The Emperor and The Grand Duke on Pedestals. The Reasons for Reviving Memorials to Rulers in Czechia and in Lithuania
Abstract
In 1879 the artist Richard Kauffungen created a model for a statue of the Emporer Joseph II. This monument to the Emporer was installed primarily in regions with a large German minority in the former lands of the Bohemian Crown, and became a symbol of German superiority and nationalism within the Monarchy.
By contrast, in Lithuania in 1930 the sculptor Vinac Grybas created a monument to the Grand Duke Vytautas, which was intended to become an expression of national pride in the new European state, created after the First World War and building on the tradition of the medieval Lithuanian Grand Duchy. However, these monuments were removed hen new regimes came to power.
In the Czech lands they were regarded as a symbol Germanity, and in Lithuania as a symbol of a bourgeois republic. After the collapse of the Communist regimes, some of these monuments were returned to their original sites.
In the case of Czechia this was probably due to nostalgic wave of interest in history, while in Lithuania it was a declaration of support for the first Lithuanian Republic.