In Hranice, a new statue of Masaryk on horseback will be unveiled

photo: City of Hranice

Hranice – A new bronze statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk will be ceremoniously unveiled in Hranice, located in the Přerov region, this afternoon. It will be a life-sized equestrian figure in the form of a flat silhouette of the statesman, created by artists Ladislav Sorokáč and Ondřej Tuček. The statue will stand in the city’s heritage zone in front of the elementary art school. The surface of the figure, made according to a photograph, features a relief text with Masaryk’s thoughts. The design was selected by experts in an architectural and artistic competition that received 20 submissions.

The work will be located in Školní náměstí, where the statue of Masaryk returns in a different form almost half a century later. The sculpture, valued at 3.5 million crowns, was created in the spring of this year, but its unveiling was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The ceremonial unveiling of the memorial to the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, was thus scheduled for today as a solemn tribute to his death on September 14, 1937.

Masaryk visited Hranice twice, and the town has been attempting to restore his memorial since the 1990s. The compromise ultimately became Masaryk’s bust, which the town had installed in 2001 in the Old Town Hall. The recent impetus for the restoration of the idea of a permanent Masaryk monument in the town came from the centenary of the republic two years ago and the renovation of ZUŠ Hranice.