Josef Šourek — the man who gave Betyna its story
Legionnaire, colonel, botanist and defender of the mountain landscape. After the Second World War he lived in this very house, where he set up a private botanical station and studied the flora of the Giant Mountains. He wrote the standard work Flora of the Giant Mountains.
Aide-de-camp to President Masaryk
Josef Šourek was one of the Czechoslovak legionnaires who fought in Russia. His military record and the president's trust made him Masaryk's aide-de-camp. A photograph of the first Castle Guard survives, showing him seated at the president's right hand. He received several decorations for bravery in the legions.
The man who protected the mountains
After leaving the army he devoted his life to botany. He mapped the plant life of the range in detail, built his own herbarium and turned the house that is now Betyna into a botanical research station. He was among the most important advocates of protecting this landscape and campaigned for years for a national park.
Standing against mining in Obří důl
In the 1950s he openly opposed plans to mine ore in the Obří důl valley. His refusal to yield cost him his post as conservation officer and his pension. He never stopped defending the mountains. He was rehabilitated only in the mid-1960s.
Betyna as a botanical station
Records show that after 1945 Josef Šourek owned house no. 198 and ran it as a family home, a private conservation station and a botanical research station. He lived here until his death in 1968.
A critically endangered endemic grows beside the lodge
The Sudeten whitebeam (Sorbus sudetica) still grows right beside the house — a critically endangered endemic of the Giant and Jizera Mountains and one of the botanical rarities of the Czech Republic. This strictly protected tree draws professional botanists and university students on field excursions.
After Josef Šourek's death the house passed into state housing administration and served as a holiday facility. That period brought several insensitive alterations — the log walls were covered with asbestos cement cladding from outside, and the botanical station and the remarkable plant collection that Šourek had built and guarded for decades were lost.
Since 1990 Betyna has been privately owned again. As the Kesselgruber family guesthouse it is being restored step by step, with the aim of recovering as much of its original mountain character as possible, respecting the legacy of the house and keeping the spirit of a place that has been part of this landscape for over a hundred years.
