Mausoleum of Yugoslavian Soldiers in Olomouc

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mausoleum of Yugoslavian Soldiers in Olomouc
Mausoleum of Yugoslavian Soldiers in Olomouc
Damaged sandstone relief above the portal to the ossuary
Damaged sandstone relief above the portal to the ossuary
Interier of the chapel with remains of frescoes
Interier of the chapel with remains of frescoes

The Mausoleum of Yugoslavian Soldiers is a neoclassical chapel with an ossuary containing remains of Yugoslavian soldiers killed in the First World War. It was built in 1926 in the Bezruč's Park in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) by the Czechoslovak-Yugoslavian League. The designer of the chapel was architect Hubert Aust.[1] The mausoleum was owned by Yugoslavia until its breakup. Nowadays it is partly damaged, but renovation has been prevented because of unclear property rights.[2]

[edit] Description

The chapel is 11 metres high, topped with a dome. A two-branch staircase leads to the chapel entrance behind 12 Doric columns standing in three rows. An epigraph on the chapel in the Czech and Serbocroatian languages reads: VĚRNOST ZA VĚRNOST - LJUBAV ZA LJUBAV (English: loyalty for loyalty). The building stands on an artificial mound, inside of which is the ossuary. The entrance to the ossuary is a portal with a sandstone relief of a mourning woman and national emblems of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. It contains the remains of more than 1,100 Yugoslavian soldiers who died in Olomouc military hospitals.[3]

[edit] Condition and plans of renovation

The mausoleum is in a bad condition due to both natural effects and vandalism, and therefore it is not open to the public. The stairs and electrical wiring are in the greatest disrepair. Frescoes of saints painted in the Byzantine style are also partly damaged.[2]

The entrance to the ossuary used to be closed with a grill and a wooden door, which were destroyed by vandals who also destroyed several wooden coffins and stole some skulls and other bones. As a result the portal was walled up in 1990. Thanks to this, the ossuary was saved from the flood which struck Olomouc in 1997. The entrance was reopened in 1998 to assess the range of necessary repairs and to stop the spread of mould, and was then walled up again.[2]

The first attempt at renovation was began with negotiations with its official owner, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the beginning of the 1990s, but in 1992 Yugoslavia disintegrated and the negotiations were stopped.[2]

In 2006 an agreement was made with the embassy of Slovenia as one of the successor states. It was expected that repairs would cost 12.5 million Czech crowns, with the money coming from the city of Olomouc, European Structural Funds and the Czech Ministry of Culture.[2] However, the project was suspended by the end of the year because the problems with property rights made the request for the European funding impossible.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mauzoleum jugoslávských vojáků (Czech). Hrady.cz (27 June 2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-22.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Jugoslávské mauzoleum čeká obnova" (in Czech) (October 2006). Zrcadlo památek XV 2006: 19. Národní památkový ústav, pracoviště Olomouc. 
  3. ^ Černoušek, Tomáš; Pavel Zatloukal, Vladimír Šlapeta. Olomoucká architektura 1900-1950: Průvodce (in Czech). 
  4. ^ Horák, Petr. "VI. zasedání Rady města", Olomouc.cz, Olomoucká vydavatelská s.r.o., 6 December 2006. Retrieved on 2007-12-22. (Czech) 
Languages