Elite of month – Krofta, Josef Viktorin (1845–1892), deputy, mayor, lawyer
Josef Viktorin Krofta (1845–1892) – deputy, mayor, lawyer
Josef Krofta, a portrait by Jan Vilímek.
On Sunday, 6 November 1892, a grand funeral was held in Pilsen with a large attendance of local residents. The city said goodbye to its mayor Josef Viktorin Krofta, who died at the age of 47 due to a heart defect. The ceremonies began at 11 a.m., when members of the city council and the district committee, i.e. representatives of the two institutions with which Krofta had linked his public life, and through which he had made a significant mark in the history of Pilsen, went to the house of mourning. His political career culminated in the years 1888–1890, when Josef Krofta was a representative of both the city and the entire Pilsen district. Krofta also served as a deputy for Pilsen in the city curia of both the Imperial Council and the Bohemian Diet. The importance of the deceased was matched by the course of the funeral – the coffin was carried in a procession to the town hall, where it remained in a place of honour, where members of the Sokol held a guard of honour until 3 p.m. Then it was moved to the Church of St. Bartholomew, and the funeral was concluded in the Pilsen cemetery, where Krofta's final resting place was covered with more than 80 wreaths and palm trees.
The front page of Plzeňské listy informing about the death of Josef Krofta.
The grave of Josef Krofta and his wife Marie at the cemetery in Pilsen.
The position that J. V. Krofta achieved during his lifetime was exceptional, yet his name is almost forgotten. Under the surname Krofta, his son Kamil Krofta (1876–1945), who became a university professor and entered diplomacy after the establishment of Czechoslovakia, is more often remembered. In the 1920s he served as the first Czechoslovak ambassador to the Holy See, then as ambassador to Austria and Germany, and his career culminated in the post of foreign minister in 1936–1938. However, this career of Kamil Krofta would not have been possible without the social rise achieved by his father. Josef Krofta's life journey is an example of an extraordinary social mobility for which more and more opportunities opened up in the second half of the 19th century.
Josef Krofta was born in Potvorov, a Czech village located 40 km north of Pilsen, which had 400–500 inhabitants in the mid-19th century.He was born into a typical peasant family, as both his grandfathers were peasants. His father, Jan Krofta (1820–1911), did not come from Potvorov, however, as his native village was Obora, south of Plasy. He acquired the farmhouse No. 46 in Potvorov in November 1840 by marriage to Anna née Hrušková (1818–1910), two years older. Anna entered the marriage as a widow, having first married as an heiress to the farm at the age of sixteen in 1834. Her first marriage lasted only six years, however, as it ended in April 1840 with the death of her husband, who was only twenty-seven years old. Two children were born – a son died shortly after his birth, and a daughter lived to adulthood and also married a farmer. Josef Viktorin Krofta came into the world in 1845 as the second-born of a total of ten children born in his mother's second marriage. The first-born daughter died immediately after birth, and the same fate befell the other three sons. Apart from the eldest Joseph, two other sons – František (1850–1939), who inherited the family farm, and Václav (1860–1934), who became a teacher at primary school and at the end of his life worked as a headmaster of girls' schools – and three daughters lived to adulthood.
Josef Krofta was originally supposed to take over the family farm, but very soon after he started school, it became clear that he had a remarkable aptitude for studying. This fact was brought to the attention of his parents by the local parish priest Leopold Drož (1817–after1890), who expressed his belief that the boy should be given a more consistent education. Even before Josef started his studies, his parents sent him on an exchange visit to a German family in order for him to learn German, which was essential for his studies. He then entered the main school in Rakovník, from which he graduated with excellent grades. This was followed by eight years of study at the German Gymnasium in Pilsen, where Krofta also achieved excellent academic results. At the end of the first year he was ranked 17th out of 48 students in terms of grades, but a year later he was already third. He maintained his excellent results throughout his studies, so it seemed natural that he would continue his studies at university. Josef Krofta chose Law Faculty in Prague and graduated in 1868, and after passing the subsequent rigorous examinations, he was declared a Doctor of Law in November 1870, when he was 25 years old.
After graduating in April 1869, Josef Krofta applied for the vacant position of district secretary in Manětín, which he did not win. Finally, in November 1870, he succeeded in becoming a legal trainee in the Pilsen office of the Jewish lawyer Jindřich/Heinrich Steinschneider, where he remained until 1877, when he passed the bar examinations that enabled Josef Krofta to open his own law firm. It is likely that Kroft gained a position in Steinschneider's office thanks to his contacts with the influential and wealthy Svátek family from Pilsen. Richard Svátek (1844–1904), like Josef Krofta, attended the Pilsen gymnasium and it is likely that this contact led to Josef Krofta's acquaintance with Richard's sister Maria Svátková (1852–1932).
Their relationship, which began in 1866 when Maria was only 14 years old, resulted in a wedding in January 1871. This marriage proved to be crucial in terms of Josef Kroft's social mobility, and it is possible that the choice of a partner was indeed carefully made by Kroft, with an awareness of its importance to his future position. Marriage to Maria Svátková enabled Josef Kroft to acquire a significant social background and at the same time to free himself from existential worries. Although a good education and an individual's abilities were among the very important factors influencing the possibilities of social advancement in the second half of the 19th century, it was much more difficult to gain truly prestigious positions without adequate social capital. The Svátek family was important not only because they owned several properties, but also because of their kinship with the politician Jan Kleissl (1829–1876), who in the 1860s and the first half of the 1870s served as deputy mayor and district mayor, and at the same time represented Pilsen both at the Bohemian Diet and at the Imperial Council. Jan Kleissl was the brother of the mother of Marie and Rudolf Svátek and it is likely that he also influenced Krofta's interest in politics. After the unexpected death of the only forty-six-year-old Jan Kleissl in early 1876, the thirty-one-year-old Josef Kroft embarked on a political career.
A View of Pilsen at the beginning of the 20th century.
His political career was also supported by the rather dynamic situation in Pilsen. Although it was a city with a majority of Czech inhabitants, the city's leadership had long been dominated by German elites. Although Czech political leaders, led by F. L. Rieger, sought to change this situation, they were faced with a shortage of capable people. In a situation where, after Kleiss's death, a new candidate had to be found urgently, Josef Krofta seemed to be the ideal candidate. In the parliamentary elections of 1876 Josef Krofta won quite convincingly and was re-elected to the Bohemian Diet in 1877, 1878, 1883 and 1889. In addition to the Diet, Krofta also served as a member of the Curia of towns of the Imperial Council. He first stood as a candidate in the by-election in 1877 and defended his mandate in 1879 and 1885.
The city hall in Pilsen at the beginning of the 20th century.
It is probable that his winning of the deputy's mandate also contributed to his rapid career as a representative of local government. In May 1876, Krofta was allowed to run for the district council for the deceased J. Kleissl, and in the following municipal elections, held in November 1878, he was not only elected to the municipal council for the first time, but also became a member of the town council. At the beginning of the 1980s, we find Krofta already in the role of deputy district mayor and thanks to this position he took over the management of the entire district after the death of his superior. He was officially elected and confirmed as the district mayor in the spring of 1882 and held this position until November 1890, when he voluntarily resigned. Because of his new role, Krofta resigned from the city council in 1882, but after the death of Mayor Karel Houška (1833–1889), Krofta became his successor in 1889, which meant that for two years he combined the management of both the city and the entire district in his hands.
However, he was not the only one to benefit from the social rise that Josef Krofta achieved. The social ties and contacts he built during his lifetime proved to be very important for the future of his children as well, even though Josef Krofta died prematurely when his seven surviving children were only 4–19 years old. It was not only about the career of his son Kamil; Krofta's social contacts also played a role in the careers of his other children and also had a significant impact on the choice of partners. The youngest son, Otakar Krofta (1878–1943), married Valerie von Kopetz (1883–1963) in 1908, the daughter of the deputy Heinrich von Kopetz (1852–1920) and granddaughter of other deputies Johann Limbeck (1820–1889) and Heinrich Kopetz (1821–1904), who also served as district governor in the 1870s.
Olga Stretti (1880–1928), the wife of the eldest son Richard Krofta (1873–1958), also came from a prominent family. She was the daughter of Karel Stretti (1844–1905), a doctor from Prague's Vinohrady district, and Marie née Jahn, who was the sister of the MP Richard Jahn (1840–1918) and the cousin of another MP Jiljí Jahn (1838–1902). Kroft's daughters also contracted equally socially suitable marriages. The eldest, Marie (1874–1933), married Tomáš Hegner (1863–1933), a Pilsen city doctor, in 1893. Another daughter, Marta (1881–1970), also married a doctor – in 1899 she married Ferdinand Charvát (1865–1938), who worked first as head of the surgical department of the Pilsen hospital and later as its director. Krofta's youngest daughter, Anna (1888–1915), married Václav Schüller (1882–1915), a professor at the Real Gymnasium in Pilsen, who was the grandson of the former provincial school inspector Josef Weber of Pravomil (1831–1908), who served in the Ministry of Cult and Education in Vienna from 1880 to 1891, and nephew of another provincial school inspector František Rosický (1847–1909).
Literature and sources:
Franz Adlgasser, Die Mitglieder der österreichischen Zentralparlamente 1848–1918. Ein biographisches Lexikon, Teilband 1: A–L, Wien 2014.
Jaroslav Douša et al. Dějiny Plzně v datech: od prvních stop osídlení až po současnost [The History of Pilsen in Data: From the First Traces of Settlement to the Present]. Praha: NLN, Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2004.
Naděžda Morávková. Plzeňan Kamil Krofta [Kamil Krofta from Pilsen]. Plzeň: Koniáš, 2016.
Marie Lišková, Slovník představitelů zemské samosprávy v Čechách v letech 1861–1913, Praha 1994.
Státní oblastní archiv v Plzni [Archive of the City of Pilsen (ACP)], Fonds LP Josef Krofta.
Státní oblastní archiv v Plzni [Archive of the City of Pilsen (ACP)], German State Grammar School in Pilsen.
Státní oblastní archiv v Plzni [Archive of the City of Pilsen (ACP)], Collection of Parish Registers.
