Former Monument of Emperor Franz Joseph I
On the right hand side of ‘The Children’s Home’ runs a path through Lasek Miejski (The Municipal Woodland). Several meters behind the Home there is a monument of Prince Mieszko I, in a place where before there was a Former Monument of Emperor Franz Joseph I Lasek Miejski, entrance from I. Kraszewskiego street
In 1910 all of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy celebrated solemnly the 80th anniversary of the venerable Emperor Franz Joseph I’s birthday, which the residents of Cieszyn decided to celebrate in the appropriate way. As early as in 1898 Józef Pfitzner, an inn-keeper and chairman of the Cieszyn Veteran Association, set up a foundation for the building of the Emperor’s monument. It managed to collect, by 1910, a considerable sum of money: 3.300 crowns. It was then that the Cieszyn Association of Salesmen and Craftsmen transformed the foundation into the committee for the construction of the monument. Under the leadership of Samuel Lieberman they set about working with a lot of energy.
From the Town Council they got a site at the so-called Matterówka in Lasek Miejski. It was agreed that the monument would be placed on a hill above Franciszka Józefa street (today’s 3 Maja str.), so that it would face the Jubilee Bridge (today The Bridge of Freedom). Józef Obeth, an alumnus of the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts, was asked to design the monument. In late summer of 1910 the Emperor’s monument was raised in the appointed place. It had the style of geometrical Art Nouveau and resembled, in its form, the Empress Elisabeth monument in the capital of the Monarchy.
An obelisk with a fountain at its base that was embellished with a sculpted group of children and the Emperor’s crown, constituted the central part of the monument. Above the fountain a low relief of the Emperor’s bust, of white marble, was placed. The obelisk was topped with the Habsburg eagle. On its sides it had two wings with stone benches and bowls with decorative plants. Józef Obeth himself made the marble sculptures, whereas the whole stone construction was made by Jan Swarowski, Cieszyn stonemason master craftsman.
On the front the following inscription in German was carved: ‘Zur Erinnerung an den 80. Geburtstag Sr. Majestät des Kaisers Franz Joseph I.’ (‘ To commemorate the 80th Highness, Franz Joseph I’). At the back of the monument, on the other hand, a marble plaque (now part of the collection in the Museum of Cieszyn Silesia) with the following inscription was placed: ‘In patriotischer Verehrung gegründet von den Handels- u. Gewerbetreibenden in Teschen gefördert von edlen Spendern, enthüllt am 16. Oktober 1910.’ (‘In a patriotic reverence the salesmen and craftsmen of Cieszyn, supported by the nobleness of the donors, founded this monument and unveiled it on October 16th 1910.’).
It was only for eight years that the monument commemorated the Emperor. After the end of the I World War and the collapse of the Monarchy in 1918 the bust of Franz Joseph I was damaged. On December 7th, 1920, the Town Administration Committee of the allies ordered the removal of the Emperor’s low relief from the monument. The broken remains of the sculptures found their place in the collection of the Cieszyn Museum. The bared pedestal remained in this state until 1931 when, on June 21st a statue of the first Cieszyn Prince, Mieszko I, made of wrought copper by the well-known sculptor Jan Raszka, was solemnly placed there and unveiled. During the Nazi occupation the statue of Mieszko was removed by the invaders who were planning to put up a monument to Adolf Hitler in its place. Immediately after the war, on the granite socle at the base of the obelisk the following inscription (which is still there today) was carved: ‘To the fighters for freedom and democracy who fell in the war with Hitlerism – from the Polish Workers’ Party. Peace to their memory!’ The statue of Mieszko I returned to its place only in 1957, and fragments of the Emperor Franz Joseph I’s bust and the Emperor’s crown were placed in the Peace Park in 2002 – in the wall surrounding the museum collection of stones and stone fragments.
Photographs: Dominik Dubiel, Paweł Halama, Daniel Hryciuk, Magdalena Jańczuk, Renata Karpińska, Mariusz Makowski, Joanna Rzepka-Dziedzic, Anna Szostok-Fedrizzi, Henryk Tesarczyk
Translation from Polish: Lucyna Krzanowska and John Whitewood
Reproductions of exhibits, documents and photographs from the collections of:
- Museum of Cieszyn Silesia in Cieszyn,
- Cieszyn Historical Library,
- Cieszyn Branch of the State Archive in Katowice,
- Cieszyn Town Council,
- Museum of Beskidy in Frýdek-Mistek,
- private collection of Mariusz Makowski
- H. Wawreczka, J. Spyra, M. Makowski, ‘Cieszyn i Czeski Cieszyn na starych widokówkach i fotografiach’, WART, Nebory 1999