| Fabled Bran Castle Restituted
to H&R / RMDT Client |
|
 One
of the most significant icons of Romania, the 14th century Bran Castle
in Transylvania, known for its association with the imaginary vampire of
Bram Stoker's Victorian novel “Dracula”, was restituted by the Romanian
State in May 2006 to grandchildren of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of
Romania. The children of Princess Ileana of Romania had been forcibly
removed from their home in 1948 by the communist authorities.
Built in the XIII century by the Teutonic knights for commercial and
strategic purposes the castle watches over the Rucar-Bran Pass, the most
important pass from Transylvania to Wallachia.
In 1377 the Hungarian King Sigismund (also governor of the Transylvanian
Principality) decided to reinforce the castle to repel invaders. The
other purpose of the castle was to collect customs tax from passing
merchants. Later, the castle came under the influence of Vlad the
Impaler – also known as Dracula.
In 1920, the Brasov Local Council donated the Bran Castle to Queen Marie
of Romania in gratitude for her contribution to the 1918 Great Union of
Romania. The Castle was improved and transformed into a summer residence
by Queen Marie who loved the place so much that her dying wish was to
have her heart buried in the hill facing the Castle. Queen Marie left
the Castle to her daughter Princess Ileana.
After the 1989 Revolution, successive Romanian governments dealt with
the restitution issue, but none of them allowed in-kind restitution.
Instead, they provided only vague provisions regarding compensation. The
claim for Bran Castle’s restitution was filed in 2001. In 2005, the
current government amended the restitution law to allow in-kind
restitution, and the claim was filled immediately – on August 09, 2005 –
with the Ministry of Culture, under which authority the Castle had been
placed, and in May 2006, the decision for in-kind restitution was
issued.
A restitution ceremony took place in the Castle, which was covered by
the media worldwide. Newspapers and television reports in virtually
every nation on earth carried the story of the return of the fabled
castle to the royal family. The heirs of Princess Ileana, her son
Dominic Habsburg (Archduke Dominic of Austria), and daughters the Arch
Duchesses Maria Magdalena Holzhausen and Elisabeth Sandhofer with their
spouses were present.
Pursuant to Romanian law, the restitution document requires the new
owners to maintain the Castle as a museum for the next three years.
 The
efforts of H&R/RMDT to secure the restitution of the castle to the heirs
of Princess Ileana entailed a labor of many years. The firm has led the
national and international effort to bring justice to the victims of
communist confiscations in Romania both through in-kind restitution and
through the creation of the Property Fund. We have long advocated that
Romania’s democracy cannot be built upon the stolen property of its
citizens.
We applaud the government of Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tericeanu for
the integrity of its efforts, and we congratulate our colleagues, Sergiu
Doru, Mark A. Meyer, Dana Radulescu, Florentin Timoianu, Corin Trandafir
and Lia Trandafir for their work in upholding justice in Romania.
For more information regarding the history of the Bran Castle see:
www.brancastlemuseum.ro
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