Hajós György: Heroes' Square - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

et sanguinem” (our lives and blood) to their queen. Made by Richárd Füredi in 1905, the statue of Leopold II had a relief belonging to it which depicted the episode in which the royal crown was brought back to Buda. The figure of Francis Joseph I was also sculpted by Richárd Füredi. The statue, which was made in 1905 and showed the monarch in full uniform, was smashed in 1919, when the statues of the other four monarchs were lifted off the monument. Although formally restoring the monarchic system, article XLVI1 of 1929 dethroned the House of Habsburg. When the still missing parts of the monuments were made, the four removed statues were also returned to their place, and György Zala sculpted the figure of Francis Joseph now wearing the coronation mantle. The relief beneath the statue showed the scene of Francis Joseph being crowned king of Hungary.

It is interesting that when the ceremonial event marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Sándor Petőfi was held in 1899, György Zala decided, according to the 13 August issue of the paper Vasárnapi Újság (Sunday News), to put the figure of the poet on one of the reliefs, perhaps showing him in the battle of Segesvár. The idea had to be abandoned as it would hardly have been possible to make the impassioned champion of Hungary’s liberty appear on a relief connected to the statue of Francis Joseph.)

All of the original reliefs were made by György Zala. During World War II, in June 1944, a bomb cut the colonnade in two, breaking the statues of Marie Theresa and Leopold 11 into pieces. During reconstruction work, the statues of the Habsburgs that had remained intact were removed together with the reliefs belonging to them, to be replaced by statues portraying outstanding personalities having fought for the country’s independence and liberty.

The statues and reliefs that can be seen in the colonnades today are as follows:

St. Stephen - Károly Senyei, 1911 Relief - György Zala: St. Stephen receives the crown from the Pope at Christmas in the year 1000. (The crown is being handed over by Abbot Asztrik of Pécsvárad.)

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