Roland of Calbe
The Roland von Calbe is one of the 31 (2006) remaining, partly renewed or re-erected real Rolandas in Germany . While the predecessors of this Roland were made of wood, the current one is made of sandstone and stands on a pedestal in front of the town hall in Calbe , a town in the Salzlandkreis in Saxony-Anhalt .
The first Roland
When the first Roland was erected is no longer known today. The statue was first mentioned in an invoice from 1382 for 1381. At that time, it was taken down from its position in the old market to be placed in front of the new Calbe town hall , which was completed five years earlier . Since no one sets up a Roland in front of an old council building in order to then place it in front of the existing new town hall, it must have existed before 1376.
This suggests that the Calber Roland could have been erected in connection with the installation of several Roland figures in northern Germany under Charles IV as an expression of an emphatic memory of Charlemagne and his loyal hero Roland . Charles IV , who during his long reign attached great importance to the creation of a strong central authority, had the Roland figures erected as symbols for current imperial law (imperial law) and his alliance with the cities .
Another mention of the Calber Roland was made in 1465, from which it emerges that the wooden blind was painted in color and had a slate roof as protection.
The second (baroque) Roland
In 1656 the Magdeburg sculptor Gottfried Gigas was commissioned to produce a new statue because the old Roland was in danger of falling apart. This time, too, it was colored, as can be read in a chronicle by Johann Heinrich Hävecker . He was considered a "badly proportioned figure".
The fact that the citizens of Calbe thought of a new, gigantic Roland figure just six years after the devastating Thirty Years' War shows the importance they attached to the statue. For them it was probably a symbol of traditional urban prosperity and an incentive to restore Calbe's original flourishing with combined forces as quickly as possible. At the same time, the new Roland building had a certain political explosive power and was a challenge at a time of total collapse of the central power, when the territorial princes tried to consolidate their small-state absolutism . The new Roland was over four meters high and carved from an oak trunk.
The now beginning, two-year-long dispute between the sovereign administration and the magistrate is symptomatic of the new quality of the symbolism of Roland von Calbe. The sovereign officials refused to approve the installation of the new figure because they saw, probably rightly, a resurgence of the urban autonomy . The scramble between the officials in the castle and the city over the placement of the figure lasted for two years , then in 1658 a compromise was reached in which both sides assured that the previously anchored rights of the opposing party would not be affected.
In 1875 the town hall burned down, but the Roland statue remained intact due to the favorable wind conditions. After the new construction of the town hall, the Roland was refused its traditional place and was stored in a barn for seven years until it was installed at the boys' elementary school ( Heinrich Heine School ). It remained in this place until the millennium of the city of Calbe in 1936, when it was placed again in front of the town hall. Because of the danger of bombing during the Second World War, the Roland was brought to safety in the flag hall of the Bismarck Tower on the Wartenberg . There it found its fate as firewood in the post-war period.
The third (today's) Roland
When the Calbeners were doing better economically in the 1960s, they also wanted their old symbolic figure back. But it was not until 1973 that the reception of GDR history changed , that a replica was approved. In 1976, a four-and-a-half meter high sandstone rim, created by the sculptor Eberhard Glöss based on the figure from 1656, was unveiled.
Like his baroque predecessor, of which he is an almost faithful replica, he holds an upright sword in his right hand and a shield with Calbe's coat of arms in his left. The 4.50 m high Roland wears a helmet on his head, which rarely occurs with the remaining Rolands, only eight times.
literature
- Klaus Herrfurth: News from Roland zu Calbe on the Saale . In: Magdeburg leaves. Annual journal for local and cultural history in Saxony-Anhalt , 1988, ISSN 0232-7023 .
- Hanns Schwachenwalde: Der Roland von Calbe (leaflet without the publisher and year of publication).
- Dieter H. Steinmetz: The Roland von Calbe . In: Calbenser Blatt , 4 and 6/2006.
- Dieter H. Steinmetz: Not only Roland von Calbe wears a martial helmet . In: Schönebecker Volksstimme from July 25, 2006.
- Dieter H. Steinmetz: In historical clues ... . Station 2. (see web link)
- Dieter H. Steinmetz: The Roland von Calbe through the ages . In: Dieter Pötschke (Ed.): "Vryheit do ik ju openbar ...". Rolande and city history ( Harz research ; vol. 23). Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86732-019-1 .
See also
Web links
- http://histrundgangcalbe.herobo.com/ Station 2
Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 11.3 " N , 11 ° 46 ′ 34.8" E