Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the majestic moral authority of
Jan Hus
himself, gazing into the horizon. For the sculptor
Ladislav Šaloun, a maverick who received no formal training, the monument was his life's
work, commissioned in 1900 when the Art Nouveau-style Vienna Secession was at its peak,
but strangely old-fashioned by the time it was completed in 1915. It would be difficult to
claim that it blends in with its Baroque surroundings, yet this has never mattered to the
Czechs, for whom its significance goes far beyond aesthetics.
The Austrians refused to hold an official unveiling of the statue; in protest, on July 6, 1915,
the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Hus, Praguers smothered the monument in
flowers. Since then it has been a powerful symbol of Czech nationalism: in March 1939 it
was draped in swastikas bythe invading Nazis, and in August 1968it was shrouded in funer-
eal black by Praguers as a protest against the Soviet invasion. The inscription along the base
is a quote from the will of Comenius, one of Hus's later followers, and includes Hus's most
famous dictum,
Pravda vitězí
(Truth Prevails), words which appear on the Czech president's
official banner under the Czech coat of arms.
