*** THE CASTLE RUINS IN SZYMBARK ***

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SZYMBARK

the ruins of episcopal castle

CASTLE RUIN IN SZYMBARK, VIEW FROM THE SOUTHEAST

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE


T

he cas­tle was prob­a­bly built in the 1370s by the parish priest of the Po­me­za­ni­an chap­ter Hen­ry of Skar­lin. An in­scrip­tion made of glazed ce­ram­ic tiles, which was once placed above the gate, in­di­cated the founder of the stronghold. Its text was as fol­lows: HEC POR­TA CON­STRUC­TA EST AN­NO DO­MI­NI MC­C­CLXXXVI TEM­PORE FRATRIS HENRI­CI DE SKAR­LIN PRE­POZ­I­TI, which can be trans­lat­ed as: The gate was erect­ed in the year of our Lord 1386 un­der the reign of broth­er Hen­ry of Skar­lin - the pro­vost. Some his­to­ri­ans, how­ev­er, pre­sent a slight­ly dif­fer­ent opin­ion, ac­cord­ing to which the con­struct­ion of the cas­tle be­gan much ear­li­er, per­haps even in the 13th cen­tu­ry, and the above men­tioned text refers to the fi­nal phase of this pro­ject. Szym­bark cas­tle orig­i­nal­ly served as the res­i­dence of a high-rank­ing provost who was a mem­ber of the wealthy epis­co­pal chap­ter.



EAST WING WITH ENTRANCE GATE

T

he lo­­cat­ion of the cas­tle was qui­te u­nu­­su­al, mo­re than 40 ki­lo­me­ters from the head­­quar­ters of the chap­ter (town of Kwi­dzyn), far a­way from the lar­ger ur­ban cen­ters, but cha­rac­te­ri­zed by ex­cel­­lent na­­tu­ral con­dit­ions for its de­fen­se. We as­­su­me that the first sta­ge of the con­struc­tion works was com­­ple­t­ed in 1386 and in­­­clu­d­ed the full pe­ri­me­ter of the walls equipped with ten tow­ers, a gate tow­er and a draw­bridge lead­ing to the court­yard. How­ev­er, two of the planned tow­ers were nev­er com­plet­ed, but the in­­ten­­tion to build them is e­vi­­den­ced by the re­­mains of foun­­dat­ions in the wes­tern wall. In this pha­se of the ca­s­tle's ope­ra­ting, the re­si­den­ce prem­ises and the u­ti­li­­ty rooms we­re con­­cen­­tra­t­ed in the wes­tern part of the court­­yard.



THE COAT OF ARMS OF THE VON POLENZ FAMILY, FORMER OWNERS OF THE CASTLE

A

t the be­gin­n­ing of the 15th cen­­tu­ry the cas­tle was mo­der­ni­zed in such a way that it be­came much more re­si­den­tial. The spa­­tial ar­ran­ge­­ment was then en­lar­ged by e­rec­t­ing the east­­ern part of the sou­th­ern wing and rai­s­ing the nor­th­ern part of the wes­tern wing, whe­re the re­fec­­to­ry and ca­s­tle kit­chen we­re lo­­ca­t­ed. As part of the Go­th­ic tran­s­­for­­ma­­tion, the outer walls were rai­sed by 2 to 4 me­tres, the cor­n­er to­w­ers re­cei­ved po­­ly­­go­­nal or cy­lin­­dri­­cal tops, and the ga­te was ex­ten­d­ed. In the first half of the 15th cen­­tu­ry the cas­tle was not on­­ly the seat of the pro­vost, but al­­so the pla­ce whe­re Ger­­man set­tlers sta­yed. It is al­­so worth men­­tio­n­ing the lon­ger vi­sit of the bi­shops Ger­hard Stolp­­mann and Hans Ma­rie­­nau, who sta­yed he­re in 1421 to su­per­vi­se the scrip­­to­ri­um pre­­pa­ring do­cu­­ments for the plan­ned trial be­tween the Po­lish sta­te and the Or­der.



RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CASTLE AT THE TURN OF 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES ACCORDING TO A. MACUR

T

he cas­tle in Szym­bark in the early 15th cen­tu­ry was a spa­cious and com­fort­able place for the in­hab­i­tants, but its de­fen­sive fea­tures were not im­pres­si­ve. As a re­sult, dur­ing the Thir­teen Years' War waged be­tween Poland and the Teu­ton­ic Order, the fort­ress was cap­tured several times and fi­nal­ly - de­stroyed. Fol­low­ing the peace of To­ruń, it re­mained with­in the bor­ders of the Teu­ton­ic state and was lift­ed from ru­ins and slight­ly mod­ern­ized with­in few years. Szym­bark had a great im­por­tance at that time as the main res­i­dence of the Po­meza­ni­an cathe­dral parish priests, as ev­i­denced by doc­u­ments of the Grand Mas­ter from 1466, in which it was de­scribed as pro­bist Kain Schon­berg and our house and our cas­tle.



THE AUSTERE, UNDECORATED WESTERN CURTAIN OF THE CASTLE WALLS

D

ur­ing the last Pol­ish-Teu­ton­ic war the cas­tle wasn't be­sieged. Al­though the Pol­ish troops un­der the com­mand of Sta­ni­sław Kost­ka ar­ri­ved, but thanks to the fact that the parish priest Mi­ko­łaj Schönborn prudently opened the gates, no fights took place. The con­se­quence of the war lost by the Or­der was its sec­u­lar­iza­tion and huge ter­ri­to­ri­al loss­es for the ben­e­fit of Poland. The last Po­me­za­ni­an bish­op Er­hard von Queiss (d. 1529) con­vert­ed to Luth­era­nism and bish­op's es­tates for­mal­ly were hand­ed o­ver to the Prus­sian prince Al­brecht Ho­hen­zollern (d. 1568). However, in prac­tice he still man­aged them, but not as a cler­gy­man but as an of­fi­cial of the new sec­ular state. Af­ter his child­less death, the starosty and the cas­tle re­ceived the first Evan­gel­i­cal bish­op Georg von Polenz (d. 1550), who didn't live in Szym­bark, but in dis­tant Bał­ga, which may sug­gest that the cas­tle was not in good con­di­tion then.



THE CASTLE IN THE DRAWING FROM THE 1. HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY

H

is son Teo­philus von Polenz (d. 1599) took over the es­tate in 1550. Af­ter him Szym­bark was man­aged by grand­son Al­brecht von Pol­enz (d. 1619), who, al­ready hav­ing the hered­i­tary right to own the es­tate, be­tween 1570-90 re­built the cas­tle in the Re­nais­sance style. The ef­fect of the con­struc­tion works was a very far-reach­ing degra­da­tion of its de­fen­sive fea­tures in favour of changes aimed at im­prov­ing ev­ery­day func­tion­al­i­ty and aes­thet­ics. The west­ern wing has been com­plete­ly trans­formed - since then it housed the com­fort­able liv­ing rooms. Cor­ner tow­ers in the east wing re­ceived stuc­co in­te­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion and Re­nais­sance fire­places, while res­i­den­tial build­ings were dec­o­rat­ed with or­na­men­tal tops. There were al­so trans­for­ma­tions in the spa­tial lay­out of the clock tow­er, but the most im­por­tant change from the point of view of de­fen­sive fea­tures loss of the cas­tle was re­place­ment of the wood­en draw­bridge with a brick bridge.



LITHOGRAPH BY DORGERLOH FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE XIXTH CENTURY, THE CASTLE SEEN FROM THE SOUTH

T

he von Po­lentz fam­i­ly ruled the Szym­bark es­tate for 121 years. In 1653 it was bought by Jo­nas zu Eu­len­burg (d. 1667), and four­teen years lat­er the wid­ow of the de­ceased own­er pledged it to her son-in-law The­odor von Schlie­ben (d. 1695), a Kur­land voi­vode, who be­came a full own­er of the prop­er­ty in 1670. Af­ter the death of The­odor, in 1699 his son Ernst Si­gis­mund (d. 1741) sold the cas­tle. The buy­er was the starosts of Dąb­rów­no and Iła­wa Ernst Finck von Finck­en­stein (d. 1717), called a wealthy sheep­herd, be­cause the von Finck­en­stein fam­i­ly owed their enor­mous wealth and high so­cial po­si­tion to the breed­ing of these an­i­mals and wool trade in par­tic­u­lar. Ernst per­ma­nent­ly resid­ed in Dąb­rów­no, in the palace an­nexed to the old Teu­ton­ic cas­tle, and nev­er moved to Szym­bark. His son Al­brecht Chris­toph Finck (d. 1730) was the first to do so, and in 1700-30 he re­built the cas­tle in the Baroque style in or­der to adapt it to his own and his fam­i­ly's needs.



ROMANTIC VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE 2. HALF OF THE XIXTH CENTURY


Von Finck­en­stein is a count fam­i­ly of West­phalian and Ale­ma­ni­an ori­gin. Their es­tates were con­cen­trat­ed main­ly in Up­per Prus­sia, in the sta­ro­sty of Iła­wa, Os­tró­da and Dąb­rów­no. Since the sec­ond half of the 16th cen­tu­ry they have been gath­er­ing of­fices and land­ed es­tates, that in the 19th cen­tu­ry cov­ered an area of 14,000 hec­tares. The in­crease in fi­nan­cial pow­er of the fa­mi­ly was ac­com­pa­nied by an ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Han­seat­ic League of North Eu­ro­pean trad­ing cities, and al­so by a ca­reer as a civ­il ser­vants and mil­i­tary of­fi­cers. From the 18th cen­tu­ry exis­ted two sep­a­rat­ed lines of Finck­en­steins: the old­er one in Szym­bark and Dąb­rów­no, and the younger one, liv­ing in the Ka­mie­niec pa­la­ce.


FAMILY PORTRAIT OF THE CASTLE OWNERS, 1910

I

n years 1857-58 Lud­wig Finck von Finck­en­stein (d. 1863) re­built the south wing of the cas­tle and con­nect­ed it func­tion­al­ly with the wing lo­cat­ed in the south-east­ern cor­ner. The in­te­ri­ors have been re­dec­o­rat­ed and or­na­ment­ed, and adap­ted to rep­re­sen­ta­tive rooms, two li­braries and a the­atre hall called the Greek Cham­ber. The vast gar­den around the cas­tle and the lake were trans­formed in­to a land­scape park and a small me­na­ge­rie. The cylin­dri­cal stair­case, added to one of the tow­ers in the south­ern wall, fa­cil­i­tat­ed access to them. In ad­di­tion, at the west­ern wall of the res­i­den­ce, the own­ers ar­ran­ged ten­nis courts.



ONE OF THE CASTLE INTERIORS ON A 1920S PHOTOGRAPH

T

he sub­se­quent and last mod­ern­iza­tion of the cas­tle (1904-30) was aimed at adapt­ing it to the use of mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal achieve­ments: elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and tele­phones, but al­so in­clud­ed a dec­o­ra­tion chan­ges and re­pair of the north wall and the bridge. These works were car­ried out strict­ly ac­cord­ing to the in­struc­tions and un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Bernard Schmid, the con­ser­va­tor of Mal­bork cas­tle. As the au­thor em­pha­sized, the main idea ac­com­pa­ny­ing the restora­tion was to pre­serve the cas­tle in its con­tem­po­rary shape, and only gently to mit­i­gate the slight­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed form, which was the re­sult of a ro­man­tic re­con­struc­tion from the 19th cen­tu­ry.




THE SOUTHERN WING IN 1915 AND ITS RUIN IN 2019

T

he mem­bers of the von Finck­en­stein fam­i­ly lived in Szym­bark al­most un­til the end of the Sec­ond World War, leav­ing it on 21 Jan­uary 1945 for fear of the 2nd Be­laru­sian Red Army of­fen­sive. And al­though the di­rect fights be­tween Ger­mans and So­vi­ets luck­i­ly avoid­ed the cas­tle, af­ter rob­bing its in­te­ri­ors in April that year the so­vi­ets sold­iers burned it, as well as the near­by palace in Ka­mie­niec. Ac­cord­ing to the eye­wit­ness of those events, they had to set it on fire as many as twice, be­cause the first time the fire didn't get too close to the walls. When the cas­tle was tak­en with fire for good, the tem­per­a­ture was sup­pos­ed­ly so high that the tiles were found after even at the rail­way sta­tion in Ząb­ro­wo. On­ly the rem­nants of the tow­er and ex­ter­nal walls re­mained of this dis­aster.




VIEW OF THE CASTLE (SOUTHERN WING) IN 1910 AND CURRENTLY

I

n the 1960s, some se­cu­ri­ty works be­gan, in­clud­ing roof­ing the clock tow­er and the gate build­ing. The in­te­ri­or was cleared of rub­ble as well. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, soon af­ter­wards, the vol­un­teers ir­re­spon­si­bly dis­man­tled the rem­nants of the south wing. In 1988 the ruin was tak­en o­ver by the foun­da­tion Wi­dzieć Mu­zy­ką with the in­ten­tion of re­build­ing it and open­ing here a cen­tre for ed­u­ca­tion of blind chil­dren from all o­ver Eu­rope. Af­ter sev­er­al years of the foun­da­tion's ac­tiv­i­ty, as a re­sult of which the west­ern wall was par­tial­ly re­con­struct­ed and the vaults in the cor­ner tow­ers were re­con­struct­ed, the re­no­va­tion plan col­lapsed prob­a­bly due to fi­nan­cial rea­sons. In 1997 the ru­in was bought by a pri­vate own­er and since then it has been aban­doned. In 2018 it was sold again. The new owner announ­ced that he in­tends to re­build the cas­tle and put a ho­tel in it.




THE EASTERN WING SEEN FROM THE COURTYARD, CONDITION BEFORE THE 2ND WORLD WAR
AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXIST CENTURY


In 1995, the ru­ins of Szym­bark cas­tle were used by the fa­mous Ger­man di­rec­tor Vol­ker Schlön­dorff for The Ogre movie to shoot the scenes with the con­quest of Kal­ten­born cas­tle by So­vi­et troops, as well as the scenes with the camp­ing of Hit­ler­ju­gend mem­bers. The main role of Abel Tif­fau­ges, a man with the psy­che of a child fas­ci­nat­ed by the pow­er of the Third Re­ich, was played by the ac­tor John Mal­ko­vich. For the time of film­ing he stayed in near­by Iła­wa town, where he rent­ed the en­tire cen­tral part of the hotel for him­self, his wife, two chil­dren and a nan­ny.
To this day, the ru­ins hide mod­est relics of the film, such as the wood­en win­dow frames in the east­ern wall or the von Polenz coat of arms, ren­o­vat­ed for the pur­pos­es of film pro­duc­tion.




THE CASTLE IN THE 1930S, FROM THE TOP: VIEW FROM THE WEST, WESTERN WING ON THE COURTYARD SIDE


HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE


T

he cas­tle was built on a plan sim­i­lar to a rect­an­gle (75x92-95), pre­sum­ably at the site of an ear­ly me­dieval Prus­sian stronghold, so the court­yard lev­el is about 9 me­ters high­er than the sur­round­ing lev­el. Ten tow­ers are in­te­grat­ed in­to the brick walls and pro­tru­de slight­ly in front of them: there are four cor­ner tow­ers and six cur­tain tow­ers. The orig­i­nal height of walls was 2 to 4 me­tres low­er than the cur­rent one, which is well vis­i­ble in the north­ern cor­ner tow­ers, which are rect­an­gu­lar in their base and top­ped with a cylin­dri­cal and polyg­o­nal su­per­struc­ture. An en­trance to the court­yard led from the east on a wide em­bank­ment ris­ing up­wards, and fur­ther o­ver the cas­tle moat on a wood­en draw­bridge, re­placed in the 17th cen­tu­ry with a brick ar­cade bridge, and then through a gate build­ing.



PLAN OF THE CASTLE FROM 1885, DIE BAU- UND KUNSTDENKMALER DER KREISES LOBAU:
1. ENTRANCE GATE, 2. SOUTHERN WING, 3. WESTERN WING, 4. STABLES, 5. KITCHEN, 6. RIDING HALL, 7. OFFICE, 8. MAIN TOWER

T

he gate is ad­joined by a 24-me­tre-high, four-storey main tow­er, so­me­ti­mes cal­led the clock tow­er. It is in­ter­est­ing to note the con­trast in the use of the space of it, where the first floor, vault­ed and dec­o­rat­ed with col­or­ful poly­chromes, served as a chapel, and un­der­neath it a 10-me­tre deep prison cel­lar was sit­uat­ed. Four winged build­ings ad­joined the cur­tain wall from the in­side. Their lay­out, height, in­te­ri­or ar­range­ment and style of ex­ter­nal dec­o­ra­tion were chang­ing over time. It can be as­sumed, how­ev­er, that the ba­sic func­tions were per­formed by the west­ern wing, where ini­tial­ly res­i­den­tial cham­bers were loc­ated, as well as a chapel and a re­fec­to­ry, and from the mid-15th cen­tu­ry al­so by the south­ern wing, with the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive rooms in the cas­tle.




THE EASTERN WING, IN 1885 'DIE BAU- UND KUNSTDENKMALER DER KREISES LOBAU', AND CURRENTLY


HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE


O

nly perime­ter wall with tow­ers, as well as gate and stone ar­cade bridge sur­vived the war and sub­seq­uent dam­ages. The in­ter­nal and par­ti­tion walls of res­i­den­tial build­ings have been pre­served in their rem­nants, which is main­ly due to ir­re­spon­si­ble de­ci­sions about the suc­ces­sive de­mo­li­tion made dur­ing the com­mu­nist era. An unat­tend­ed park, once a land­scape park, is now ac­tu­al­ly a for­est with a still im­pres­sive trees. There are al­so no traces of for­mer glo­ry like the al­leys sur­round­ing the cas­tle and even­ly trimmed lawns, which turned in­to a mead­ow. Since the ruin is in pri­vate hands (1997-), not much has changed here, al­though per­haps its in­ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty o­ver the years saved in­te­ri­ors from van­dal­ism.




IN THE CASTLE COURTYARD, PHOTOS FROM 2004



The castle can only be viewed from the outside.


You can come here with your dog. The sur­round­ings of the castle is an at­trac­ti­ve place for walks.


Friendly place to fly: no lo­cal air cor­ri­dors and no major build­ings.



VIEW FROM SOUTHEAST, 2019

AND THIS IS HOW THE CASTLE LOOKED 100 YEARS EARLIER



GETTING THERE


T

he ruin is lo­ca­ted in the west­ern part of the vil­la­ge, on the sho­res of Szym­bar­skie La­ke. Dri­ving by car a­long road No. 521 from Iła­wa (di­rec­tion Pra­bu­ty, Susz) af­ter a­bout 9 ki­lo­me­ters you should turn left and a few hun­dred me­ters away - by the cha­pel - turn left a­gain, and then dri­ve straight un­til you reach the gro­ce­ry sto­re, whe­re you should turn right. It is al­so con­ve­nient to get to the ca­stle by train. Then you should get off at the Zą­bro­wo sta­tion and from the­re head north-east. Af­ter about 200 me­tres the as­phalt road runs left into the vil­la­ge, and to­wards the east the­re is a dirt road marked as a bi­cy­cle trail. Con­ti­nu­ing the course set by the trail you will reach your de­sti­na­tion af­ter 20 mi­nu­tes.



The car can be par­ked di­rec­tly in front of the ca­stle.


Bicycles will come al­most right up to the gate.




BIBLIOGRAPHY


1. M. Garniec, M. Jackiewicz-Garniec: Zamki państwa krzyżackiego w dawnych Prusach, studio Arta 2009
2. M. Haftka: Zamki krzyżackie w Polsce, 1999
3. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
4. M. Prarat, K. Zimna-Kawecka: Konserwatorskie i społeczne aspekty ochrony ruin zamków [...]
5. R. Sypek: Zamki i obiekty warowne Państwa Krzyżackiego, Agencja CB 2000
6. J. Wańkowska-Sobiesiak: Zamek w Szymbarku: budowa, zniszczenie [...], Ochrona zabytków 46/4 1993
7. P. Zaniewski: Szlakami zamków krzyżackich, Sport i Turystyka MUZA SA 2005


GREEN TOURIST TRAIL LEADS TO THE CASTLE


Castles nearby:
Prabuty - the relics of Pomezanian bishops' castle from the 13th century, 24 km
Lubawa - the relics of Chełmno bishops' castle from the 14th century, 32 km
Bratian - the relics of Teutonic castle from the 13/14th century, currently the mill, 38 km
Dzierzgoń - the relics of Teutonic castle from the 13th century, 38 km
Przezmark - the ruins of Teutonic castle from the 14th century, 44 km




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text: 2019
photographs: 2004, 2019
© Jacek Bednarek