The Prague City Council will discuss two petitions regarding the Marian Column

Prague - The Prague City Council will discuss two petitions regarding the restoration of the Marian Column on September 14. One calls for its installation in the Old Town Square, while the other is against it, as informed by the magistrate spokesperson Vít Hofman. The petition against the column has been physically signed by over 1000 people, and there are about 1500 signatures online, representatives of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, initiatives, and societies informed today. They oppose the column's placement because it symbolizes the period of recatholicization and intolerance after the Battle of White Mountain. The Society for the Restoration of the Marian Column in Old Town Square in Prague aims to place the column at its original location for its artistic value and as a symbol of new relationships.

Opponents of the restoration of the symbol want to alert the council members that their potential consent to the new placement of the column would be a political decision aimed at harming the Czech nation and the Czech state. This was stated by writer Lenka Procházková, who is a co-author of the petition. "On the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the democratic republic, the Roman Catholic Church apparently wants to show who won here," she added. According to her, everything is currently prepared for the column to be placed in Old Town Square.

The Society for the Restoration of the Marian Column obtained the consent of the Prague 1 district in July to place a copy of the column, which has not survived, in its original location. "Several entities have appealed against the territorial decision," said Prague 1 spokeswoman Veronika Blažková to ČTK. The appeals were forwarded by the district to the Prague magistrate for resolution. "Until all appeals are resolved, it is not possible for this territorial decision to become legally effective," she added. The placement of the column does not require a construction permit or notification to the building authority, as it involves installing a work of art on a pedestal.

The Marian Column became a symbol of the Catholic Church's victory over Protestants in the Czech lands, erected on September 26, 1650, as one of the first in the Czech territory. It stood close to the site of the execution of the representatives of the Czech noble resistance in 1621. After the declaration of independence of Czechoslovakia in November 1918, the column was torn down by a crowd, as they considered it a symbol of Habsburg rule.

"With the destruction of the column, a compositional point was lost, and Hus's monument thus lost its counterbalance," said Jan Bradna, academic sculptor and vice-chairman of the Society for the Restoration of the Marian Column, in response to ČTK. He stated that the column was not a monument to the Battle of White Mountain but a thanksgiving to the Virgin Mary for protection during the Thirty Years' War. He rejects the idea that the Habsburgs imposed the Virgin Mary on the Czechs, as the first churches dedicated to her had existed in Bohemia since the 9th century.

Debates about the restoration of the column have been heated since the early 1990s. According to the Society for the Restoration of the Marian Column, it is the first Baroque monument in Bohemia, from which entire Baroque sculpture developed. At the same time, they describe the erection of the column as a symbol of reconciliation.