Statue of Shame, Rukavina Memorial, Austrian Military Memorial
Statue of Shame, Rukavina Memorial, Austrian Military Memorial
Original function:
statue / memorial / relief
Current function:
statue / memorial / relief
Address:
Cimitirul Eroilor
Historical Hungarian county:
Temes
GPS coordinates:
45.7690707023, 21.2279949398
History
Temesvár, founded and inhabited by Hungarians during the Middle Ages, was rebuilt as a fortified military town by the Habsburgs after the expulsion of the Turks, where for a long time Hungarian settlement was forbidden. In 1848, the Hungarian Revolution was greeted with enthusiasm also in Temesvár, but the city was occupied by a large imperial army. In June 1849, the Hungarian army led by Vécsey Károly besieged the city. The siege lasted 107 days. By August the defenders were in a hopeless situation. They ran out of food and ammunition, the water supply was cut off by the besiegers, and a serious epidemic broke out among the defenders after they were forced to drink from the wells in the castle. Their leader, Imperial General Georg Rukavina, along with some 2,000 defenders, fell victim. The siege was ended by the Austrians under Haynau on 9 August, after their victory over the Hungarian War of Independence with the help of a huge Russian intervention army. On the occasion of Emperor Franz Joseph's visit in 1852, he personally laid the foundation stone of a monument commemorating the victory in one of the central squares of the town, which then bore the name of Prince Eugene of Savoy. The monument was designed by Josef Kranner and unveiled in 1853. To build it, the Baroque Plague Memorial Column, which the people of the town had had erected by vow, was dismantled. The statue's main figure was a woman holding the keys to Temesvár. Surrounding her were 4 statues representing the virtues of the defenders, and at her feet were figures of monsters snarling upwards. The monsters were repeatedly defaced by the townspeople, who knew that they represented the Hungarian soldiers trying to liberate the city, and poured pitch over them. The monsters were removed when the monument was redecorated in 1885. The citizens, however, would have had the whole monument removed. After the Romanian invasion, the side figures were removed and the head of the female figure was broken off. In 1936, the entire monument was dismantled and moved to the cemetery on Lippai Street, where many of the former defenders are buried.
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