Bronze monument to J. W. Goethe in Mariánské Lázně

1932 

Poet and naturalist Johann Wolfgang Goethe started visiting Bohemia in 1785. He spent his last Czech stays in Mariánské Lázně between 1820 and 1823. The local nature and cultural environment influenced his work, and Goethe also significantly influenced Czech Renaissance scholarship. In front of the building of the Mariánské Lázně City Museum there is a bronze statue of him, which was erected during the Goethe celebrations in 1932.

 

Goethe's stays in Mariánské Lázně are known to the public because of his love for the young Ulrica von Lewetzov. A very important meeting between Goethe and Count Kaspar von Sternberg, the founder of the Patriotic Museum and later the National Museum, took place here. From this meeting a mutual friendship developed, which continued even after Goethe no longer came to Bohemia. 

Count Sternberg acquainted Goethe with the situation of the emerging Patriotic Museum, of which he was the chairman. The monarch officially recognized the association in 1820. Goethe had the fate of the Patriotic Museum very much at heart and regularly supplied the Count with his findings and comprehensive mineralogical collections. The magazine Prague Museum Worker was one of his regular readings. Through his literary activities he tried to bridge the chasm between the Czech lands and Germany. In the German-language version of the Museum Worker he himself provided insights into Czech history, the history of Prague University, nature conditions, reported on the activities of the Society of the Patriotic Museum, etc. Thanks to Goethe's literary authority, Sternberg's wish that the Prague museum should not only be a patriotic institution, but a true centre of Central European science and scholarship was fulfilled. 

The original Goethe statue was the work of the Czech-German artist Willy Russ and at its unveiling Johannes Urzidil, the most important Czech Goethe scholar and author of the well-known book Goethe in Bohemia, gave a speech. In 1943, it was decided the statue would be melted and it was taken to a scrap yard. After the war there was a commemorative plaque, paradoxically inscribed in Czech, English and Latin, but not in German. In 1993, a replica of the original statue by local sculptor Vítězslav Eibl (1928–2009).was installed by a joint initiative of the town and the Association of Former German Residents of Mariánské Lázně. 

 

References

Švandrlík, R.: Mariánské Lázně vzpomenuly v roce 1999 250. výročí narození J. W. Goetha. URL: http://www.hamelika.cz/slavnihoste/GOETHE/UVOD.HTM [26. 1. 2021].

Urzidil, J.: Goethe v Čechách. Příbram 2009, s. 398–403.

 

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