Near Zwettl, an Old Monastery
Founded in 1137, Zwettl Abbey is one of the oldest continually operational Cistercian convents world-wide--and a few notes about the lost art of postcard-writing
Near the town of Zwettl, Lower Austria, there is one of my favourite places—the eponymous abbey (Stift) Zwettl. Founded by a local lord, Hadmar I of Kuenring in 1137 as a daughter house of Heiligenkreuz Abbey (near Vienna), of the line of Morimond. From its Wikipedia entry:
The foundation was confirmed by Hohenstaufen dynasty king Conrad III of Germany in 1139, and Pope Innocent II in 1140 and over the course of time by several other popes and emperors.
From the website of Zwettl Abbey, the following information is taken:
The cloister was built in the first half of the 13th century. One can follow the different stages of medieval architecture here—if you look at the oldest parts which are the north and the east wings you can see the rounded Romanesque arches, in the fountain house there are lancet Gothic arches. Close to the dormitory, where the monks used to sleep, there is the “necessarium”, which was the latrine. The Chapter House in Romanesque style dates back to the last quarter of the 12th century. Thus it is the oldest extant Cistercian chapter. The Monastery Church has a late Gothic hall choir which combines harmoniously with an ambulatory and a ring of 14 chapels, its Baroque high altar is dedicated to the Assumption of Virgin Mary. A rare, magnificent library comes from the Baroque period.
Here are a few picture postcards showing various parts of the Stift; I’ve carried out some “archival research” there, and if you’d like to do likewise, I’ll gladly put you in touch.
Shown is the main church—the Stiftskirche—of the abbey with its spire. The postcard was sent in 1953, and its reverse shows a quite “reduced” way of writing postcards.
Found inside the church, this beautiful Madonna from “the early Gothic”—i.e., high/late mediaeval—period can be seen (adored). The postcard was mailed in 1959, as its reverse (below) shows.
For yet another view, which is also a bit beyond the conventional “pictorial canon”, have a look at the abbey on this below postcard from the period 1938-45 (which can be seen by the abbreviated state designation “N.D.”, which means Nieder-Donau, i.e., the name of the province (Reichsgau) used by the “Third Reich”.
On the reverse of that postcard, we note the stamp (“German Empire” with an image of Adolf Hitler) and the “packed” notes.
Zwettl Abbey is also home to a large library, re-built in the Baroque style in the 18th century, and its reading hall is shown above in this postcard mailed in 1951.
Finally, an aerial view of the convent, mailed in 1976 and showing the monastery almost as it is today (the church was renovated a few years ago, and, as always, these are multi-year undertakings).
Enjoy, if you will, this trip to an old convent. I’ll post some more “details”, esp. of the cloisters and the interior in due time.
Your research proposal sounds fascinating. The abbey reminds me of one that I visited in Leuven at age 17 after finishing a summer playing with an American orchestra for an Italian festivale. I soaked up much Medeival beauty that hot summer of 1971.
Who was Erich Sonntag by the way? I don't follow all your associations.
I have meant to mention that your grandfather was very handsome and you were a very beautiful child in the photo of the two of you sitting on a couch looking at postcards.
You both look so intelligent.
Sometimes I feel like a common, normal cultural intelligence that I associate with my Austrian family is something that never developed in the American conglomerate of immigrant backgrounds and that the New England intellectual identity, the truly American culture never made it past the Transcendentalists apart from remaining a literary and academic curiosity.
As your grandfather spoke about his comrades not having survived the war, did he ever speak of the other part of the German military in the war, the SS? What was it like for your parents growing up in the years after 1945 - thinking about what had happened? Your grandfather was born around the same time my Austrian parents were born - 1919. I'm probably around the age of your parents.
Political activists and sometimes academics take the policies of the U.S. federal govt "personally" especially when we discover that we had in the past slept with the devil such as Stalin in order to preserve, protect and promote American democracy. But most people are busy with their lives obviously and don't pay a lot of attention to our history. When they do, it's the things they can feel proud of that come to mind. Average people don't sit at a diner and talk about being shocked at revelations about CIA assassinations or deadly secret experiments on citizens. So I presume it is this way to some degree around the "free" world. Where people CAN protest - in the West - some do over current events but no one goes around saying "Mea culpa" for yesteryear.