Mar 2 2012

Czech Cultural Gardens

Brent

Cleveland cultural gardens

Here is some info from the Cleveland Cultural Gardens website: “Dedicated in 1935, the Czech Garden was designed by landscape architects B. Ashburton Tripp and Maurice Cornell. At the center of a circular lawn, flanked by an Eagle Pylon and a Lion Pylon, is a sculptured frieze depicting the history of the migration of Czechs to the United States. Atop the frieze and facing the lawn are busts of Bedrich Smetana, a composer, Dr. Miroslav Tyrs, an educator and organizer of Sokol gymnastic societies, Jan E. Purkyne, a physiologist, and Bozena Nemcova, a novelist. The garden also contains busts celebrating Frantisek Palacky, a historian and statesman, Anton Dvorak, the composer of the well-known “New World Symphony,” the Reverend Jendrich Simon Baar, a priest and novelist, Karl Havlicek, a journalist imprisoned because of his political views, and Thomas Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia. Most of these statues, as well as the frieze, were the work of Frank L. Jirouch, a Cleveland-born sculptor of Czech descent who sculpted many of the busts in the garden.

On April 1, 1939, the President of Czechoslovakia planted two linden trees from Bohemia in the garden. In 1949, the Czech delegation added the Tyrs, Nemcova, and Purkyne bust, and in June 1962, Masaryk’s statue was added. At the dedication ceremony, United States Senator Frank Lausche lauded the choice of Masaryk, giving the dedication political resonance in the broader context of the raging Cold War. Lausche stated, that The love of liberty lives strong in the hearts of the Czechoslovakian people in America. … Our government will not make any pact for the degradation of Czechoslovak liberty.”

For more information on the Czech Garden: http://culturalgardens.org/gardenDetail.aspx?gardenID=7

Today’s quote is one of my favorites and comes from the garden itself: This Garden is dedicated, to our beloved Czech parents who by their teachings and by precept and example have established for us a high ideal of American citizenship.