Marie Henrieta Chotek - Legacy

Legacy

All the properties of the Chotek family were nationalized by the Czechoslovak communist authorities. The palace was converted into a psychiatric hospital which operated from 1949 to 1969. In 1969 it was converted into a retreat for Slovak writers and consequently became a museum. It still has this destination.

Nothing was left of the rosarium which had once been one of the finest in the world. The land was converted into agricultural land. The socialist economy needed crop production, not roses.

In the 1990s, German horticulturist Johannes Kalbus attempted to revive the tradition, by donating various precious rose cultivars to the Dolná Krupá domain. A new rosarium was created in Dolná Krupá in memory of the one which had belonged to Marie Henrieta Chotek. The new rosarium is sponsored by the Club of Rose Lovers of Slovakia ("Rosa Club"). Starting 1993 at the beginning of June the rosarium organizes an exhibition "The beauty of roses and of forms". Periodically seminars discussiong "Roses in human life" are organized. But the name of Maria Henrietta Chotekova, who established rose breeding in Dolná Krupá, seems to be forgotten is not mentioned any more.

Several rosarians have dedicat their roses to Marie Henrieta Chotek:

• Marie Henriette Gräfin Chotek created by Hermann Kiese in 1910;
• Marie Henriette Gräfin Chotek created by Peter Lambert in 1911;
• Hraběnka Choteková created by Jan Böhm în 1932

The cultivar created by Hermann Kiese in 1910 still survives and exists in the rosarium of Sangerhausen. And thus, the name of countess Marie Henrieta Chotek remains closely linked to the Union of Rose Lovers of Germany and reminds viewers of times long gone when roses alone could be the purpose of life.