Publication details
Homage to a Great Man: Interwar Memorials to President Masaryk in Czechoslovakia
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, the first Czechoslovak President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk represents an example of how the “cult of personality” can be fostered in a democratic environment. For his depiction, a de facto new iconography was created, although it was not inventive in any substantive way, and in many cases, the monuments occupied a significant spot in the public space. There were efforts not only to erect a monument in Prague in front of the presidential residence at Prague Castle, but also in Brno, the second largest city. Both competitions were announced in 1937, two years after Masaryk’s resignation. At the time, Czechoslovakia was facing the international threat of Hitler’s Germany, amplified by the activity of the significant German minority living in the Bohemian and Moravian borderlands. This was another reason for perceiving the construction of monuments to Masaryk as an act of strengthening national pride and lauding the democratic regime. The case of the Brno monument is interesting mainly for two reasons. First, some contestants in the competition to design the monument proposed a relatively innovative iconography, while others used traditional concepts. Secondly, there was an effort to create an entirely new public space in an urban structure dedicated to celebrating the democratic state. For this reason, a location was chosen where a statue of Emperor Joseph II had originally stood. Therefore, it already had strong political connotations for the German inhabitants of the city, and thus from the Czech side, it was an attempt to imbue the site with new meaning and erase the original one. |