National Monument in Vitkov

Contact us:National Monument in VitkovU Pamatniku 1900, 130 00 Praha 3, Czech RepublicE-mail: oncd@nm.czTel. +420 222 781 676www.nm.czFor guided tours and educational programmes for schools, dial +420 222 781 676.

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We would like to take the liberty of inviting you to the National Monument in Vitkov. We have prepared this guidebook for you to present the history and the interior of the Monument. We wish you a pleasant journey into the past to discover the historical experience indelibly imprinted upon this building.

�e National Museum acquired the National Monument in Vitkov in 2000, and this was fol-lowed by major restoration work. �e Monument includes, besides others, the Ceremonial Hall, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the facilities of the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum, an exhibition entitled Crossroads of Czech and Czechoslovak Statehood and many other exhibition halls. You can also enjoy our viewing terrace and a lovely cafe.

The History of Vitkov Hill and Zizkov after the 1850’s

Vitkov, a hill with a remarkable genius loci, has always attracted Prague’s citizens and is linked with important events in Czech history. The first written mention of Vitkov dates back to the 14th century, to the time of Charles IV, who had vineyards planted on the hills around Prague. The vineyards stretched from the foot of Vitkov through Vinohrady to Karlov. Besides grapes, Vitkov hill was also used for the cultivation of hops.

The historical high point for Vitkov relates to the Hussite movement and dates back to the summer of 1420. A crusade against the Czech Kingdom was declared in Wroclaw in March 1420. In April and May the crusader armies, led by Emperor Sigmund, proceeded towards Prague. The representatives of Prague’s towns decided to stand against Sigmund and asked Tabor and other Hussite-controlled boroughs for help. Sigmund

seized Hradcany and Vysehrad while the Praguers and Hussite forces controlled Vitkov. The decisive battle took place on 14 July 1420 when the Hussite forces defeated the crusader army.

The latter half of the 19th century can be seen as the culmination of the emancipation of the Czech nation. This was closely linked to displays of patriotism in places which were essentially bound to Czech history. Thanks to its genius loci, Zizkov quarter and Vitkov hill became one of these places. In 1877, the town of Kralovske Vinohrady I was renamed to Zizkov, as Jan Zizka of Trocnov was perceived as the symbol of the fight for Czech interests. In 1881 Zizkov was promoted to the status of a town. Vitkov was seen as the symbol of the Czechs and the ancient glory of the Czech nation, which obviously led to the idea of building a monument to Zizka here. The initiative for building the monument is attributed to Karel Hartig, the first mayor of Zizkov.

In 1882, the Association for the Construction of the Zizka Monument in Zizkov was estab-lished in the hall of the U Deklarace pub. The Association held national celebrations in Zizkov (for instance in 1884) and in 1910 a memorial tab-let was unveiled on the hilltop. The Association’s most famous act was the announcement of the tender for the Zizka Monument in 1912. No first prize was awarded. The Association’s activities were abandoned during World War One.

Establishment of the Czech Republic and the Resistance Monument

In 1918 an independent Czechoslovak state was declared. The state consistently supported activities aimed at maintaining and developing the tradition of foreign legions. The Resistance Monument was

Dear Visitors,

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established within the Ministry of National Defence in May 1919 as an institution whose role it was to collect written and material memorabilia relating to the resistance. In 1920 the Monument became a separate military institute, with colonel Rudolf Medek being the commander. The objective of the Resistance Monument as an institution was to build a structure which would embody celebration and reverence as well as pro-active scientific activities in the field of history, i.e. including an archive, library and museum. At that time the Resistance Monument was already cooperating with the afore-mentioned Association for the Construction of Zizka’s Monument in Zizkov. The two institu-tions merged in 1926, establishing the Union for the Construction of the Liberation Monument and the Monument to Jan Zizka of Trocnov.

Two art contests were held for the design, the more important being the second one in 1925, which assumed separate buildings for the Monument. The first building, located on Vitkov hill, should be a necropolis for prominent representatives of the First Resistance, and the second building at the foot of the hill, now used by the Institute of Military History, was to house the administration and museum. The architect Jan Zazvorka won the first prize in the contest.

The construction of the museum at the foot of the hill was launched in 1927 and completed two years later. The construction of the National Liberation Monument commenced in 1928 when the corner stone was laid on the top of Vitkov Hill in the presence of President T. G. Masaryk to mark the oc-casion of the 10th anniversary of the Czech Republic. The shell was completed in 1933 and interior works continued, involving many leading artists. In 1938 the Monument was prepared to officially become state property but that, however, did not happen be-cause of the events in Munich. The Monument thus remained the property of the Union and the artwork decorations were not fully completed.

Ceremonial Hall

The Ceremonial Hall (5) is the core of the Monument. Its design is based on temple archi-tecture and consists of a deep three-naved hall with tribunes above the aisles and a middle nave clerestory. The dominating feature of the Hall is the front part, which was to be used as a podium for occasions of celebration and mourning. A large metallic sculpture above the front part, installed in 1938, was made by sculptors Karel Kotrba and Ladislav Kofranek and represents the flying and winged Genius Prophesying Freedom. It was destroyed by the Nazis during World War Two, recast and reinstalled after the war.

Above the podium is a tapestry with a large national emblem of the First Republic, conceived by the academic painter Karel Svolinsky. The tapestry was made in the workshop of Marie Hoppe-Tainitzer in Jindrichuv Hradec. To avoid destruction by the Nazis, it was sent to the World Exhibition in New York in 1938. After long series of events it came back to the Monument as late as in 2001.

The space above the cornice of the Ceremonial Hall is divided into fields with tiled areas featuring historical emblems of the lands which were a part of the First Republic. The floor, stairways and walls are made of fine marble in colour combinations of grey-red, black and white. The ceiling windows provide natural light to the Ceremonial Hall.

The western part of the Ceremonial Hall has an elevated platform with an organ and a space for the singers. The reed pipes are protected with a cage. Under the platform there is a mosaic entitled Where Is My Home (the Czech national anthem) by Jakub Obrovsky. The space between the stairways is filled with a cubic marble block with a large laurel wreath by Professor Karel Stipl.

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Presidential Lounge

�e Presidential Lounge (4) is a space with uni�ed architectonic design. �e parquetry is made of oak and walnut. �e walls are decorated with the original silk brocade wallpaper with a Byzantine pattern made according to a fragment of cloth found in the Tomb of Czech kings in St Vitus Cathedral.

�e seats and oval table in the lounge were based on a design by Jan Zazvorka. An electric furnace in the middle of the northern wall is covered with a decorative cage and there is an allegoric �gure above the lintel based on a design by Jaroslav Horejc. �e opposite wall is decorated with a painting entitled Tabor by Vincenc Benes.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

�e Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (10) is located underneath the statue of Jan Zizka of Trocnov on horseback. �e Czechoslovak Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was originally made in the Old Town Hall in 1922 as a temporary place of piety and contained the relics of an unknown soldier from Zborov. At the beginning of the Protectorate Bohmen und Mahren in 1939, the Tomb became a place where people expressed their symbolic resistance against the Nazi power. It was demolished by the Nazis in 1941.

When World War Two was over, considera-tion was given to renewing the Tomb and moving

it to Vitkov. As part of the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Zborov1, the Headquarters of the Czechoslovak Army decided to establish the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the National Monument in Vitkov, which would contain the relics from Zborov. However, Soviet embassy officials denied the request to transfer those relics. In June 1949 restoration work was underway in the military graveyard near Dukla, and during exhumation work on 14 July 1949 the relics of one of the unknown soldiers were unearthed in the graveyard in Vysny Komarnik. �ey were transported to Prague and temporarily lodged with the National Museum. On Sunday 9 October 1949, when celebrations of the 5th anniversary of the Battle of Dukla2 were at their peak, the relics were moved to the Liberation Monument.

On 8 May 2010 other relics of an unknown soldier from Zborov were put in the Tomb next to the relics of the unknown soldier from Dukla, thus ful�lling the original idea of the Monument. �e relics are lodged in one of the coffins. �e sar-cophagus is surrounded by six marble-clad pillars which support the statue of Jan Zizka of Trocnov. �e reliefs in the Tomb were made by the academic sculptor Oskar Kozak. On the right hand side there are memorial tablets commemorating Czech troops who lost their lives in contemporary mis-sions abroad. �e Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is today perceived in all its breadth and meaning as an expression of thanksgiving to the Czechs and Slovaks who fell in the struggle to liberate the Czech and Czechoslovak state. In 2006 General Alois Elias and his wife were also buried here.

1 �e Battle of Zborov, Ukraine (2 July 1917) was part of the Russian summer offensive against the Austro-Hungarian army on the Eastern front in the First World War. �e battle was a remarkable appearance of the Czechoslovak legions in Russia (Czechoslovak Ri�emen Brigade) which largely contributed to the great success of the otherwise failing Russian offensive in the �ghting near Zborov.

2 From September to November 1944, in the �nal stage of World War Two, the so-called Carpatho-Dukla operation was underway, aiming at ensuring quick progress of the Soviet armies through the Dukla pass to Slovakia to provide assistance to the Slovak National Uprising. �e operation was joined by the Czechoslovak 1st Army Corps in the Soviet Union, which participated in the heaviest battles near the town of Dukla. A large number of Czechoslovak soldiers were killed in these �ghts. Eventually the Czechoslovak troops entered Slovakia on 6 October 1944 near Vysny Komarnik.

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�e author of the bronze sculptures in the antechamber of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the academic sculptor Otakar Svec. �ey are allegories of military virtues – Courage and Loyalty (a female �gure).

The Statue of Jan Zizka of Trocnov on Horseback – Viewing Point

After the First World War the activities of the Association for the Construction of Zizka’s Monument in Zizkov were renewed. As early as in June 1920 the cornerstone was laid in the presence of President T. G. Masaryk. In the 1920’s several art tenders were held, with no satisfactory results (1923, 1925 and 1928). �e monument was even-tually commissioned in 1931 from the sculptor Bohumil Kafka, a professor at Prague’s Academy of Visual Arts, outside the tender. �e sculpture was supposed to be monumental and realistic. It took Kafka a whole ten years to complete the sculpture, and an advisory board of nine people was established to supervise his work, consisting of specialists, historians and hippologists.

For this job, Bohumil Kafka had a new studio built in Orechovka, Prague, 27 m high and 18 m wide. �e initial idea was for the model of a horse without the rider. Several men then modelled for the rider part, conceiving the rider’s position, body and head. Experts in historical armament provided information not only on the rider’s clothing style, but also many details, such as the design of the foot frame. Kafka made a plaster model of Zizka’s statue in November 1941 and died shortly afterwards.

�e sculpture was cast after the liberation. It was unveiled on 14 July 1950, to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Vitkov. It is tethered to reinforced concrete plugs anchored in the structure of the Monument. �e sculpture is 9 m high, 9.6 m long, and weighs 16.5 tons.

Central Hall – Permanent Exhibition

�e Central Hall (4) is one of the places of reverence, originally designed for burying distin-guished Czechoslovak legionaries, although none were actually ever buried here.

In the 1930’s, ten sarcophagi made from polished marble from Slivenec and 16 dark marble sepulchral tablets were placed in the middle of the hall. �is concept was changed in 1960’s when, after the cremation of the relics of Klement Gottwald, one of the red sarcophagi was moved to the centre, and urns with the relics of the Czechoslovak presidents Antonin Zapotocky and Ludvik Svoboda were later placed in the other two sarcophagi. �is was in the area where the permanent exhibition entitled Crossroads of the Czech and Slovak Statehood is installed now.

�e Central Hall features four great reliefs sculpted in marble blocks built into the building’s structure, made by Karel Pokorny. �ey depict the themes of Assault (an attacking French legionary in the NE corner of the hall), Defence (a defending Russian legionary, SE corner), Dying (a wounded Italian legionary, SW corner) and Death (a dead Serbian legionary, NW corner of the hall).

�e reliefs are linked to the interesting fate of the Monument during World War Two and the Nazi occupation. When World War Two began, the lower buildings of the museum, now the Institute of Military History, were seized by the Nazis and devastated at the end of the war. �e Monument’s building escaped the Wehrmacht’s attention until November 1942. �e administra-tion of the Monument therefore took advantage of this to carry out concealed actions from the autumn of 1939 to the summer of 1940 to save everything valuable, such as metals for casting sculptures, and removed and stored works of art. All works that could not be moved were

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permanently masked. �is was also the case of the reliefs that were ‘converted’ into unworked blocks with the structure and gloss of the original stone.

From November 1942 the Monument was oc-cupied by the Nazi administration and before the end of the war the Wehrmacht used it as a store.

After World War Two the renewal of the Monument commenced. Works also began on the new building which was to be used as a tribute to the second resistance. However, the events of February 1948 brought new ways of using the Monument. Oppression against the legionary tradition broke out in full force in 1950. Following the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the Monument of Liberation was converted in a proletariat pantheon, thus changing its ideological function.

Another turning point in its history was in 1953 when the Central Committee decided to set up the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum in the Monument.

Columbarium

�is place of reverence (6) was origi-nally designed for the burial of distinguished Czechoslovak legionaries. However, they were never buried here. Starting in 1951, it was used to bury leading Communist Party Officials, such as Bohumir Smeral or Stanislav K. Neumann, whose relics were all removed after 1989, the urns placed in the Olsanske graveyard or given to the survivor families. �e decorations of the Columbarium are by the sculptor Jaroslav Horejc.

Nowadays this place is used to commemo-rate remarkable personalities who in�uenced, whether in a positive or negative sense, Czech and Czechoslovak history in the 20th century.

Chapel of the Fallen

�e original design assumed a northern entrance to the necropolis to be made where the Chapel of the Fallen (5) is located now. �e Chapel was designed to house the relics of 44 Italian and 3 Russian legionaries who had been executed by the Austrian authorities during the First World War. �eir names were engraved into a grey marble slab which was replaced with white marble slabs containing verses by Vitezslav Nezval in the 1950’s.

�e wall mosaics were made by Max Svabinsky, a leading Czech artist, who com-pleted the design in 1935. �e mosaic depicts the apotheosis of the Homeland and consists of four wall �elds and two ceiling �elds. �e wall �elds are dedicated to the Russian and Italian legions, a commemoration of France and the mourning of Prague and the Homeland. �e ceiling �elds are composed of nebulae, stars and the Milky Way.

Another artwork in the Chapel of the Fallen is a sculpture entitled �e Wounded by Jan Stursa. It was made in 1920–1921 and the author revives memories of the hardships of war. It is intended to express the frustration of life and the last battle of a fading body.

�e art decoration also includes a �gural candlestick from the 1930’s and door reliefs from the 1950’s, featuring elements of socialist realism, all made by Jaroslav Horejc.

Main Hall – Exhibition Area

�e original layout placed a sarcophagus in the Main Hall (7) as the place where President T. G. Masaryk was to be buried. He eventually rejected the plan, and so did his family after his death. In 1953 this area was given a new func-tion – it was rebuilt into the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum. �e Minister of National Defence

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and Gottwald’s son-in-law Alexej Cepicka was in charge of the preparatory works for the conversion. �e example came from Moscow (V. I. Lenin, J. V. Stalin) and So�a ( J. Dimitrov). �e Mausoleum included technical facilities, described in a separate chapter. �e construction work also involved the son of the Monument’s key architect, Jan Zazvorka Jr., a �lm architect.

Klement Gottwald’s body was exhibited in the centre of the Mausoleum in a glazed sarcophagus. �e lid had built-in lights with small mirrors. �e body was moved in and out the underground laboratory by a vibration-free telescopic device. �e embalmed body was dressed in a blue general uniform of the Head Commander of Czechoslovak armies. In 1958 it was changed to civilian attire.

Liberation Hall

�e Liberation Hall (9) is the easternmost part of the Monument, built after World War Two. �e construction was already planned during the war by architect Jan Zazvorka and was supposed to pay tribute to the Second Resistance. �e intention was changed after 1948 and the new structure was opened as the Red Army Hall in 1955.

�e walls of the hall are tiled in red marble. �e window panes are made of thin Romanian marble slabs. �e eight pillars between the win-dows are decorated with mosaics based on a design by Vladimir Sychra. �e mosaic �elds depict examples of various types of Soviet Army weapons, accompanied by verses by Vitezslav Nezval.

Technical Facilities for the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum

�e technical facilities for the Klement Gottwald Mausoleum were built in the under-

ground premises of the Monument (10) and consisted of a laboratory, room for doctors and nurses, control centre, warehouse and engine room. Great emphasis was put on the technol-ogy and air conditioning, which had to meet the strictest criteria. �e construction of the underground premises was completed in October 1953 and its original design served until Klement Gottwald’s cremation in 1962 when some of the equipment was removed. �e only things to have been preserved are the control room and the ground plan for the laboratory.

�e mummi�cation of Klement Gottwald’s body was performed by Soviet experts led by doc-tor Zbarsky. Czechoslovak doctors and experts took custody of the embalmed body and all technical facilities in 1955.

All the rooms where the body was handled required controlled conditions. �e prescribed air temperature in the laboratory was 16°C and 80% humidity. �e laboratory was furnished with the latest equipment, such as �re alarm sensors and electric �y killers.

�e red sarcophagus from the Central Hall, in which Klement Gottwald’s urn was placed after the cremation in 1962, can be seen in a niche in the laboratory.

Further information and accompanying pictures on the history of the Monument can be seen in a self-service information panel in the exhibition.

�ank you very much for your visit.

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