WEBVTT
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We're going crazy this week and right
out of Australia. We've never really done
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that before. We did talk about
Eurovision and that was fun. So today
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we're going to Prague. It's a
lovely place. Disneyland I think is based
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on the look of Prague. We
happened to be there in spirit today talking
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to Dominic bub Nittic got it not
quite right? But how do you say
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your name, Dominic? Well,
when we were in Australia we said bubb
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analytic and when. But the real
pronunciation is I did struggle with the language
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when I was there. I'm Iroquois
was the closest I could get to something
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like thank you. Yeah. It's
like an unusual language too, isn't it.
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It's not really Latin based, is
that true? Yeah, it's a
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Slavonic language, much close sort of
Polish or even look. Good to meet
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you, Dominic. I've heard.
I've heard that you were a king of
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Zeck. Here is this correct?
I don't know what Greg's been saying.
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Well, I am from Perth as
well. Yes, everyone is from Perth.
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Pable that don't know it? Okay, cool, I went there.
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Greetings, dear listener, and welcome
to Prague. We'll leave the Perth chatter
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behind and travel back in time.
Now. About twenty years ago I made
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this program for Radio National with Dominic
and his wife Magdalena. We visited the
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family castle where his ancestors had ruled
some part of the country now known as
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the Czech Republic of us Nah Nasha's
uncle Doldla beats. This is a flashback
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episode, but next week we will
return to discuss Prague today, communism and
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some other things with Eddie and Count
Dominic himself. We've just opened the gates
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to the castle. It's snowing heavily. There's snow and ice everywhere. It's
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quite chilly. Yeah, we're just
living in a sort of one part of
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the castle, one side of the
castle, which is about six rooms plus
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two bathrooms. Because it is a
Renaissance castle, you often have to go
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out of the rooms into the courtyard
to get to another part of the castle
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through. That's where you sort of
meet the strangers on the courtyard. Do
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you know a little how the queen
feels and do you think British queen?
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Yes, I don't think I've ever
know she feels. I wouldn't think I
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would not so much how the Queen
feels. But when I think about,
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you know, Prince Harry, there's
just so much pressure on you all the
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time, and such a lack of
freedom and a lot of situations you can
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say, say an actor or something
they chose to take that role. You
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know. However, with Prince Harry, he was born into it and he
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has had that his whole life.
Is it sort of like a living museum
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in a way, now, well, yeah, except that people don't actually
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really walk through our bedrooms. But
otherwise of course it has that some feel
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to it. Really then, men, I said Dominic Buglis. My name
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is Domin. I was born in
Perth, Western Australia, and my father
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was born in the Czechoslovakia and he
immigrated in about the nineteen fifties. Dominic's
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father, Adam, grew up at
Todleby Castle. His life took him a
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long way from home. I did
not know one single solitary soul in Australia.
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Arrived in Australia with no money as
as a refugee or a displaced person
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in those days. And I'm terribly
grateful for the worldcome I received in Australia.
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Having been the one who had to
leave the country where you were sort
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of forced by the communists? Is
that true? Oh? Yeah, there
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was no other reason why they would
have left this country. I think it's
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been too long for feeling resentful,
and apart from that were I was very,
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very lucky because I think a lot
of people who have remained here and
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it did not become subjects to the
regime. Some of them suffered very severely
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and had them much more difficult lives
than I had. I found a job
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driving buses and it was quite acceptable
to the Australian authorities in those days,
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and from then I was more less
free. I did what I liked,
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was driving buses, buses up and
between person Fremantle. Did you tell many
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people in Australia that you were a
Czech aristocrat? Well I didn't didn't tell
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them, but it became quite obvious
to a lot of people. I've never
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used my title or anything like that. And do you feel Australian at all
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when? Oh yes, Oh yes. I spent most of my life in
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Australia. I was brought up in
both and went to high school, studied
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a little bit at university, like
music, a lot, just bumming around
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having a good time, and then
in about nine and eighty nine, I've
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just felt it was time for a
change, you know, I wanted to
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go on a holiday, see the
world a little bit tidy. So I
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came into Czechoslovakia on a three day
visa. Took me two days to get
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a job, and then I got
a work visa for six months, and
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then I kept on renewing that work
visa and since then I've been living here
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now for fifteen years, and I've
got wife, two children, and my
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own business MANUSA my Dana book Knowledgeis
or some Donaza dominic couple of knowledge kits.
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My name miss Megalana bug Knowledgis,
and I'm married to Dominic bub Knowledgis,
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and I work in the Castle of
dodl Be. My mother is check
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and my father is Swedish, so
it was a mixed relationship. And we
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were living in Sweden for quite a
while, and then we ended up in
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the Czech Republic in nineteen eighty five
and I've been living here ever since.
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Have you got any titles since you
married Dominic, Well, it would be
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countess, but it isn't because in
nineteen eighteen the Czech government decided to sort
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of get rid of all the titles, so there isn't actually anyone using titles
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in this country. Pretty much met
his father about nineteen ninety one, and
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that's where he came really and settled
down in Prague and started doing all the
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paperwork and trying to find all the
sort of documentation and the archives to prove
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that this property was his. And
he started claiming it and it took years,
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basically years of work, years of
court cases, and really the last
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bit of forest got returned in two
thousand and one. So what do you
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have to do to get a council
back, Well, you have to prove
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that you owned it. You have
to prove that you didn't collaborate with the
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Germans during the Second World War,
that you didn't lose it for any other
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reason, that you were aristocracy and
communists sort of party took it away from
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you, and that, luckily enough, was quite clear in Adams or Dominic's
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families, so there wasn't any problem
about that. Well, when the family
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rested shut it in or got it
sort of physically in nineteen ninety three,
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was not in such a catastrophic condition
as other places in the Czech Republic,
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but it was still, of course
very badly maintained in the last forty fifty
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years, so there was a lot
of things to do, and we've done,
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i would say, the small bits, and now we're starting to do
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the big bits. At the moment, we're doing for the second year in
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Row restoration of the outside facade,
which is a very complicated procedure since it's
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a scraffiti facade. In the Czech
Republic, there's hundreds and hundreds of castles,
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so people go on basically castle tours, either bicycling through the country or
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just driving. You know, Sunday
afternoon at the beach with the kids in
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Czech Republic is Sunday afternoon visiting the
different castles than museums and things like that.
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Bye bye bye, said bissanas Manistanagai
by by hot Man. Don't you've
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got lots of strangers just walking basically
in your court yard. Lots of strangers
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walk around the house all the time, of course, trying to peek into
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your residence or look at you even
personally, because they're interested in who you
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are and what you look like and
stuff like that. So it's very it's
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very formal. I feel when we're
there, especially in the summer season when
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the castle is open to the public. Do you actually have to dress up
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a little bit then, so you're
a little bit on display. Yeah,
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Basically that is an uncomfortable feeling because
you never feel free to basically just run
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around in t shirt or jeans or
anything like that. You sort of know
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that they're watching you all the time, they're judging you all the time.
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And do you feel any different or
becoming an aristocrat? No, I don't
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think so. No. I've definitely
had to sort of change my own feelings
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a little bit because I felt sort
of uncomfortable about it in the beginning when
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people were referring to it and it
was something new for me and I didn't
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really quite know what to sort of
feel about it. I've gotten more used
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to it now, and it is, of course like some people will react
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to it, and they themselves will
create an atmosphere about it that it is
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different or it is something that means
something. I don't personally feel it.
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I don't think Dominick does either.
Well. The title, you know,
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goes back quite a long time because
our family, the first history of our
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family comes from the Castle. Bull
Band which was built in thirteen twenty,
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and then our family sort of developed
and had several different castles over the last
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seven hundred years, and we are. The last castle that we were living
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in in the twentieth century was the
castle dord Labe nut Or. Let's see.
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Quite an amazing building. Yeah,
well, it's very beautifully done.
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There's a scraffito design on the walls
here that is totally unique in the Czech
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Republic. So what's that continual ortun
noise we're hearing. That's the ice melting
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off the roof through down the guttess. Okay, here we are my family
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castle, Doudlabe nut Or. Let's
see. This castle was built by my
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family in fifteen ninety. It's Italian
Renaissance style, which basically means that it's
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a square building with orchard. There's
no hallways because it's designed for the Italian
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summer, which pretty much on a
day like today, when it's about two
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degrees and there's snow everywhere, it's
pretty illogical. But this was mainly built
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for my family's hunting palace in the
summer. They didn't actually start really living
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in here until the beginning of the
nineteenth century. This was more the sort
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of weekend house or the summer house. You know, this is where they'd
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come. There's a lot of forests
nearby. They do a lot of hunting,
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and that we had our main castle
about twenty kilometers away in a place
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called Jamberg, and in the beginning
of the nineteenth century we accidentally lost that
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gambling. So it sounds very Australian. Yeah, probably, So you're saying
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that there wasn't even bigger castle than
this, oh yeah, yeah, and
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a much more livable club castle than
this. I of get space in the
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ceiling, definitely plenty of headspace,
but complete paint to maintain heating in winter.
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As you can probably feel now,
in winter it's about four or five
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degrees colder than outside, so like
where it's two degrees now, but we're
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in about minus four. If you
can come over here, I can show
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you how we used to heat the
place because what we'd have is large stoves
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inside and then the servants would actually
from outside heat inside, so they'd be
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the ones freezing. And we have
these doors here that they'd open up and
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fill up with wood here. So
the fact that the villages had to stay
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outside while your family were in there
being warm. Do you think that played
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any part in the changeover of government
systems. No, Well, the town
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is called Doddlebbe Odlitzi and Oddlitze is
the river that flows through the town.
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And the castle is just at one
end of this village, and it's called
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Doddlebe. It's it's just the same
name as the village, and it's on
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a little bit of a hill.
The village sort of is around it.
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We can oversee the village from the
castle. Do you have any idea what
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the villagers think now of the castle? The personal experience with most of the
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people has been pretty good, and
they're pretty happy that it's sort of back
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in the families sort of holding again, and that things are happening, and
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especially the older generation that has lift
through that period and still remember, for
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example, his grandfather or great grandfather
and things like that. They actually refer
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to Adam definitely, mostly as count. I guess you would always find people
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who envious or try to throw sticks
under your feet. Throw sticks under your
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feet, you don't say that in
English? Okay, Well, in check
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it means that they're trying to make
it harder for you. So you're walking
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and you're getting sticks thrown under your
feet, so sort of trick being and
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you have to slow down and stuff
like that. Do you know much about
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what your ancestors, what rights they
would have had over the villages? Well,
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that goes from the normal rights to
some pretty bizarre rides there was.
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For example, I would say one
of the most perverse rights that I find
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is the law of the first night, which is a law that meant that
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the local aristocrat could spend a night
with the newlyweds from the village. So
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if someone got married, your wife
would spend the first night with the local
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count I don't know how much my
ancestors took advantage of that right. Couldn't
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be that common to Habitstraians here especially
have come back to their castles. No,
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I really get the feeling a lot
of people see Australians in a lot
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of ways like we come from another
planet, because we've had a lot of
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different experiences, a lot more comfortable
lives than they have ever had, and
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it's very hard for us as Australians
to understand what these people had to go
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through, And in a way,
I think it's very hard for them to
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understand what we've gone through as well. Started. Yeah, yeah, when
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the Communists came in, what did
they tend to do to the nobility or
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whatever? Well, with my arm
for example, she stayed in the Czech
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Republic and she was given three choices
of employment. She could be a dishwasher,
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she could pick potatoes, or she
could go and work in the mines.
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And with the other aristocratic families,
do you know what they're like?
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Yeah, we meet them quite regularly, especially the ones that are in the
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sort of the local aristocracy. There
is a lot of friendships that goes over
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generations basically, so the generation of
Dominic's father, they would know each other
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really well, and then they went
off all over the world and her children
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and the children would never know sort
of, they hadn't met each other and
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they didn't know each other. So
what the parents were trying to do is
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get the children to know each other. So we had a lot of sort
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of meetings and just friendly balls and
I don't know whatever things. I mean,
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just picture a ball with dresses and
you have to dance and sit around
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chatting and talking. Today, the
Bolbnolydic family is joined in their Bohemian castle
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by another ex pat aristocrat, Dave, a former Canadian plumber, arrives and
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he's Harley Davidson to see you are
congratulation, Thank you, Okay, come
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on in clean. Thank you.
So you've just come to visit, Yes,
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I have came from Shampierre to visit
my dear friend Adam and his son
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dominic Us, exiles from nineteen forty
eight who have been restituted land here in
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the Czech Republic. We like to
get together every once in a while to
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reminiscent, go over the problems which
we have with our family, estates,
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and so on. A fourth roned, just to get together. When you're
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growing up in Canada, did you
have any thought that this might happen?
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No, of course not. No, that communism was the full swing and
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no one ever even thought about it. We knew that was an aristocratic family,
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We knew that they come from Czech
Republic, but they never really talked
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about it in such an a goal, like on a daily or a weekly
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basis. Now there is a sort
of a family togetherness that's felt among the
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whole of the Czech aristocracy. They
are not very many families, but they
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all know each other. They've come
from as far as Canada, America,
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France, Australia. Definitely, dear
friend Adam and the same as as Dave's
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father. We came back at about
the same time. We met up together
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and started by sharing the same lawyer
to restitute our properties, and because we
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knew each other from even the times
during the war and so on. What
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sort of person would you describe yourself
as That's a difficult question for me to
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answer. I would say this a
happy, go lucky trying to do is
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the right thing here in a totally
different environment. You know, I've had
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to bite my lip quite often for
things that I know how they should go
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go differently here, But you know, I try, through example to teach
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everybody here, or at least my
employees, how I would like things to
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be done, and so far it
seems to be working. Do you think
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there was any good points about the
communist idea of trying to redistribute some of
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that wealthing? Absolutely not, absolutely
not, because communism, as we know,
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is a wheel which can't spin.
It's good for one or two people
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and it's bad for millions. So
no, I cannot agree with that at
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all. There's absolutely nothing in the
communist ideals which I could ever fancy nothing
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now, and you can see it
in the country that nothing happened here.
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From nineteen forty eight till nineteen eighty
nine, nothing happened. I would agree
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with David. I wouldn't be as
medical as Davis that nothing happened. Certain
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things happened, but the most things
that did happen were the negative things that
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the Communist rashim has brought upon this
country. And what is very interesting that
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the capital city of Prague has in
the last eleven years completely changed color.
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It used to be dark gray and
now it's mainly light, full of light
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colors. It looks when you look
at the town, it looks happy.
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It's it's a much more content place
than it used to be ten or eleven
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years ago. The Czech capital Prague
has rapidly been westernizing. Today the various
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generations who live there have had widely
different experiences of local government. Nobody den
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Manusa, Catina Lingley. Hello,
My name was Catch Langley. I grew
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up in the Czech Republic. I
was born in nineteen seventy two, so
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I lived through about seventeen years of
the communist times. And I think it's
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really hard to really say what it
was like, because I was a kid,
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so for me, it was normal
childhood. I suppose is there big
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changes then that you remember from your
childhood to now. Oh yeah, definitely,
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Like a lot of foreigners do come
to this country, and a lot
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of cars when I look around,
and I suppose it is amazing that we
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can travel abroad which we couldn't before, and things like that, a lot
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of food in the shops, a
lot of films, books that we can
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read now. Actually, people not
being scared of the police. I think
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that's one of the very interesting things. When I walked down the street now
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and I meet a policeman, I'm
not actually scared anymore. I just remember
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actually now that I can't understand how
it was possible. But when I was
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at home, I thought the police
were bad people, and when I was
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at school, I thought they were
really good people, because that's what they
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told us at school. And I
was thinking about it a couple of years
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ago, how my brain could have
worked like that. But that was exactly
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what it was like, as if
it was two groups of completely separate people.
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What do you think of all these
people coming back to get the castles?
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00:25:56.799 --> 00:26:02.960
Ah? Well, I don't really
have much of an opinion. I
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think it's fair enough because if they
owned the castles and the castles were taken
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away from them, then they should
just have them again. And I'm not
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against it at all, because I
think whomever has it and looks after it,
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it's great and it's their property,
and I think nobody should take it
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away from them, even though I
don't know national historical heritage or whatever,
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because it's not ours, it's theirs, and if they look after it properly,
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it's great. The Communists transferred the
castles into museums, a thing of
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the past. No longer did you
have people maintaining castles as cultural centers where
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people would actually live. It was
always saying this was the past. This
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no longer happens. We are now
in a communist world, a better world
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where we respect that past, but
this is the future. Do you think
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life is any better now than for
those sort of villages and it was in
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the communist era? Yes, and
no. The opportunities for the villagers have
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not been so great. It's much
better for the cities. Half of my
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00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:29.599
family and my mother's side is from
Prague and the Czech Republic, so I
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could see their opinion and they were
really happy about it and thought that was
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the way it should be. But
then again, my sort of grandfather and
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grandmother, they were always very much
against the Communist Party, and probably because
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of that, I don't really know
many people who were pro communists, so
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I can't say that side of the
story. There must still be people here
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who are pro communists, very much
so. I mean, if you look
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at the results of the elections,
there is still a very stable twelve thirteen
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00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:07.880
percent year after year that is voting
Communists. And what's interesting is that it's
286
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the very old generation and actually newly
very young people around eighteen just the first
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00:28:15.079 --> 00:28:18.799
voting, and that's interesting. But
I think it's also the first generation of
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00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:23.039
people who actually never really grew up
during communism, or they were like eight
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or seven or something like that.
Now that you're back, do you feel
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00:28:42.279 --> 00:28:48.079
any different to the local people in
any way? Well, very much so.
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I mean they had have a very
different life than us. I mean,
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00:28:52.119 --> 00:28:57.119
they've gone through so many political changes
over a hundred year period of time,
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and you look at the effect that
would have on people and the way
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they think, and you compare that, say you to your own life in
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00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.559
Australia. Okay, we had the
Liberal Party for a while, and then
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we had the Labor Party. It's
Malfraser and then GoF Whitler and after that,
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00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:22.039
god knows, you never had say
Hitler or style and being in control,
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00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:25.640
and these guys were a bit more
extreme than Malfraser and GoF Witler.
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00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:37.319
Do you feel differently about your father
now and you've experienced all this well,
300
00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:44.319
very much so, because in Australia, I was very much brought up as
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00:29:44.319 --> 00:29:48.839
an Australian and thinking as an Australian. I found certain behaviors and ideas of
302
00:29:48.960 --> 00:29:55.119
my father very unusual. They didn't
seem to fit and I thought I thought
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00:29:55.160 --> 00:29:57.839
he was a bit crazy because of
his ideas, and I think my brothers
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00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:03.400
did as well. And then I
came here and I looked around and I
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00:30:03.519 --> 00:30:10.240
saw people were actually agreeing with my
father. And I would say my normal
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00:30:10.319 --> 00:30:14.079
opinions in Australia, people here would
say, ah, you're crazy. You
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00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:27.240
know, where do you come from? Sometimes I feel with my children or
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00:30:27.400 --> 00:30:30.839
our children, that they are a
pretty big mixture and they have to face
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00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:36.279
up to having aunts and uncles all
over the globe. I wonder if they
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00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:40.880
will feel sort of like this is
their home, if that's where they will
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00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:45.799
refer to as their homeland, or
what they will do in their lives,
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00:30:45.920 --> 00:30:49.119
if they'll maybe choose Australia one day
or something. And that's it for this
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00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:55.240
episode. Thanks to Judy Rapley and
Claudia Taranto at Radio National and everyone in
314
00:30:55.319 --> 00:30:59.480
the program. Will return next episode
with Dominic and Eddie to talk about Prague
315
00:30:59.519 --> 00:31:00.920
communist and more. Thanks for listening.
1
00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:08.359
We're going crazy this week and right
out of Australia. We've never really done
2
00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:13.599
that before. We did talk about
Eurovision and that was fun. So today
3
00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:20.559
we're going to Prague. It's a
lovely place. Disneyland I think is based
4
00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:25.920
on the look of Prague. We
happened to be there in spirit today talking
5
00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:31.480
to Dominic bub Nittic got it not
quite right? But how do you say
6
00:00:31.519 --> 00:00:34.600
your name, Dominic? Well,
when we were in Australia we said bubb
7
00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:42.640
analytic and when. But the real
pronunciation is I did struggle with the language
8
00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:47.840
when I was there. I'm Iroquois
was the closest I could get to something
9
00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:53.240
like thank you. Yeah. It's
like an unusual language too, isn't it.
10
00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:58.280
It's not really Latin based, is
that true? Yeah, it's a
11
00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:02.880
Slavonic language, much close sort of
Polish or even look. Good to meet
12
00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:04.120
you, Dominic. I've heard.
I've heard that you were a king of
13
00:01:04.599 --> 00:01:08.120
Zeck. Here is this correct?
I don't know what Greg's been saying.
14
00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:15.120
Well, I am from Perth as
well. Yes, everyone is from Perth.
15
00:01:15.400 --> 00:01:18.439
Pable that don't know it? Okay, cool, I went there.
16
00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:23.400
Greetings, dear listener, and welcome
to Prague. We'll leave the Perth chatter
17
00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:29.840
behind and travel back in time.
Now. About twenty years ago I made
18
00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:34.159
this program for Radio National with Dominic
and his wife Magdalena. We visited the
19
00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:40.359
family castle where his ancestors had ruled
some part of the country now known as
20
00:01:40.359 --> 00:01:49.920
the Czech Republic of us Nah Nasha's
uncle Doldla beats. This is a flashback
21
00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:56.359
episode, but next week we will
return to discuss Prague today, communism and
22
00:01:56.439 --> 00:02:01.519
some other things with Eddie and Count
Dominic himself. We've just opened the gates
23
00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:07.920
to the castle. It's snowing heavily. There's snow and ice everywhere. It's
24
00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:19.400
quite chilly. Yeah, we're just
living in a sort of one part of
25
00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:24.800
the castle, one side of the
castle, which is about six rooms plus
26
00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:36.159
two bathrooms. Because it is a
Renaissance castle, you often have to go
27
00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:38.840
out of the rooms into the courtyard
to get to another part of the castle
28
00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:46.400
through. That's where you sort of
meet the strangers on the courtyard. Do
29
00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:52.280
you know a little how the queen
feels and do you think British queen?
30
00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:59.439
Yes, I don't think I've ever
know she feels. I wouldn't think I
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00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:02.439
would not so much how the Queen
feels. But when I think about,
32
00:03:02.599 --> 00:03:07.560
you know, Prince Harry, there's
just so much pressure on you all the
33
00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:13.080
time, and such a lack of
freedom and a lot of situations you can
34
00:03:13.159 --> 00:03:17.280
say, say an actor or something
they chose to take that role. You
35
00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:23.400
know. However, with Prince Harry, he was born into it and he
36
00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:32.919
has had that his whole life.
Is it sort of like a living museum
37
00:03:32.919 --> 00:03:38.280
in a way, now, well, yeah, except that people don't actually
38
00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:46.639
really walk through our bedrooms. But
otherwise of course it has that some feel
39
00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:51.919
to it. Really then, men, I said Dominic Buglis. My name
40
00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:57.479
is Domin. I was born in
Perth, Western Australia, and my father
41
00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:03.360
was born in the Czechoslovakia and he
immigrated in about the nineteen fifties. Dominic's
42
00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:08.639
father, Adam, grew up at
Todleby Castle. His life took him a
43
00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:16.680
long way from home. I did
not know one single solitary soul in Australia.
44
00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:27.360
Arrived in Australia with no money as
as a refugee or a displaced person
45
00:04:27.439 --> 00:04:34.759
in those days. And I'm terribly
grateful for the worldcome I received in Australia.
46
00:04:35.399 --> 00:04:39.920
Having been the one who had to
leave the country where you were sort
47
00:04:39.959 --> 00:04:42.680
of forced by the communists? Is
that true? Oh? Yeah, there
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00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:46.639
was no other reason why they would
have left this country. I think it's
49
00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:53.759
been too long for feeling resentful,
and apart from that were I was very,
50
00:04:53.920 --> 00:05:00.199
very lucky because I think a lot
of people who have remained here and
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00:05:00.439 --> 00:05:10.319
it did not become subjects to the
regime. Some of them suffered very severely
52
00:05:10.519 --> 00:05:15.040
and had them much more difficult lives
than I had. I found a job
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00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:21.240
driving buses and it was quite acceptable
to the Australian authorities in those days,
54
00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.920
and from then I was more less
free. I did what I liked,
55
00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:32.519
was driving buses, buses up and
between person Fremantle. Did you tell many
56
00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:39.519
people in Australia that you were a
Czech aristocrat? Well I didn't didn't tell
57
00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:44.319
them, but it became quite obvious
to a lot of people. I've never
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00:05:44.519 --> 00:05:48.240
used my title or anything like that. And do you feel Australian at all
59
00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:54.839
when? Oh yes, Oh yes. I spent most of my life in
60
00:05:54.920 --> 00:06:12.920
Australia. I was brought up in
both and went to high school, studied
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00:06:12.959 --> 00:06:16.720
a little bit at university, like
music, a lot, just bumming around
62
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having a good time, and then
in about nine and eighty nine, I've
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00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:24.519
just felt it was time for a
change, you know, I wanted to
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00:06:24.519 --> 00:06:31.439
go on a holiday, see the
world a little bit tidy. So I
65
00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:36.560
came into Czechoslovakia on a three day
visa. Took me two days to get
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00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:42.240
a job, and then I got
a work visa for six months, and
67
00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:46.319
then I kept on renewing that work
visa and since then I've been living here
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00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:50.480
now for fifteen years, and I've
got wife, two children, and my
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00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:59.439
own business MANUSA my Dana book Knowledgeis
or some Donaza dominic couple of knowledge kits.
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00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:02.480
My name miss Megalana bug Knowledgis,
and I'm married to Dominic bub Knowledgis,
71
00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:13.120
and I work in the Castle of
dodl Be. My mother is check
72
00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:16.199
and my father is Swedish, so
it was a mixed relationship. And we
73
00:07:16.319 --> 00:07:19.959
were living in Sweden for quite a
while, and then we ended up in
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00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:25.480
the Czech Republic in nineteen eighty five
and I've been living here ever since.
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Have you got any titles since you
married Dominic, Well, it would be
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00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:36.399
countess, but it isn't because in
nineteen eighteen the Czech government decided to sort
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00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:42.480
of get rid of all the titles, so there isn't actually anyone using titles
78
00:07:42.519 --> 00:07:50.319
in this country. Pretty much met
his father about nineteen ninety one, and
79
00:07:50.439 --> 00:07:57.319
that's where he came really and settled
down in Prague and started doing all the
80
00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:03.879
paperwork and trying to find all the
sort of documentation and the archives to prove
81
00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:11.040
that this property was his. And
he started claiming it and it took years,
82
00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:15.439
basically years of work, years of
court cases, and really the last
83
00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:20.800
bit of forest got returned in two
thousand and one. So what do you
84
00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.079
have to do to get a council
back, Well, you have to prove
85
00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:28.920
that you owned it. You have
to prove that you didn't collaborate with the
86
00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:33.639
Germans during the Second World War,
that you didn't lose it for any other
87
00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:41.679
reason, that you were aristocracy and
communists sort of party took it away from
88
00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:46.960
you, and that, luckily enough, was quite clear in Adams or Dominic's
89
00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:52.240
families, so there wasn't any problem
about that. Well, when the family
90
00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:58.840
rested shut it in or got it
sort of physically in nineteen ninety three,
91
00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:05.159
was not in such a catastrophic condition
as other places in the Czech Republic,
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but it was still, of course
very badly maintained in the last forty fifty
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years, so there was a lot
of things to do, and we've done,
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i would say, the small bits, and now we're starting to do
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the big bits. At the moment, we're doing for the second year in
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Row restoration of the outside facade,
which is a very complicated procedure since it's
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a scraffiti facade. In the Czech
Republic, there's hundreds and hundreds of castles,
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so people go on basically castle tours, either bicycling through the country or
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just driving. You know, Sunday
afternoon at the beach with the kids in
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Czech Republic is Sunday afternoon visiting the
different castles than museums and things like that.
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Bye bye bye, said bissanas Manistanagai
by by hot Man. Don't you've
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got lots of strangers just walking basically
in your court yard. Lots of strangers
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walk around the house all the time, of course, trying to peek into
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your residence or look at you even
personally, because they're interested in who you
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are and what you look like and
stuff like that. So it's very it's
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very formal. I feel when we're
there, especially in the summer season when
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the castle is open to the public. Do you actually have to dress up
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a little bit then, so you're
a little bit on display. Yeah,
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Basically that is an uncomfortable feeling because
you never feel free to basically just run
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around in t shirt or jeans or
anything like that. You sort of know
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that they're watching you all the time, they're judging you all the time.
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And do you feel any different or
becoming an aristocrat? No, I don't
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think so. No. I've definitely
had to sort of change my own feelings
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a little bit because I felt sort
of uncomfortable about it in the beginning when
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people were referring to it and it
was something new for me and I didn't
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really quite know what to sort of
feel about it. I've gotten more used
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to it now, and it is, of course like some people will react
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to it, and they themselves will
create an atmosphere about it that it is
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different or it is something that means
something. I don't personally feel it.
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I don't think Dominick does either.
Well. The title, you know,
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goes back quite a long time because
our family, the first history of our
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family comes from the Castle. Bull
Band which was built in thirteen twenty,
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and then our family sort of developed
and had several different castles over the last
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seven hundred years, and we are. The last castle that we were living
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in in the twentieth century was the
castle dord Labe nut Or. Let's see.
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Quite an amazing building. Yeah,
well, it's very beautifully done.
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There's a scraffito design on the walls
here that is totally unique in the Czech
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Republic. So what's that continual ortun
noise we're hearing. That's the ice melting
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off the roof through down the guttess. Okay, here we are my family
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castle, Doudlabe nut Or. Let's
see. This castle was built by my
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family in fifteen ninety. It's Italian
Renaissance style, which basically means that it's
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a square building with orchard. There's
no hallways because it's designed for the Italian
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summer, which pretty much on a
day like today, when it's about two
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degrees and there's snow everywhere, it's
pretty illogical. But this was mainly built
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for my family's hunting palace in the
summer. They didn't actually start really living
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in here until the beginning of the
nineteenth century. This was more the sort
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of weekend house or the summer house. You know, this is where they'd
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come. There's a lot of forests
nearby. They do a lot of hunting,
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and that we had our main castle
about twenty kilometers away in a place
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called Jamberg, and in the beginning
of the nineteenth century we accidentally lost that
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gambling. So it sounds very Australian. Yeah, probably, So you're saying
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that there wasn't even bigger castle than
this, oh yeah, yeah, and
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a much more livable club castle than
this. I of get space in the
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ceiling, definitely plenty of headspace,
but complete paint to maintain heating in winter.
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As you can probably feel now,
in winter it's about four or five
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degrees colder than outside, so like
where it's two degrees now, but we're
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in about minus four. If you
can come over here, I can show
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you how we used to heat the
place because what we'd have is large stoves
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inside and then the servants would actually
from outside heat inside, so they'd be
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the ones freezing. And we have
these doors here that they'd open up and
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fill up with wood here. So
the fact that the villages had to stay
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outside while your family were in there
being warm. Do you think that played
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any part in the changeover of government
systems. No, Well, the town
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is called Doddlebbe Odlitzi and Oddlitze is
the river that flows through the town.
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And the castle is just at one
end of this village, and it's called
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Doddlebe. It's it's just the same
name as the village, and it's on
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a little bit of a hill.
The village sort of is around it.
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We can oversee the village from the
castle. Do you have any idea what
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the villagers think now of the castle? The personal experience with most of the
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people has been pretty good, and
they're pretty happy that it's sort of back
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in the families sort of holding again, and that things are happening, and
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especially the older generation that has lift
through that period and still remember, for
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example, his grandfather or great grandfather
and things like that. They actually refer
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to Adam definitely, mostly as count. I guess you would always find people
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who envious or try to throw sticks
under your feet. Throw sticks under your
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feet, you don't say that in
English? Okay, Well, in check
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it means that they're trying to make
it harder for you. So you're walking
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and you're getting sticks thrown under your
feet, so sort of trick being and
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you have to slow down and stuff
like that. Do you know much about
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what your ancestors, what rights they
would have had over the villages? Well,
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that goes from the normal rights to
some pretty bizarre rides there was.
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For example, I would say one
of the most perverse rights that I find
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is the law of the first night, which is a law that meant that
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the local aristocrat could spend a night
with the newlyweds from the village. So
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if someone got married, your wife
would spend the first night with the local
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count I don't know how much my
ancestors took advantage of that right. Couldn't
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be that common to Habitstraians here especially
have come back to their castles. No,
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I really get the feeling a lot
of people see Australians in a lot
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of ways like we come from another
planet, because we've had a lot of
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different experiences, a lot more comfortable
lives than they have ever had, and
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it's very hard for us as Australians
to understand what these people had to go
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through, And in a way,
I think it's very hard for them to
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understand what we've gone through as well. Started. Yeah, yeah, when
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the Communists came in, what did
they tend to do to the nobility or
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whatever? Well, with my arm
for example, she stayed in the Czech
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Republic and she was given three choices
of employment. She could be a dishwasher,
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she could pick potatoes, or she
could go and work in the mines.
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And with the other aristocratic families,
do you know what they're like?
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Yeah, we meet them quite regularly, especially the ones that are in the
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sort of the local aristocracy. There
is a lot of friendships that goes over
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generations basically, so the generation of
Dominic's father, they would know each other
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really well, and then they went
off all over the world and her children
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and the children would never know sort
of, they hadn't met each other and
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they didn't know each other. So
what the parents were trying to do is
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get the children to know each other. So we had a lot of sort
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of meetings and just friendly balls and
I don't know whatever things. I mean,
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just picture a ball with dresses and
you have to dance and sit around
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chatting and talking. Today, the
Bolbnolydic family is joined in their Bohemian castle
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by another ex pat aristocrat, Dave, a former Canadian plumber, arrives and
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he's Harley Davidson to see you are
congratulation, Thank you, Okay, come
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on in clean. Thank you.
So you've just come to visit, Yes,
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I have came from Shampierre to visit
my dear friend Adam and his son
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dominic Us, exiles from nineteen forty
eight who have been restituted land here in
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the Czech Republic. We like to
get together every once in a while to
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reminiscent, go over the problems which
we have with our family, estates,
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and so on. A fourth roned, just to get together. When you're
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growing up in Canada, did you
have any thought that this might happen?
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No, of course not. No, that communism was the full swing and
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no one ever even thought about it. We knew that was an aristocratic family,
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We knew that they come from Czech
Republic, but they never really talked
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about it in such an a goal, like on a daily or a weekly
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basis. Now there is a sort
of a family togetherness that's felt among the
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whole of the Czech aristocracy. They
are not very many families, but they
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all know each other. They've come
from as far as Canada, America,
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France, Australia. Definitely, dear
friend Adam and the same as as Dave's
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father. We came back at about
the same time. We met up together
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and started by sharing the same lawyer
to restitute our properties, and because we
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knew each other from even the times
during the war and so on. What
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sort of person would you describe yourself
as That's a difficult question for me to
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answer. I would say this a
happy, go lucky trying to do is
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the right thing here in a totally
different environment. You know, I've had
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to bite my lip quite often for
things that I know how they should go
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go differently here, But you know, I try, through example to teach
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everybody here, or at least my
employees, how I would like things to
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be done, and so far it
seems to be working. Do you think
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there was any good points about the
communist idea of trying to redistribute some of
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that wealthing? Absolutely not, absolutely
not, because communism, as we know,
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is a wheel which can't spin.
It's good for one or two people
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and it's bad for millions. So
no, I cannot agree with that at
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all. There's absolutely nothing in the
communist ideals which I could ever fancy nothing
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now, and you can see it
in the country that nothing happened here.
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From nineteen forty eight till nineteen eighty
nine, nothing happened. I would agree
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with David. I wouldn't be as
medical as Davis that nothing happened. Certain
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things happened, but the most things
that did happen were the negative things that
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the Communist rashim has brought upon this
country. And what is very interesting that
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the capital city of Prague has in
the last eleven years completely changed color.
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It used to be dark gray and
now it's mainly light, full of light
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colors. It looks when you look
at the town, it looks happy.
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It's it's a much more content place
than it used to be ten or eleven
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years ago. The Czech capital Prague
has rapidly been westernizing. Today the various
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generations who live there have had widely
different experiences of local government. Nobody den
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Manusa, Catina Lingley. Hello,
My name was Catch Langley. I grew
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up in the Czech Republic. I
was born in nineteen seventy two, so
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I lived through about seventeen years of
the communist times. And I think it's
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really hard to really say what it
was like, because I was a kid,
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so for me, it was normal
childhood. I suppose is there big
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changes then that you remember from your
childhood to now. Oh yeah, definitely,
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Like a lot of foreigners do come
to this country, and a lot
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of cars when I look around,
and I suppose it is amazing that we
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can travel abroad which we couldn't before, and things like that, a lot
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of food in the shops, a
lot of films, books that we can
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read now. Actually, people not
being scared of the police. I think
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that's one of the very interesting things. When I walked down the street now
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and I meet a policeman, I'm
not actually scared anymore. I just remember
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actually now that I can't understand how
it was possible. But when I was
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at home, I thought the police
were bad people, and when I was
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at school, I thought they were
really good people, because that's what they
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told us at school. And I
was thinking about it a couple of years
259
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ago, how my brain could have
worked like that. But that was exactly
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what it was like, as if
it was two groups of completely separate people.
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What do you think of all these
people coming back to get the castles?
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Ah? Well, I don't really
have much of an opinion. I
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think it's fair enough because if they
owned the castles and the castles were taken
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away from them, then they should
just have them again. And I'm not
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against it at all, because I
think whomever has it and looks after it,
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it's great and it's their property,
and I think nobody should take it
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away from them, even though I
don't know national historical heritage or whatever,
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because it's not ours, it's theirs, and if they look after it properly,
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it's great. The Communists transferred the
castles into museums, a thing of
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the past. No longer did you
have people maintaining castles as cultural centers where
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people would actually live. It was
always saying this was the past. This
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no longer happens. We are now
in a communist world, a better world
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where we respect that past, but
this is the future. Do you think
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life is any better now than for
those sort of villages and it was in
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the communist era? Yes, and
no. The opportunities for the villagers have
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not been so great. It's much
better for the cities. Half of my
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family and my mother's side is from
Prague and the Czech Republic, so I
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could see their opinion and they were
really happy about it and thought that was
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the way it should be. But
then again, my sort of grandfather and
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grandmother, they were always very much
against the Communist Party, and probably because
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of that, I don't really know
many people who were pro communists, so
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I can't say that side of the
story. There must still be people here
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who are pro communists, very much
so. I mean, if you look
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at the results of the elections,
there is still a very stable twelve thirteen
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percent year after year that is voting
Communists. And what's interesting is that it's
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the very old generation and actually newly
very young people around eighteen just the first
287
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voting, and that's interesting. But
I think it's also the first generation of
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people who actually never really grew up
during communism, or they were like eight
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or seven or something like that.
Now that you're back, do you feel
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any different to the local people in
any way? Well, very much so.
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I mean they had have a very
different life than us. I mean,
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they've gone through so many political changes
over a hundred year period of time,
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and you look at the effect that
would have on people and the way
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they think, and you compare that, say you to your own life in
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Australia. Okay, we had the
Liberal Party for a while, and then
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we had the Labor Party. It's
Malfraser and then GoF Whitler and after that,
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god knows, you never had say
Hitler or style and being in control,
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and these guys were a bit more
extreme than Malfraser and GoF Witler.
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Do you feel differently about your father
now and you've experienced all this well,
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very much so, because in Australia, I was very much brought up as
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an Australian and thinking as an Australian. I found certain behaviors and ideas of
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my father very unusual. They didn't
seem to fit and I thought I thought
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he was a bit crazy because of
his ideas, and I think my brothers
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did as well. And then I
came here and I looked around and I
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saw people were actually agreeing with my
father. And I would say my normal
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opinions in Australia, people here would
say, ah, you're crazy. You
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know, where do you come from? Sometimes I feel with my children or
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our children, that they are a
pretty big mixture and they have to face
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up to having aunts and uncles all
over the globe. I wonder if they
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will feel sort of like this is
their home, if that's where they will
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refer to as their homeland, or
what they will do in their lives,
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if they'll maybe choose Australia one day
or something. And that's it for this
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episode. Thanks to Judy Rapley and
Claudia Taranto at Radio National and everyone in
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the program. Will return next episode
with Dominic and Eddie to talk about Prague
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communist and more. Thanks for listening.
