Rudy Palace-Monastery

The Palace-Monastery of Rudy (Polish: Pocysterski Zespół Klasztorno-Pałacowy w Rudach (Wielkich) or German: Schloss Rauden or German: Kloster Rauden) is located in Rudy within the Racibórz County, Silesian Voivodeship, in southern Poland.

[4] Compared to other Cistercian monasteries, the income from the estate was not great although it had vineyards, and large forests and numerous streams around.

[4] After the secularization, the monastery and its estates were handed over to the Prussian minister Wilhelm Ludwig Sayn-Wittgenstein (1770–1851).

[4] Although married twice, Victor Amadeus was childless and when he died in 1834, he bequeathed his possessions of the Silesian duchy of Ratibor (Czech: Ratiboř, Polish: Racibórz) and Prince of Corvey to his nephew, Victor, prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1818–1893).

[5] In order to accept Victor Amadeus's inheritance, he waived his rights on the Schillingsfürst succession in favour his younger brother Chlodwig (1819–1901), who was to became Chancellor of Germany and Minister President of Prussia from 1894 to 1900.

[5] In 1840, Victor was created duke of Ratibor and prince of Corvey on 15 October 1840 by king Frederick William IV of Prussia (1795–1861).

[5] Victor made Rudy his main seat and used the Corvey Abbey as his summer residence.

[2] Duke Victor II was married in 1877 to countess Maria Breunner-Enkevoirth (1856–1929), which brought the third great stately home in the Ratibor family, Schloss Grafenegg in Austria.

[6] Photojournalists captured him on picture and suggested in newspapers that pheasants were kept in baskets and were released as soon as the emperor took position.

[6] However, the emperor did not return to Rudy, and photojournalists were no longer invited to subsequent hunts.

[6] After the division of upper Silesia between Germany and Poland in 1922, Rudy remained on the German side of the border.

[4] At the end of the Second World War, the Ratibor-Corvey family had to flee Rudy for the advancing Russian troops.

The Red Army looted the palace-monastery in Rudy and set it afire to hide their traces.

His titles and the castles in Corvey and Grafenegg were inherited by his son Franz-Albrecht Metternich-Sándor (1920–2009), who was adopted by the last member of the princely Metternich family, princess Clementine von Metternich-Sandor (1870–1963).

When Silesia came under Polish administration after World War II, the remains of the palace monastery and its estate were confiscated by the government.

[3][4] An intensive renovation of the monastery and the palace rooms started, of which the first stage was completed in 2008.