Solemn Mass and Funeral for the Count Louis Károlyi family

On 22 October 2016, Hungarian Hussars and hunters carried the coffins of Count Madame Károlyi, Sárvár-Felsővidéki Count Hanna Széchenyi, and Nagykárolyi Count Károly on the occasion of their return to the burial crypt of the Károlyi family in Fót.

Count Louis Károlyi (1872-1965) the founding father of the CIC, and legendary hunter, landowner, and owner of the world-famous Tótmegyer (today Palárikovo, Slovakia) and Madame Károlyi, Sárvár Felsővidéki Count Hanna Széchenyi found their final resting place in the Fót Károlyi crypt. On this day, their mortal remains were brought home and placed in the crypt of the Church of “Szeplőtelen Fogantatás”.  The reburial took place in the presence of the living Károlyi family members and other eminent representatives of the aristocracy; a funeral mass celebrated by the parish priest Sándor Sebők.

Palárikovo and Count Louis Károlyi

The idea for the establishment of an international hunting organization first came up in 1910 on the occasion of the international hunting exhibition in Vienna. Thanks to Count Louis Károlyi and some of his friends, the idea was put into concrete action. In November of 1928, they organized an international conference, which appointed a commission consisting of legal experts from (then) Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, and Romania to work out the statutes of the organization.

The commission members lived and worked in the small southern Slovak town of Nové Zamky and many of the discussions took place in the nearby manor of Count Károlyi in Palárikovo. The result of the first conference was the “Declaration of Nové Zamky”, calling for the establishment of an international hunting council with the name of “Conseil International de la Chasse”. This event was reported in 1928 in the weekly magazine “Slovenský juh” (The Southern Slovak). The new statutes were the basis for the first General Assembly and the foundation of the CIC by 24 states in November 1930, in Paris.