Visiting Prague

Memorial to the victims of Communism

The Memorial of the Victims of Communism is provoking and very moving sculpture, a truly magnificent memorial and a sad one, though. This modern memorial was created by the Czech sculptor Olbram Zoubek and 22nd May 2002, the first memorial to victims of the Communist regime was unveiled in Prague. It contains seven “phases” of a man living in a totalitarian state – the bronze figures depict process from the first statue being a full man, up to the last statue where only a part of him remains and the worst ones on the farthest steps. This evaporation of a man represents the gradual psychical and physical destruction of a person who is ruled by any undemocratic regime. You can see how the man disappears due to secret police, censorship, no freedom of thoughts and expressions etc.

However some artists and people say these figures are kitschy, while feminists are angry because all the figures are male despite women were persecuted under the communists regime too. The Memorial to the victims of Communism was damaged by two bomb attacks in late 2003.

You can find it near the funicular railway station to Petrin hill opposite the Újezd tram stop on the other side of the Vltava River from the National Theater.

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