A PETITION among Bratislavans and visitors to indicate if they want a statue of Ľudovít Śtúr that now stands in the square that bears his name replaced by a full-sized statue of Empress Maria Theresa mounted on a horse, as originally stood there at the beginning of the 20th century, ended in mid-October with the empress attracting several thousand votes.
About 5,000 people took part in the poll organised by the Bratislava Beautification Association (BOS). 3,540 people signed their names to agree to installation of the Maria Theresa statue, 189 were against doing so under any circumstances, and 516 stated they wanted Maria Theresa placed in a different location with Štúr kept in his square.
The poll was conducted in the square itself, next to the Štúr statue on the northern embankment of the Danube River, Maroš Mačuha of BOS told the SITA newswire. People were also able to view a smaller, two-thirds-sized, statue of a mounted Maria Theresa that BOS wants to see erected in the square in its original size. The miniature of Maria Theresa is a facsimile of the original, sculpted by Ján Fadrusz and installed there in 1897. It was destroyed in 1921 by Czechoslovak legionnaires who regarded it as a symbol of the Hungarian monarchy.
