Marie WALBURGA, Countess of Truchsess-Waldburg-Zeil [ Notable personality ]
Marie WALBURGA, Countess of Truchsess-Waldburg-Zeil *22.10.1762 Vídeň + 25.5.1828 Kunvald
The daughter of František Xaver Count of Harrach and Marie Rebeka Countess of Hohenems, since 1779 the wife to Klement Alois Count of Truchsess - Waldburg - Zeil, and since 1781 the owner of Kunín Castle. A very educated and progressive woman in her time. She was strikingly beautiful and remarkable, celebrated for her education and erudition. She was talked about as one of the most educated women in the whole Austrian monarchy, however, she was also a very temperamental and hot-tempered woman, a daring horsewoman. In 1781 she inherited the estate of Kunwald, in which she practised her progressive principles. In place of a vast marsh she built a big vegetable garden, a pomological nursery, and she introduced the farming of time-tested cattle. The consequence of a fall off a horse during one of the wild night rides in her youth manifested itself only in her old age, when her leg became paralysed and so she had to be carried. The death of three little children induced her to think about a voluntary passing out of this world and was the cause of dissolution of her marriage. Her husband moved to Zeil Castle in Rhineland, where he took also his last promising son. However, also the last son died and his mother lived in Kunín Castle separated from her family.
The countess was very well-disposed towards new educational methods. In 1783 she re-established a school in Kunwald, which had already been there in the 16th century, but had been closed down during the Thirty Years’ War. In 1792 she extended the school into a two-class school and moved it to the castle. In the castle she founded a modern philanthropic school - the Educational School, which had the nature of a foundation school. She supported the teachers from her own means and she herself helped with teaching. After the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 the school was closed down as too liberal by an order of the Moravian Governorate in Brno. The countess devoted all her life to education of poor and talented children from her estate.
