Slovak News Back to the news
Activists Launch Campaign Against Statue of Svatopluk at Castle
Tuesday 20 July 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, July 20 (TASR) - The statue of Prince Svatopluk, who ruled much of the area of what is now Slovakia in the 9th century, has among its detractors a civil association named UM!, which has kicked off a campaign to have the sculpture removed from the courtyard of Bratislava Castle, UM! told TASR on Tuesday.
The sculpture, which depicts Svatopluk in full battle armour on horseback, was unveiled by leaders of the previous governing coalition shortly before the elections in June that saw them lose power.
UM! activists found their way into the closed castle grounds at night and wrapped a banner around the sculpture with the slogans 'Statue of Lies' and 'Don't Modify History'.
According to the association, its action came in response to the fact that the statue is neither historically nor aesthetically proper. The activists also suspect that the double-barred cross depicted on Svatopluk's shield resembles the symbol of the wartime fascist paramilitary organisation the Hlinka Guard, and therefore violates criminal law on support and promotion of groups aimed at suppressing basic rights and freedoms. With this in mind they want to take legal action, and vow to continue similar actions against the statue until it is removed.
[The problem with the cross depicted on the shield is that its two horizontal bars are the same length, like the Hlinka Guard symbol, and unlike the Slovak national emblem, on which the upper bar of the cross is shorter than the lower. - ed. note].
Ladislav Vrtel, secretary of the Heraldic Commission of the Interior Ministry and author of Slovakia's state emblems, has confirmed that the cross on the statue is controversial. "It was used in 1938 and was modelled on a swastika in a circle - the emblem of Adolf Hitler's NSDAP party, like the emblem of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party. All fascist organisations modelled their images on the German swastika. The equal-armed cross in a circle played the role of "the Slovak swastika" said Vrtel, who is confident that it wasn't used deliberately on the statue but was simply a result of a regrettable ignorance of historical facts without consultations with heraldic experts.
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
