The poet and naturalist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited northwest Bohemia seventeen times between 1785 and 1823. He stayed in Karlovy Vary, Teplice and Mariánské Lázně, but also visited Františkovy Lázně, drawn most of all by the desire to study the nearby extinct volcano of Komorní hůrka. In 1906 a local beautification association had a memorial installed to honour him, in the form of a fountain.

At the time when von Goethe used to visit Františkovy Lázně, there were hardly any forests in the landscape around the town. According to period records, apart from the main colonnade, the spa was in rather a dull setting. Although the first so-called beautification association was set up in 1827, the spa did not change much until a new association was established in 1881 by the local architect and builder Gustav Wiedermann. Wiedermann is considered the creator of the modern spa, and constructed sacral buildings as well as the grand spa buildings. He spent 10 years as the town’s mayor and his vision was to build a park and forest-park landscape, embellished by various memorials and monuments, as then, in his words “the land will receive some kind of historical consecration, that will engage and dispel the spirit”. He succeeded in making this vision a reality the whole time he was in office. Paradoxically, however, it was because the memorials bore “a piece of history” that they were often later destroyed. Fortunately, von Goethe’s memorial escaped demolition. 

The monument is the work of the sculptor Karel Wilfert Jr. and is in the form of a fountain, from which the poet’s larger-than-life-size head gazes out, forming the backdrop to reliefs with ancient motifs. G. Wiedermann also planned to build a memorial on nearby Komorní hůrka, although this was eventually erected by his successor, Franz Köppl to mark the 100th anniversary of Goethe’s death in 1932. It was in the spirit of the poet that Franz Köppl also had a forest altar built out of fallen boulders in the adjacent spa park – “a place of silent gathering and prayer”, as we can read on the restored altar today. Incidentally, many memorial sites around the spa park have been restored and there are local educational trails commemorating this shared Czech-German cultural space.

 

Fejfar, O.: Lázeňský host, geolog a výletník: Přírodovědná zkoumání Johanna W. Goetha během jeho pobytů v Čechách. Živa 6, 2011, s. 89–91.

Urzidil, J.: Goethe v Čechách. Příbram 2009, 501 s.

Odstrčil, Š.,K.,: Františkovy lázně. Terapeutická krajina a její tvůrce Gustav Wiedermann. Město Františkovy Lázně ve spolupráci s Destinační a informační agenturou Františkovy Lázně, z. ú. 2020. URL: : https://www.frantiskovy-lazne.info [26. 1. 2021].