Chojnik
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Chojnik Castle (German: Kynastburg) is located in Sobieszów, part of the city of Jelenia Góra, southwestern Poland.
The fortress goes back to the times of the Piasts dynasty and is located within the limits of the Karkonosze National Park, on the hill of the same name.
The 14th-century medieval feudal stronghold is in a semi-ruined state and it houses a hotel and a restaurant.
[edit] History
The castle of Chojnik (German Kynast) was originally built by the order of Bolko I in 1292 to protect the borders of his dominion and underwent a reconstruction by the orders of Bolko II starting from 1355.
After Bolko II's death, his wife Agnes von Habsburg sold the castle to one of the courtiers, the knight Gotsche Schoff. Gotsche II Schoff modernized and expanded the castle in 1393. In the same year he donated the Gothic chapel, which was completed in 1403. The chapel was devoted to St. Katharina and St. George, and artful painting were preserved until the middle of the 20th century. The castle survived the next centuries without damages. It was neither affected by the Hussite Wars nor by Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, who destroyed many Silesian castles. In 1529 Ulrich Schaffgotsch I. expanded the building with two forecourts, depots and a pillory, and at the end of the 16th century Renaissance modifications were carried out. In 1635 Hans Ulrich Schaffgotsch lost all his properties being accused of high treason as one of Albrecht von Wallensteins generals. Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, the new owner, added new bastions to the castle in 1648 before giving it back to Christoph Leopold Schaffgotsch, Hans Ulrich's son, in 1650.
During the latter's lifetime the castle burnt down completely after it had been struck by lightning in 1675 and was never reconstructed again. The comital family relocated down into the valley to the old palace in Bad Warmbrunn, and the destroyed castle became a tourist attraction already in the early 18th century. It was visited by the Prussian royal family, Heinrich von Kleist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or Theodor Körner, who immortalized the ruin in one of his poems and made her famous all over Germany. 1822 the Schaffgotschs added a tavern and harbourage to the castle and three years later rebuilt the tower. In the 1920th the old legends, especially the Kunigunden saga, were resuscitated by Waldemar Müller- Erhardt, and in the next years these folk plays were performed there.
The ruins remained in the property of the counts Schaffgotsch until 1945, when the family was expelled.
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