KUDLICH – the Liberator of Peasants

Please accept our cordial invitation to the official opening of the exhibition HANS KUDLICH – the Liberator of Peasants, which takes place on 2 June 2018 at the exhibition hall inside the tower of the Archbishop’s Chateau in Kroměříž. The exhibition is organised as part of the programme The Birth of the Modern European Citizen | The Broken Times, which belongs under the project of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. It will be officially opened by its co-author Walter Kudlich at a preview starting at 2:00 PM.

Who was Hans Kudlich and why is this exhibition held at the Kroměříž chateau? Hans Kudlich, born in 1823 in Úvalno near Opava, was the member of the Constituent Imperial Assembly between 1848 and 1849; the Assembly had been initially meeting in Vienna and later moved to the Archbishop’s chateau in Kroměříž. Hans Kudlich is most famous for his proposal for the abolition of manorial labour, which the Assembly accepted. As a main proponent of the idea, Kudlich had been titled the liberator of the peasants. Hans Kudlich participated also in the Assembly meetings in Kroměříž, where he belonged to one of the very active members – to the annoyance of the new emperor Franz Joseph I, as a result of which a warrant had been issued for his arrest and he had to emigrate. Kudlich escaped to Switzerland where he graduated from medicine at the university and also met and married his wife. After several years he moved on to the USA where he settled down. He died there in 1917.

Come and join us in commemoration of this important and exciting story!