Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
you can threaten me, you can torture me, yet I will never turn a
traitor.” His motto became an inspiration for generations of Czech
intellectuals, most of whom faced a similar combination of threats
and temptations. Havlíček (whose name means “little Havel”)
was much revered in the 1970s and 1980s, when the
other
Havel
(Václav) was similarly imprisoned for his dissent.
The bronze statue in front of the Italian Court commemo-
rates the founder of Czechoslovakia,
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
(1850-1937; see sidebar on page 106). The brief inscription on the
back of the pedestal recounts the statue's history, paralleling the
country's troubled 20th-century history: erected by Kutná Hora
townsmen on October 27, 1938 (the eve of the 20th anniversary
of Czech independence); torn down in 1942 (by occupying Nazis,
who disliked Masaryk as a symbol of Czech independence);
erected again on October 27, 1948 (by freedom-loving locals, a few
months after the communist coup); torn down again in 1957 (by
