| The Kunda
story passed down
The information we have from
Frances Kunda was handed down to us through her daughters, Sisters
Francesca and Joanette. This is roughly what we know.
Batholomew Kunda was born
in 1830 in Jiczin (now spelled Jicin), Bohemia, of a well-to-do family. He entered the seminary to become a
priest and was ordained a
sub-deacon.
At the age of 20, his father, a wealthy feudal lord,
died. Following the custom of primogeniture in which the eldest son
becomes the head of the family, Bartholomew left his studies to take
over his father's place and
administer the family's large estates.
When Austria took control of
Bohemia, the Kunda family lost all its lands and escaped to Poland.
Poland was later
partitioned between Russia, Prussia (Germany) and Austria. The
Kunda family settled in Podkamen southeast of Brody, (Kolo Brody,
Malinska Polska), which was located east of the present day city of Lwow,
Ukraine.
The town of Podkamen was
completely wiped out during the First World War. All that remains are the
ruins of a monastery and a huge outcropping of rock with a cemetery
nearby.
|
| Jicin is 50
kms south of Poland
Jicin,
pronounced in Czech "yee-chin", is located about 80 kms
northeast of Prague, about 50 kms south of the Polish border, in the
foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Note: there is another Jicin in
the Moravia sector of the Czech Republic, but our ancestors apparently
came from Bohemia.
Today Jicin is a pleasant
country town, fairly prosperous, with an agriculture-based economy. The historic centre of the town, pre-dating our Kunda ancestors,
includes a large attractive central square surrounded by colourful
buildings, a large church, and a picturesque clock tower.
We visited
several graveyards, checked the phone book, asked our hotelkeeper, but
found no evidence of Kundas, or Psutkas. Thus, I returned to Canada
with more questions than answers about the Kunda family, which has not
improved with subsequent research on Czech history.
|
| Why did the
Kunda family move north?
Were the Kundas Polish in origin or Czech?
When did the Kundas
leave the Jicin area? It seems that they left between 1850 when
Bartholomew Kunda died, and 1889 when our grandmother Frances Theresa Kunda was
born. A more definitive
answer is required on this before
addressing the next question.
Was there a final event, political,
social, religious, or agricultural, which led to the Kundas' departure from
Czechslovakia? |
| A history
of turmoil
We do know this part of Europe endured a long history of severe tensions.
Bohemia was dominated by German-speaking people throughout Czech
history until 1946. Throughout most of this time, the rulers were
Austrian (the Hapsburg Empire) until the close of World War I in 1918.
At the same time, in the 18th and 19th
Centuries, there were tensions
between the Czech and Slovak peoples -- their peaceful separation in
1991 was not the first separation.
Also, there were periodic
flare-ups of Czech nationalism against the Austrians and Germans. One such occasion was in 1848 when Czech nationalists rebelled, only to
have the Austrians inflict a number of years of repression. Was
this "the final event"?
Or was the Kunda
migration to Poland related to the
crop failures of the 1840's? During this period, Russia, ruled by
the Czars, controlled Poland, and the eastern Polish border extended
into what is now Ukraine. Their lure was free land. Unfortunately for the Kundas, and many other Czechs and Poles, any
benefit of the migration was short-lived.
|
| A lost
drama
At Sr.
Francesca's 60th anniversary reception we were able to briefly discuss
these points with a few Kunda relatives. Hopefully these discussions and
this article will lead to further revelations about our Kunda roots, a story
which may have more drama than we ever realized.
David Paleczny
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