Cmurek Castle

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Grad Cmurek

Trate 7, SI-2213 Zgornja Velka

Managed byMuseum of Madness

Cmurek Castle veduta, 1681

First mentioned in 1148, the Cmurek Castle stands in Trate, on a cliff above the Mura river on the border with Austria. Its name, in fact, derives from the Austrian town of Cmurek (Mureck). From 1955 till 2004 it housed the Institution for mentally disabled Hrastovec – Trate.

Nine years after its abandonment the castle became a nexus for a local initiative focused on the Museum of Madness. The cross-border innovative project strives to reactualise, detabooise and revitalise the castle. With a substantial amount of voluntary work and the support from both neighbouring municipalities (Šentilj from the Slovenian and Mureck from the Austrian side) and some institutional support, it has turned into a unique cultural and community venue.

Historical buildings

The castle of Cmurek (named also Upper Cmurek or Upper Mureck) dominates over the Mura river and was mentioned in documents already in 1148 when it was owned by the Cmurek nobles. Later on the castle was purchased by the Counts of Celje. The last owners were the Counts of Stubenberg and Anton Mali.

The two-storey building preserved only a few Romanesque elements, namely, in the course of centuries numerous rebuildings took place: the chapel was set up in 1340, and the Renaissance arcades in the courtyard during the 16th and 17th century, eventually, in the late 18th century the medieval tower was pulled down and some building extensions introduced.

From the ruins of the defence tower of the upper castle and the nunnery in the lower part of the village, the Kapralov’s Castle was built at the end of the 18th century, owned by an English-German couple. It was named after its pre-war owner, a Russian immigrant, physician Serghei Kapralov. Later on it got quite famous for its industrial mill run by electricity as early as 1914, half a century before the neighbouring villages. It was constructed by an English entrepreneur Harry Hanson.

In the 1950s, the Lower Castle became an old people's home, while a decade later it became a closed psychiatric institution Hrastovec-Trate. In the 2000s, the institution opted for an open treatment of its patients and the castle was again deserted. Since 2014 cultural initiatives have tried to revive the venue again.

Venues of alternative punk rock scene

Based on the ethnographic material collected during his fieldwork in the 1990s,Rajko Muršič's anthropological study Trate: The Story of the Youth and Rock Club (2001) discloses the role and impact of the two deserted castles with vacant space in the development of the alternative scene in the Trate Youth Club in Slovenske gorice between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. Since 1998 the Festival at the Border co-organised by and the Subkulturni azil Maribor and the Austrian Youth Club JUZHOUSE Mureck has taken place at the Cmurek Castle.

See also

• Museum of Madness
• Festival at the Border

External links

• Cmurek Castle on Wikipedija (in Slovenian)
• Castles at the Crossroads - About Cmurek Panel discussion at the Milko Kos Historical Institute, 2014 – recording and PDF (in Slovenian)

Gallery

Cmurek Castle veduta, 1681

Cmurek Castle inner courtyard, 2015

Cmurek Castle inner courtyard, 2015

The room emptied, a photo taken at the Cmurek Castle in 2014

After they had gone away. A photo taken at the Cmurek Castle in 2014

The view of the courtyard at the Cmurek Castle, 2015

The two-storey building of the Cmurek Castle, a mixture of Romanesque elements, the Renaissance arcades and several 18th Century extensions, has nowadays become a venue for interdisciplinary cultural events of the newly established Museum of Madness.

The Cmurek Castle arcade courtyard. The castle which functioned as an institution for mentally disabled from 1956 till 2004 became a decade later the site for the Museum of Madness project.

Madness and Creativity?" exhibition at the Museum of Madness at the Cmurek Castle. Works by Milojka Drobne and Johnny Fortmüller, 2015.

Anja Jerčič Jakob, Arven Šakti Kralj Szomi, Andrej Brumen Čop, Saša Bezjak, Milojka Drobne and Metod Frlic, a group portrait at the Museum of Madness, the Cmurek Castle, 2015

The Secret World of the Mura River, a part of the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Madness, Cmurek Castle, 2015

Portraits of some Classical music composers who suffered from a mental illness, a part of the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Madness, Cmurek Castle, 2015