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The town of Prószków (Proskau) in Upper Silesia in SSW Poland, near the city of Opole (Oppeln) is the namesake of the Pruskowsky von Proskau family.* The very fertile region of Silesia is known as Śląsk in standard Polish, Ślōnsk in Silesian, Slesko in Czech, and Schlesien / Schläsing in German.
PRUSKOWSKY was also spelled PROSKOWSKY, PROSKOWSKI, PRÓSZKOWSKI, and several other ways around Europe. Von PROSKAU, PRUSKOW, PROSKOWA, PRUSKOVA, and PROSKOWSKA are also found in records.
The Silesian Pruskowsky family, who also lived in Bohemia, Moravia, and Hungary, was a keystone aristocratic lineage in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.** For example, George Pruskowsky von Proskau† was the Head of Privy Council for three Habsburg Holy Roman Emperors: Ferdinand I (brother of Charles V), his son Maximilian II, and Max's son Rudolf II. This George married Ursula Poppel von LOBKOWITZ (LOBKOWICZ).
George (Jiří/Jerzy) and his brothers, nephews, and cousins were elevated from knights to barons by Ferdinand I in 1560. In 1560, the Hungarian lords also gave them Indigenat status in that land in perpetuity.
George's brother John (János) was the governor of Trencsén County (Trentschin, Trenčín) in Upper Hungary and commander of Trencsén Castle, 1557-1564 (or 1568, when he is Sárosvár castellan). Previously, he was Max II's cupbearer (Schenk). John married Helena Kordula dau. of Henrik Kordula von Slupno and Katarina Strzela-Schilhan. Three others —Jacob, Henry, and Jan VII— fought in Hungary against the Ottomans. Henry and Jan died there.
George and John's brother was Valentine. His son Kaspar married Hungarian baroness Barbara Revay and bought Hradec nad Moravici, of later Beethoven fame, from Rudolf II. In addition to Prószków and Hradec nad Moravici, properties the family owned include Biała (Z(u)eltz, Zülz) just south of Proskau, Staré Hrady (Altenburg) in Bohemia, Bzenec (Bisentz) in S. Moravia, Senice/Senica (Senitz, Senicz; Szénas(falu)) in Moravia or Hungary, and Przemków (Primkenau) in Lower Silesia, near today's German border. In Biala the family broke imperial decree and allowed the Jewish residents to remain even though they had been expelled from Silesia.
George's son Ulrich Desiderius Pruskowsky was the major patron of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Tycho hired Johannes Kepler, popularized Copernicus's works, described supernovas, and showed comets existed above the atmosphere. A copy of Tycho's work Mechanica, dedicated to Ulrich, was Wm. Shakespeare's source for the char- acters Guildenstern ('golden star') and Rosencrantz in Hamlet. These are two surnames in Tycho's family tree.
Some historians imply by omission that Ulrich had no children and that the line only passed through his brother, John Christoph Pruskowsky (a guardian of the last Silesian Piast Duke of Teschen). However, modern Polish historian Roman Sękowski states the PROSKOWETZ family descends from Ulrich. He also married a LOBKOWITZ, Ludmila. His brother John Christoph's wife, Kunigunde von Guttenstein, also had a LOBKOWITZ mother.
Other married lines include Schwarzenberg, Thurn & Valsassina, Sprinzenstein, Oettingen-Spielberg, Thurzó, Salm-Neuburg; Von: Biberstein, Kaunitz, Oppersdorff, Promnitz, Schaffgotsch, and Schindel; Zierotin, Kochtizky, Latkóczy, Larisch, Mettich, Malticz, Mochowsky, Pálffy von Erdöd, and Czettritz-Kinsberg.
The line also continued in Hungary, usually spelled there as PRUSKOVSZKY, first in Trencsén and then in Nyitra, Pozsony, Komárom, Esztergom, Heves, Borsod, and Sáros Counties. These members apparently descend from John Pruskowsky von Proskau, the castellan of Trencsén. The section on noble families in a Sáros County Monograph (1909) definitively shows this path from Bohemia-Moravia ("Csehországból") to Trencsén to Sáros.
John Christoph's grandson George Christoph Pruskowsky von Proskau was elevated from baron to imperial count (Reichsgraf) in 1678. Like his ancestors he was a trusted advisor of a HR Emperor, Leopold I. The family also founded and supported various churches, schools, and hospitals in Moravia, Silesia, and Bohemia.
The family is often said to have died out when Count George Christoph's grandson Leopold Pruskowsky von Proskau (son of Erdman Christoph) was killed in a duel by a robber baron in 1769. With his death the title of count and most of the properties went to the Dietrichstein family —the
husband and son of Count George Christoph's sister Carolina Maximiliana. This was apparently due more to the interpretation of a will left by Count George I than to Holy Roman law and custom. However, the family was far from gone, only that part of the comital branch.
There were still members living in the late 1700s and early 1800s in Austrian Moravia and Prussian Silesia, and even more in Hungary from the major side-branch. George Christoph's son Anton Christoph (older brother of Erdman) had a son, Johann Anton Christoph, who may have had children who were not considered. Anton Christoph main- tained allegiance to Maria Theresa of Austria, granddaughter of Leopold, in the War of Austrian Succession. But, like most Silesian nobles, his brothers and nephews sided with Frederick the Great of Prussia. The family was split along national borders and political-religious lines. This was now a setup for a division of loyalties and legacies.
Erdman and Anton's bro. George Christoph II had a son, Anton Christoph (sometimes confused with his uncle; the Johns in adjacent generations are even more often confused) b. 1707. Roman Sękowski does not show him with children, but genealogies/encyclopedias from the 18th Cent. do: Johann Anton, b. 1730s.
The family had a porcelain factory and a writing paper mill. Those who ended up in Prussia often followed military careers. The family was also active in sheep, cattle, and horse breeding, esp. for fine wool in Moravia, under the guidance of Count Imre Festetics†† who inspired Gregor Mendel, and then in Upper Hungary. Isidor Pruskowsky of Moravia & Teschen (Cieszyn), distant cousin of Baron Joseph P. of Sáros Co., was later the master breeder for Count Henry Zichy in Enyiczke, Abaúj Co., a village once owned by the Lobkowitzes. Isidor's children with his second wife —introduced via Joseph's family/allies— were born and raised at the Zichy-Meskó Manor.
There were Pruskovszkys in Hungary (Joseph of Mochnya b. 1772) and Pruskowskis in Prussia (Carl Christoph b. 1762 Arnswalde) in the 19th Century with descendants today. Anyone with these or similar surnames are welcome to join, in order to reunite this large, historic family. Even if you end up being in a different PRUSKOWSKY/ -SKI family, your joining helps us determine which lines are which. Note that there was another noble PRUSKOWSKI family from central-eastern Poland, not Bohemia/Moravia/Silesia. —C.S., 2024
*There are several places in Poland named Prószków and Prusków. Both spellings are pronounced "proosh-koof." Today,
Polish ó is pronounced like u. However, Polish ó used to be pronounced like "O" in English. The family's namesake town
means 'of Prószk(o)' = 'Prószk(o)’s settlement.' Prószko is probably a form of Ambrose (Ancient Greek for 'immortal'), the
the name of a popular saint —a 4th Century bishop of Milan and a Doctor of the Church. How? Prosko (Proško, Proschko)
is known to be a form of Brozk, which in turn is a Sorbian form of Ambrose. Sorbian is a West Slavic language like Polish
and Czech. The phonetic pieces are all there to run the ball:
a- + brotos > Ambrósios > Ambrosius / Ambros(us) > Brószk(o) > Prószk(o) + -ów ('of') > Prószków
As for the lineage's origins, Knossall claimed they are a cadet branch of the Piast Dynasty (logically the Silesian Piasts), the
original Kings of Poland. The name Miesko runs in the family, and several Pruskowskis were the commanders/chancellors of
Racibórz (Ratibor), Opole, and Opava (Troppau) castles and towns. Other historians, such as Sękowski, thought they had
Walloon French roots based on their use of Beldo/Boldo/Beldus (Baldwin?) as a first name. However, these names appear
immediately after the line married a Von Wrbna of Moravia; they have six gold fleur-de-lis on their blue coat-of-arms. Beldo
may also just be a form of Baldisarus, after Balthazar, the name of one of the Magi. Balcer is one form in Polish, but compare
Hungarian Boldizsár. Bartosz Paprocki (whose patrons were the Pruskowskys) claimed the BIELINSKI / BELINSKI, DOBINSKI,
SCHIROWSKI / SCHIEROWSKI / ZIROWSKI / ZIEROWSKI / ZYROWSKI and ZERNOWSKI lines descend from early Pruskowskis.
Sękowski supports this. He has a section on the ZIEROWSKIs in his series on Silesian nobles, and shows them as a branch off
the line. This is why these surnames are listed in the surname section for this Y-DNA project. Note that a János Proskovszky,
a gendarme from Lajosfalva near Nyitra (Nitra), changed his surname to VÁRADI in 1893. We've also listed this surname.
** The Pruskowskys strongly bridged Silesian Pole, Bohemian & Moravian (Czech), Silesian German, Hungarian, Lesser
Polish, Austrian German, and even Slovak culture and identity. This is one of the notable things about the family.
† Son of John (Jan), son of John, a 6-Great-Grandson of the first historically verifiable member of the family, the knight Stanimir.
†† A leader of the Moravian Sheep Breeder's Association. Imre often traveled from his estate in W. Hungary north to Moravia, the
center of wool production in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Imre Festetics is who coined the term genetics. 🧬 His brother
György Festetics, founder of the Georgikon agricultural school, was Henry Zichy's maternal grandfather. This is not coincidence.