“Der Hudič ist hier zu Hause” – between Poverty, Music, Portraits of Unknown Predecessors, Schizophrenia and Euthanasia

The destinies of Valvasor’s last descendants in Slovenia in the first half of the 20th century and their cultural art heritage

Abstract

The article deals with four different destinies among families of the last four descendants of the Carniolan polymath J. V. Valvasor (1641–1693). These families lived on the territory of Slovenia (his descendants live abroad even today) until 1941. Their common feature was that none had any descendants, none spoke Slovene as their mother tongue and that probably none was aware they were related to Valvasor. Their stories are quite decadent at first sight. They feature destinies of people from the most turbulent century in recent human history, who also happened to live in one of the bloodiest parts of Central Europe. It would be difficult to find a more assorted group of people, who, with the exception of geographical origin, had only one common denominator: the same predecessor, Von Dienersperg, who was Valvasor’s only grandson out of 13 who had legitimate descendants. More attention is dedicated to two individuals in particular among the eight last “Slovene Valvasorians”: the composer Rudolf Weis-Ostborn, the only one to make regional history, and the unfortunate victim of Nazi euthanasia, Karl Mayer, who left behind the highest number of personal accounts. Other people’s life stories are also of interest, from the point of view of both their characteristics and the way they aroused scholarly interest. Finally, the story features a unique trove of manuscripts and a collection of ancestral portraits that were a mystery even to their owners, the Kofler family from Kog pri Ormožu, who knew not whom they represented nor how important they could become one day in shedding light on Valvasor’s “unknown” posterity.