National Rememberance in Public Space

The online collection NATIONAL REMEMBERANCE IN PUBLIC SPACE contains 48 newsreel segments from the weekly newsreels Deglův žurnál, Elektajournal, Aktualita, and more, which document the construction of monuments and the installation of commemorative plaques in Czechoslovakia in the first half of the 20th century. The need to imprint the public space with traces of historical memory has been with us since time immemorial. The placement of monuments and commemorative plaques has a great influence on the city’s overall appearance. They are not mere aesthetic artifacts or landmarks for orientation - they are one of the factors determining the urbanistic viability of the city organism; their surroundings often serve as a communication platform and a space to publicly take a stance (e.g. at critical moments in history, the area around the St. Wenceslas monument in Prague proved to be a crucial place, akin to a cult site).

More than ever before, memorial art resonated with the public’s politics and cultural life in the period following the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia, when its primary function was that of demonstrating pride in the newly gained sovereignty. Changes in the political system led to the re-evaluation of existing monuments, which reflected the monarchy-imposed interpretation of the past, and thus were condemned to gradual removal. The destruction of public symbols of the Habsburg Monarchy, representing quiet observers of national oppression, became a widespread phenomenon. Examples of this are the monument to Marshal Josef Václav Radecký on Prague’s Lesser Town Square (Malostranské náměstí) or the Marian Column on Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí); those were toppled, as well as many other monuments in towns and villages throughout Czechoslovakia. The situation after 1918 serves as a shining example of the link between this artistic medium and the prevailing opinion on the nation’s cultural and political elite, as well as the influence of public sculptures on the formation of collective memory and official interpretations of history.

An unveiling of a monument or a commemorative plaque was always a major social event, often taking place in front of a film camera. Such events had a national character in the early years of the independent republic, as evidenced by the footage from the ceremonial unveiling of the monument to Karel Havlíček Borovský in Německý (Havlíčkův) Brod or the unveiling of the monument to Svatopluk Čech at the Vyšehrad Cemetery in Prague. Public unveilings of commemorative plaques to prominent figures were a big spectacle all throughout the republic. This collection includes footage of unveilings of memorial plaques to Josef Kajetán Tyl, Jan Neruda, Eliška Krásnohorská, Miroslav Tyrš, Alois Jirásek, and Viktor Dyk in Prague; Jan Amos Komenský in Uherský Brod; Otakar Ševčík in Písek; František Palacký in Lobkovice; Bedřich Smetana in Jabkenice; Antonín Dvořák in Nelahozeves; and Ladislav Stroupežnický in Cerhonice in South Bohemia. The centennial of the invention of the “Ruchadlo” plow by cousins Václav and František Veverka was accompanied by extensive celebrations in Pardubice and Rybitví, with the addition of an unveiling of a memorial plaque at the inventors' birthplace and the erection of a monument near the first plowed furrow. The unveilings of monuments to Miroslav Tyrš in Mladá Boleslav and Petržalka, Bratislava, also had a national character. The unveiling of Karel Hynek Mácha's monument on Jarmila's Rock (Jarmilina skála) in Doksy on the centennial of his death became a major national event, which was organized for the second time in Bělá pod Bezdězem after the annexation of the borderlands in the fall of 1938.

Newsreel segments often featured public unveilings of monuments commemorating the establishment of Czechoslovakia and its founders. During the First Republic, several monuments were erected to President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk; this online collection shows the monuments in Louny, Jáchymov, and Most, as well as the unveilings of memorial plaques in Čejkovice and Čejč, places where the president received his primary education. The unveiling of a plaque commemorating the revolutionary events of 1918 at the Municipal House (Obecní dům) in Prague received massive public attention, as did the unveiling of the monument to Antonín Švehla in Klatovy on what would have been his 61st birthday, or the monuments to General Milan Rastislav Štefánik in Kolín and to Karel Kramář in the same town. Ranking among events of national importance were the ceremonial unveilings of monuments to two foreign figures that had contributed in the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic; on the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic, a statue of US President Woodrow Wilson was erected in front of the Main Railway Station in Prague, and a monument to French Bohemist Ernst Denis was erected on Lesser Town Square (Malostranské náměstí). Public openings of military memorial sites and monuments to Czechoslovak legionnaires and other members of the anti-Austrian resistance were typical of First Republic ceremonies. This is documented in the footage capturing ceremonial unveilings of the statue Pohřeb v Karpatech (Funeral in the Carpathians) in the village of Předměřice nad Jizerou, the monument to Anna Chaloupková, a member of the first Czechoslovak resistance, at the Olšany Cemetery in Prague, the monument to the youngest legionnaire Lumír Březovský in Prague's Vršovice district, and the memorial plaques to the Fallen Legionnaires in Vizovice and the Battle of Bachmač in Olomouc. Another major event was the unveiling of a monumental memorial, dedicated to Prague residents who fell in World War I, below the Emmaus Monastery (Emauzský klášter) in Prague. Stories of the erection and toppling of monuments conceal and reveal the most diverse and often conflicting layers of our collective historical memory. The early 1940s were not a favorable time for domestic memorial art, and some existing memorials disappeared from the streets of Czechia during the German occupation. The second half of the century brought widespread destruction of existing monuments, the rewriting of history, and an era of pompous monuments manifesting the megalomania of the ruling class.