The Peace Park
After visiting the Museum of Cieszyn Silesia we go into The Peace Park
To the Larisch Palace adheres a park on the eastern and northern side. It is situated in place of a former moat at the town walls. Under the park lawn there is a large cellar, built at the end of the 18th century, with a stone barrel-vault and of secret purpose. In that part the representatives of the European countries negotiated the terms of the so-called ‘Cieszyn Peace Treaty’ that ended the war of Bavarian succession. After the signing of the treaty in 1779, in the Sejm Ziemski (Provincial Parliament) building, the palace park and the townsman Bilowicki’s gardens that adhered to it, a festive banquet took place, for which the Cieszyn townswomen brought fashionable dresses from Vienna itself for the first time. To commemorate this event the park got the name ‘The Peace Park’. In 1931 it was equipped with a wooden band-stand for an orchestra and a pool with a fountain. After the last conservation works in 2001 a collection of fragments of Cieszyn sculptures and elements of the town architecture was arranged in the inner part of the park. We will also find a castiron monument, placed in the centre, of the Emperor Joseph II there (originally it was placed in Dominikański Square) and, placed in the wall surrounding the park, fragments of the bust of the Emperor Franz Joseph I and of the Emperor’s crown from his sculpture situated in ‘Lasek Miejski’ (The Municipal Woodland).
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