The impact of political events on the fate of the monuments of Rudolf Valdec

Abstract

The article discusses the monuments of Rudolf Valdec, who, apart from Robert Frangeš — Mihanović, was the first Croatian modern sculptor (March 8, 1872, Krapina — February 1, 1929, Zagreb). It considers the reasons for the non-completion of his monuments to Bishop J. J. Strossmayer in Zagreb (the commission went to Ivan Meštrović, bypassing the competition) and in Osijek. The crucial reasons were related to religion, politics and worldview, not art and aesthetics. This proposition is confirmed by the statue standing in Đakovo today made by Osijek sculptor Marijan Sušac, after a sketch by Valdec, put up to mark the 750th anniversary of the founding of the See of Đakovo. Valdec also created two equestrian monuments to King Petar I of Serbia. The first was erected in Veliki Bečkerek (later renamed Zrenjanin) in 1924, and the second in Bijeljina in 1935 (although the sculpting work was completed in 1927). They were taken down when the Germans occupied Yugoslavia in 1941. In 2005, Serbian sculptor Zoran Jezdimirović put up an equestrian statue of the king in Zrenjanin that is practically identical to that of Valdec. In Bijeljina, too, in 2009, the Valdec monument to Petar I was reconstructed and once again erected. In other words, as circumstances changed over the course of time, so the monuments were shifted and once again put up.