Natálie Huynová (1853–1940). Portrét neprovdané aristokratky na počátku 20. století

Abstract

Natalie Huyn (1853–1940). Portrait of an unmarried aristocrat in the early 20th century The subject of this paper is the life story of Natalie Countess Huyn (1853–1940), on the example of which the diverse opportunities for the social participation of an unmarried member of the aristocracy at the close of the 19th and during the 20th centuries are illustrated. Countess Huyn, the daughter of officer Jan Karl Count Huyn, was forced to address the issue of her financial (and also social) security for practically her entire life. As a thirty-year old, she became lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Maria Therese of the Tuscan secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine family. After she was dismissed from her service in 1910, she accepted an endowment position at the Teresian Institute of Noble Ladies at Prague Castle. Here, the financially secure countess engaged in art, something she excelled in, writing poetry and charity, which she developed both in the direction of individuals and also various (mostly religious) organisations. Shortly after the Institute of Noble Ladies was closed at the decision of Czechoslovak state authorities, she accepted an offer by her distant cousin, Vladimir Lažanský and went to live at his chateau in Chyše until her death in 1940.