Marian column (Prague)
The Marian column on the Old Town Square in Prague is a baroque monument to Mary . It was in 1650, after the Thirty Years War , by Emperor Ferdinand III. Donated in thanks for saving Prague from a Swedish army and erected by the sculptor Johann Georg Bendl . The column was destroyed in 1918 and rebuilt in 2020.
history
prehistory
The warring factions of the Thirty Years' War had started peace negotiations in mid-1645. In the same year, after the defeat of the imperial army in the Battle of Jankau, Swedish and French troops devastated parts of Bohemia . In May 1648 they defeated the last contingent of imperial troops in the battle of Zusmarshausen near Augsburg . A Swedish corps then made an advance to Prague. On July 26, 1648, the Swedes were able to take the Lesser Quarter of Prague , but could not cross Charles Bridge , which was bitterly defended by imperial mercenaries, citizens, lower clerics and students. The Swedes persisted and it was clear to the Kaiser that the defenders would not hold out much longer. When the news arrived in August 1648 that the French had destroyed a Spanish army under Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in the Battle of Lens , Ferdinand III. realized the war was lost. and he had to give way in the peace negotiations. The Peace of Westphalia was signed on October 24, 1648 . The couriers to Prague were en route for nine days. The Swedes finally stopped the fire, loaded sixty baggage carts with all the valuables and art treasures that could be found on the Lesser Town and left. This went down in history as the Prague art theft of 1648.
Foundation and building history
In gratitude for the fact that Prague was not completely conquered by the Swedish army, the emperor ordered the erection of a column in honor of Maria Immaculata on April 22, 1650 to commemorate the defense of Prague from the Swedes. It should be erected like “... here in Vienna in the courtyard , also there in Prague, on the Altstädter Platz ...” . The shape of the monument and the installation on the Old Town Square was therefore determined by the emperor himself.
The creator of the Prague Marian Column was Johann Georg Bendl , who is considered the leading sculptor of the Counter-Reformation and Jesuit power art in the second half of the 17th century. For Bohemia he was as important as Georg Petel and Justus Glescker in southern Germany, and it is to these artists that he owes the decisive impetus. Bendl was attested as a citizen and house owner in the Old Town of Prague in 1651 and in the New Town from 1668 . In 1655, after a dispute with the other sculptors, he left the Prague painters' mine and founded the guild of sculptors and carvers. The Marian Column on the Old Town Square is his main work.
The Marian Column as a sign of victory for the Counter Reformation, which Bendl had carried out on behalf of the Emperor, was the focus of urban development on the Old Town Square until 1918. The models were the Munich and Vienna Marian Columns , only that Bendl did not personify the allegories with heroic putti , but with almost life-size angels and executed the figures not in bronze, but in stone as in Vienna (now Wernstein am Inn ). The fragments that have been preserved testify that Bendl was a masterly master of the baroque compositional principles. The figures of the allegorical groups of two do not entangle themselves in mannerist, motionless tension, but rather act dynamically next to one another in free contrasting movements. When Bendl created the Marian column, he was only about 20 years old.
Inscription: "VIRGINI GENITRICI SINE ORIGINIS LABE CONCEPTAE, PROPUGNATAE AC LIBERATAE URBIS ERGO, CAESAR PIUS ET IUSTUS HANC STATUAM POSUIT" (The Virgin Mother of God, received without blemish of original sin, was erected by the emperor for the pious and righteous defense of the city and liberated this statue ). The inscription on the base named the work of the Virgo Immaculata for the defense and liberation of the city as the reason for the imperial foundation ( "... propugnatae et liberatae urbis ..." ). The column was a memorial of honor for Maria Immaculate , especially for her successful work for the Catholic cause . Under the direction of the imperial treasurer Dionysio Miseroni, the statue of the Virgin Mary was erected in the Old Town Square in 1650, on July 13, 1652, the 44th birthday of the emperor, the Prague column was inaugurated.
Religious use of the Marian column
As in Vienna, Ferdinand III. set up regular devotions and Saturday processions to the Marian Column in Prague as well . Nowhere in Europe - stated the Jesuit Johannes Miller - one would see so much splendor in a procession. A special feature compared to the votive columns in Munich and Vienna was the copy of the highly revered Mother of God of Altbunzlau , which, as the palladium of Bohemia, took the highest rank among the images of Mary in the base of the Prague monument . This also meant the revitalization of an older, pre- Hussite and pre- Reformation cult tradition - because the metal relief icon in Altbunzlau came from around 1400 - and the targeted promotion of the venerable pilgrimage, which was only a short day's journey from Prague. The prayers at the pillar pleaded not only to the Immaculate, but also to Mary as the protective shield of Bohemia. In this, the emperor followed the example of his father , who, according to his confessor Lamormaini , pardoned a baron who defected to the enemy in order to save the icon of Mary from Altbunzlau.
Even before the laying of the foundation stone, the public court was moved away from the market square, as the exercise of jurisdiction did not get along well with the character of the votive monument. The prayers of the Marian confraternities at the Marian column repeatedly led to complaints from citizens who felt restricted in their freedoms, especially the "free rein" to the carnival days . Finally, the old town's magistrate decided to cordon off the area immediately around the column with chains. During the Saturday devotions , trade and traffic were forbidden, because of the noise pollution, horse and carts were not allowed to cross the square at this time. The Jews from the nearby ghetto entering the square during the prayer completely prohibited because they they had deliberately disturbed by walking up and down in the square and loud talking.
destruction
After Czechoslovakia broke away from the union of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918, the Marian Column on the Old Town Square was overturned and destroyed by "angry citizens". They interpreted the column as a symbol for a violent recatholization of Bohemia and the oppression of the Czech nation by the Habsburgs . The Marian Brotherhood was able to recover the heavily damaged remains, which have been preserved to this day. They are in the holdings of the National Museum .
Rebuild controversy
How controversial the topics of baroque , counter-reformation , exile and secret Protestantism were discussed in the Czech Republic today, i.e. after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, is particularly evident in the polemics about the Marian Column, which was overthrown in 1918. In April 1990, the “Society for the Reconstruction of the Marian Column” was founded in Prague , which has around 500 full members (status: summer 2004). In letters to the editor that were published in the spring of 1990 in the daily newspaper “ Lidové noviny ”, the authors often equated “counter-reformation totalitarianism” with modern totalitarian regimes and took the traditional Protestant standpoint, according to which the possibility of the Marian column coexist with the Place of execution of the leaders of the Bohemian uprising in June 1621 and with the Jan Hus memorial, which was unveiled in 1915, should be sharply rejected.
On November 3, 1993, the 75th anniversary of the fall of the Marian Column, the Society for the Reconstruction of the Marian Column had a plaque affixed in the pavement of the Old Town Square with the inscription “Here stood and will stand again the Marian Column”. The words “and will stand again” had to be deleted at the request of the Prague magistrate. In the meantime, work on copies of Johann Georg Bendl's statue of the Virgin Mary, which has only survived as a torso, and the other sculptural and architectural parts of the Marian column by the Czech sculptor Petr Váňa continued. In 2017, the Prague City Council spoke out against rebuilding it on the Old Town Square.
Rebuilt in 2020
At the end of May 2019, the sculptor began to rebuild. However, the action was stopped by the police. In June 2019, another 60 tons of the replica were shipped to Prague. On January 23, 2020, the Prague municipal council voted for the construction of the replica of the Marian column at the old location. Construction work on the reconstructed Marian column began in February 2020. On June 4, 2020, the reconstruction of the Marian column was completed except for the 4 allegorical angel figures that were still missing.
The Marian Column was solemnly consecrated on August 15, 2020 by Archbishop Dominik Cardinal Duka of Prague after a high mass on the Assumption in the Tyn Church.
The replica of the statue of the Virgin, intended for the reconstruction, was placed in front of a window of the Tyn Church for years
Base of the reconstructed Marian column, March 2020
Substructure of the column, May 2020
The removal of the copy of the statue of the Virgin Mary from its temporary location next to the Tyn Church, June 4, 2020
The sculptor Petr Váňa places the statue of the Virgin Mary on a replica of the Marian Column, June 4, 2020
literature
- Walter F. Kalina: The Marian columns in Wernstein am Inn (1645/47), Vienna (1664/66), Munich (1637/38) and Prague (1650) , in: Bundesdenkmalamt (Hg.): Austrian magazine for art and monument preservation 58 (2004), H. 1, pp. 43-61.
Web links
- Deutschlandfunk, June 27, 2019
- marian-column , kralovskacesta.cz (English), accessed on November 15, 2019.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Strahinja Bućan: Will the Old Town Square get a Marian column? . Český rozhlas . June 12, 2019. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
- ^ Walter F. Kalina: The Marian columns in Wernstein am Inn (1645/47), Vienna (1664/66), Munich (1637/38) and Prague (1650). in: Austrian Journal for Art and Monument Preservation 58 (2004), no. 1, pp. 43–61.
- ↑ Strahinja Bućan: Prague City Council against Marian Column on Old Town Square . Český rozhlas . September 15, 2017. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
- ↑ Strahinja Bućan: Sculptor begins unauthorized with the reconstruction of the Prague Marian Column . Český rozhlas . May 29, 2019. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
- ↑ : Strahinja Bućan shipped copy of the Prague Mariensaeule to Prague . Český rozhlas . June 12, 2019. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
- ↑ Green light for the controversial Marian column , Radio Praha International on January 24, 2020
- ↑ https://www.radio.cz/de/rubrik/nachrichten/bau-der-neuen-prager-mariensaeule-begonnen
- ↑ The Marian Column is back
Coordinates: 50 ° 5 '14.3 " N , 14 ° 25' 16.5" E