You can touch everything

Po Polsce [In English] — Napisane przez: Anna Borsukiewicz. Opublikowano: 14/05/2010 6:00

To tell you the truth, we weren’t going to enter it at all. In no way we could associate this large styleless building covered with tarred roofing paper, with Teutonic Order strongholds visited by us so far. And the heap of rubble behind the gate didn’t look interesting either. If not the drizzle and cold outside, probably we wouldn’t have let Ms. Liliana invite us to the Morąg castle tour. And we would never have found out what we had missed. Nobody of us has seen such an original museum before.

It isn’t a museum but our house – Ms. Liliana stressed almost at the very beginning. She introduced herself as the host of the castle. We learnt later on that she was also called the „castellan”. And indeed – there are no tickets (the money for touring is to be thrown into a money box), you can look everywhere, nobody is forbidding to touch or to hold the exhibits, or to sit on or to lie down on the large bed. Interiors are filled up with various furniture and objects from different periods. Although they don’t come genuinely from the castle, competently exposed, as a whole they create an original composition.

The stronghold, school, court, cinema…

As I have already mentioned, the castle’s courtyard isn’t impressive, however after Ms. Liliana had informed us that the walls were made from authentic Gothic bricks, we were looking at them with interest greater than before. They are the remains of the ancient stronghold. Before they were discovered, thousands of cubic metres of soil, rubble and rubbish had been taken out of this area. Beneath them archaeologists discovered stone-brick foundations of a defensive establishing dating back to the Teutonic times – the basements, two towers, the moat and walls. They were protected and partly re-built so that they gave an idea of the size of the castle, which was once a residence of the Order’s commune administrators, and then it became a commandry. Heinrich Reuss von Plauen, the Grand Master of Teutonic Knights lived in Morąg and died there in 1470.

Then, after the laicization of the Teutonic state, Piotr zu Dohna, the member of one of the most important aristocratic German families, became a district administrator of the castle. The Dohnas owned huge estates in Pomerania, but the Morąg castle wasn’t their favourite one. In the second half of the 16th century they built the palace in the city, to which they moved. The abandoned castle started falling into ruin. Its defensive tower collapsed, it was partly taken to pieces. From the former 13th century stronghold only the buildings of the castle’s north-western wing remained. In Prussian and German times, as well as after World War II, when Morąg was within the borders of Poland, the buildings performed different functions, such as a Protestant chapel, school, court, prison, archive, and then, in the 1990’s, a cinema with a disco.

The castle for sale…

More or less ten years ago an announcement was published in the domestic press: „The castle of the Teutonic Knights in Masuria, for sale…” I don’t know what its future owner saw in this big styleless building, but apparently he had to have great imagination and considerable financial resources to decide for such investment. Only cleaning and clearing the courtyard of rubble, and then conducting excavations in it required huge expenditures.

The castle however „paid back” for the concern and started revealing its secrets. Not only in the courtyard. In 2002 the next discovery was made. After the ceiling in rooms once serving the court was removed, pine tie-beams with Renaissance polychromes appeared.

- It is a true sensation. Nobody had an idea of their existence – says Liliana. They survived in a very good condition. The masterful plant motifs predominate. However among them it is possible to notice portraits of men in various dresses (even a man wearing a turban).

These paintings cover the surface of more than 120 square metres and are regarded the most valuable elements of the restored object. There are also other elements from the ancient castle, as for instance a fragment of the sixteenth-century wooden floor.

They harmonize well with much later furniture and other elements of equipments, found by the owners and brought to the castle. Furniture dates from various ages. Many of them require refreshing, like e.g. the 19th-century dresser with sculptures, now covered with layers of white oil paint. When removed, the wood will be waxed and the piece of furniture will regain the former appearance. It has already happened with the old wardrobe coming from some church.

The way the rooms are equipped, although they contain the most different elements, has a charm. This seeming mess of palace furniture and those of more plebeian origin is creating the harmonious wholeness. An old, wooden rocking horse is admired by everyone; nobody will pass indifferently by the large, two-handed sword of the length exceeding the height of the adult man. – It is a replica – says Ms. Liliana letting us remove the weapon from the stand and take a photograph with it. A skull found in the castle moat and exposed in the entrance hall, is another secret object. Nobody knows what animal it belonged to.

Different large beds placed in chambers also draw our attention. You can sit on each one of them, and even spend a night, as the rooms are let for various kinds of events. However it isn’t quite safe.

Ghosts in the castle

One day a couple that stayed overnight there after the wedding, woke me up in the middle of the night. The bride and groom told that they already wanted to go back home. They looked scared. I didn’t ask why because I knew that strange things happened in the castle – says Ms. Liliana. – For example „somebody” pushed a girl off the chair standing by the desk. She was scared so much that she could not utter even a word for some time. Repeatedly, walking through the rooms we notice some shadows. At one time my dog growled at the empty wall with the hair bristled up. Now it won’t go upstairs, not for love or money.

We listened to these stories with understanding. After all every well respected castle has its ghost. Where the apparitions in the castle of Morąg come from? One version has it is a ghost of the mentioned above Heinrich Reuss von Plauen, the Grand Master of Teutonic Knights who passed away there. Or might it be the headless apparition of Barbara Schwann?

Ms. Liliana told us the story, which happened in Morąg in 1749. The 14 years old Barbara was tortured and executed for strangling and burying her baby. During the public execution the girl was beheaded, and then her head was stuck on the pike and put on the municipal walls as the warning for infanticides. Barbara’s mother was a housemaid in the castle and the girl probably used to pop in there. The name of the baby’s father remained unknown.

I found a few more ghost stories from Morąg while searching the Internet for additional information concerning the castle. Personally, we haven’t been scared by anything, maybe because we were there in the middle of the day. In front of the gate however is a sign saying „Warning! Ghosts” and those avid for thrills can agree for a night touring.

Morąg – town,

The Warmia and Mazuria Province, Ostróda District

GPS – N: 53°54’57″ E: 19°55’40″

It is worthwhile seeing

During the visit to Morąg it is also worthwhile to see:

• Rozlewisko Morąskie (floodwaters) neighbouring the castle, with the mainstay of the water fowl. More than 150 bird species are nesting there, from which eighteen are on the list of the „Polish red book of animals”.

• The Gothic church from the beginning of the 14th century, with the baroque altar and the huge wooden crucifix from the end of the 14th century and wonderful 18th century organs, built by the outstanding local master Matthias Obuch in 1705, and with baroque, carved altars. There are also epitaphs of the Dohna family. There is also the monument by the church, of the most famous citizen of Morąg, Johann Gottfried of Herder (1744-1803). He was a German philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment period. He spent first 18 years of his life in the town. His family house stood there till 1945.

• The building of the ancient town hall, from the end of the 15th century, rebuilt after the Second World War. In front of the town hall two French cannons stand, cast in Liege in 1870. The Prussian army captured them during the warfare provoked by Napoleon III.

• The palace of the Dohna family, built in 1562-1567. The family moved there from the old Teutonic castle. The palace was rebuilt after the war. Now there is a branch of the Museum of the Warmia and Masuria region, among others it contains the biographical exhibition of Johann Gottfried Herder.

Photo: J. Kozierkiewicz

[googleMap typecontrol="false" directions_to="false"]Morąg[/googleMap]

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