

PEACE MONUMENT
More than 100
years after the memorable Slavkov battle, considered at that time the bloodiest in
history, the Peace Monument was built in 1910 - 1912 on a hill near the town of Prace, one
of the key battle sites. A special committee, led by the initiator of the event, the
Moravian Napoleonist and Brnese priest Professor Alois Slovák, gained recognition for
creation of this timeless memorial to all wars. An important memorial in the late Art Deco
style, realized according to the design of architect Josef Fanta with the help of F.
Aný (cross group) and Čeněk Vosmík (sculptural decorations), it was not, however,
due to the First World War, handed over to the public until 1923. The monument, made of
quarried stone, displays old Slavic design formed by a tetrahedral, truncated pyramid 26
meters in height. At the top of the monument stands an elipsoid displaying the planet
Earth, and bearing an old Christian cross of nearly 10 meters in height. Inside the
monument there is a parabolic chapel with a ground plan of ten meters square, and with an
underground ossuary, where the remains of many casualties of the Slavkov battle,
discovered in the battlefield during this century, are buried. An exceptional feature of
the chapel is its excellent acoustics, enabling you to hear a whisper from diagonal
corners.
The monument was erected on the spot where
the French Fourth Corps decided, at around 11:00 AM on 2 December 1805, the victory of the
French over Russian and Austrian armies, by dividing the allies in the center and
conquering the Pracké Heights.
Four sculptures of shieldbearers in the
corners of the monument symbolize the heroes of the French, Austrian, and Russian armies,
whose soldiers fought in the battle, as well as Moravians, whose population suffered from
this conflict. The decorative cross group on the elipsoid displays Jesus Christ, the
Virgin Mary, the Apostle John, God the Father, and the head of Adam. A pelican on the
reverse side of the cross symbolizes the Redemption. It is supplemented with the names of
the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and also the words of the Old Slavic
liturgical song: "Lord, love me, Jesus Christ, love me."
In the vicinity of the monument,
which is visited annually by approximately 30 thousand people, there is a one storey
museum building built in 1925, which enables visitors to view the course of the battle and
to see the circumstances that surrounded it. In the middle of the 90s, at a cost of almost
five million CZK, the surface layer of the monument was repaired, and repairs continue in
the chapel interior as well as in the restoration of sculptural decorations. The monument
acquired new lighting on 25 March 1998. The chapel in the monument, as well as the museum,
was opened to the public for both holiday months until 9:30 PM. Before that it was open
only till 6:30 PM. From approximately 9:15 PM till midnight the monument was lit up every
day, so that it dominated commemorative zone of the Slavkov battlefield.
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