The Leaning Church in real life: places from Karin Lednická’s trilogy

Karin Lednická’s trilogy Šikmý kostel (The Leaning Church) is a “novel chronicle of a lost town” – old Karvinná between 1894 and 1961. A town of more than 20,000 people in 1930 has left only a few buildings behind. Here are 3 places from the books you can visit, and what has disappeared.

For each place we separate what the books say (we quote only the publisher’s blurbs) from documented history. Sources are listed on each monument page.

Karviná-Doly – where old Karvinná stood

All three places are within a kilometre of each other – an hour’s walk.

Church of St Peter of Alcantara in the book: the leaning church documented
It gave the trilogy its name. The blurb of the first volume calls it the only thing left of old Karvinná: a leaning church “rising steeply, as a warning, over the empty landscape”. The trilogy follows the town from 1894 to 1961.
St Henry’s Church (demolished) in the book: St Henry’s Church documented
The trilogy spans its whole life: the first volume opens in 1894, while the church was being built, and the third ends in 1961, a year after it was pulled down. The first volume’s blurb speaks of old Karvinná’s “soaring cathedral”.
Larisch-Mönnich workers’ colony house in the book: the miners’ colonies of old Karvinná documented
The trilogy tells of a pastoral village that, in the words of the blurb, “built its prosperity on coal mining”, and of families bound to the mines. The second volume follows how Polish, Czech, Silesian and later German nationality tore them apart.

What disappeared

The explosion of 14 June 1894 at the František, Jan-Karel and Hlubina mines killed 235 miners, overseers and rescuers; 54 of them are still underground. The trilogy opens with this disaster. It is commemorated above all by a monument in the cemetery of old Karvinná, above the victims’ common grave; for the 130th anniversary in 2024 it was restored to its original form on Karin Lednická’s initiative. A small chapel with a maple avenue off Ostravská street commemorates it as well.
The Larisch-Mönnich residence in Solca stood in an exceptional park of about 80 hectares; in the trilogy one of the characters works there as a gardener. Fire hit the château in December 1944, and what survived had to make way for mining subsidence – it was vacated and demolished in 1952–1953.
St Henry’s Church was demolished in 1960.
In 1949 Karvinná merged with Fryštát, Darkov, Ráj and Staré Město into today’s Karviná; old Karvinná became the district of Doly. Louky joined the town in 1975.

Next to the leaning church, a leaning information stand of the Stará Karviná association shows then-and-now photos and a map with QR codes. The map comes from the endpapers of the trilogy’s second volume, and the QR codes guide visitors to the places where the story takes place.

Nearby

Gabriela Mine (1854–2000), one of the most important monuments of vanished Karvinná. There is a plan to turn it into a visitor and education centre, but preparations have stalled (page in Czech).
Barbora Mine (closed in 2002): both headframes are technical monuments, but the site is not open to the public.
The Evangelical cemetery in Doly with its ruined Neo-Gothic chapel of 1906, tended by volunteers since 2017.
In Fryštát: Fryštát Château, the Larisch-Mönnich tomb and Božena Němcová Park (pages in Czech).
Old Karvinná rebuilt in Minecraft on real terrain: minecraft.pamatky.cz.

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The Leaning Church in real life: places from Karin Lednická’s trilogy

Karviná-Doly – where old Karvinná stood

What disappeared

Nearby

Further reading