Reminiscing

Countess Eleonora Dujková, née Bubna-Litic, has not written just another ordinary memoir of the kind that fills bookshop shelves. Yes, being born into a noble family of ancient lineage during the First Republic is in itself a seed for later drama. However, the author presents herself to us primarily as a woman and a mother. It is as if she knew from an early age that love and offspring are more important than the lustre of a coat of arms – which, moreover, the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century so eagerly spat upon.

This does not mean, however, that we cannot follow the twists and turns that have accompanied her long and fruitful life to date, brought about by an era that was out of joint. Let's mention just the Protectorate, when her father Mikuláš, a Czech patriot, joined Alois Eliáš's government, only to be “rewarded” after the liberation with more than a year in custody; 1949, when the comrades took advantage of the moment the whole family was at grandfather Michael's funeral and seized the castle, leaving her several-month-old daughter Markéta to wait for her unsuspecting mother in the freezing cold outside the gate; or 1968, when shots from Russian tanks scarred the interior of the Dujk family's flat on Palacký Square in Prague.

After the revolution, the castles of Doudleby nad Orlicí and Horní Jelení were returned to Eleonora and her brother Adam. The Countess (who sadly passed away in 2018 at the grand old age of 89) and her descendants now reside where the Bubna-Litic family has belonged since 1590, and where this book cordially invites you – to the unique and magnificent Doudleby nad Orlicí Castle.