Richard Nikolaus Von Coudenhove-Kalergi - Youth and Education

Youth and Education

Coudenhove-Kalergi passed his adolescence on Bohemian family estates in Ronsperg, known today as Poběžovice. His father personally taught his two sons Russian and Hungarian and toughened them both physically and morally. He took them on long walks in all weathers, made them sleep on straw mattresses and take cold showers, and taught them to shoot and fence so well that no one would ever dare challenge them. He also took them to Mass every Sunday. On every Good Friday, as the liturgy came to the exhortation "oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis" ("Let us also pray for the faithless Jews"), the old count allegedly rose and walked out of the church in a protest against this supposed expression of antisemitism.

Coudenhove-Kalergi studied at the Ecole épiscopale de Brixen (Brixen) before attending the Theresianische Akademie in Vienna from 1908 until 1913. He obtained his doctorate in philosophy with a thesis on Die Objectivität als Grundprinzip der Moral (The Objectivity as Fundamental Principle of Morals) in 1917 from the University of Vienna. While still in his student years, he married the famous Viennese actress Ida Roland in April 1915. His marriage to a divorcée thirteen years his senior and a commoner, caused a temporary split with his family.