, and he decided to dedicate the Drahnice estate to his cousin Jan Lobkowicz (1954).
George Jan Prince Lobkowicz
Jiří Jan, Prince Lobkowicz, son of Otakar and Hungarian Countess Susanna Széchényi, the current owner of the Mělník estate, was born in 1956 as an emigration to Switzerland.
He graduated from the University of Economics in Saint Gallen and later became a very successful banker. In 1990, he decided to end his career abroad and return to his country with his father. Until 1992, he worked as an advisor to the Minister of Economy and the then Federal Government of Czechoslovakia, and until 1995 as an advisor to the Minister of Privatization of the Czech Republic. He also did business in investment banking and energy.
Since 1992, Prince Lobkowicz has been consistently dedicated to the restoration and reconstruction of the Mělnice and Hořín manors, which he built into their present form with his private resources. He also rebuilt the castle winery, which has a history dating back to 1753.
Currently, the prince lives with his wife Princess Zdenka Belas Lobkowicz (1978), an opera singer, and their son Prince Robert Christian Lobkowicz (2011) and Jacob Alexander Lobkowicz (2014) in the left wing of Mělník Castle.