Milan Stefani Qi statue

In the past few years, when you drive to Martin Luther King's Cleveland Museum of Art, you may notice that this awesome bronze statue stands at the intersection of the highway and Jepta Avenue, which takes you to the museum parking lot. This statue commemorates Milan Stefani, Slovakia's greatest and most precious national hero. It is a characteristic monument of Wade Park in recent 90 years, and it is also the pride of the Slovak community in Cleveland. However, the next time you go to the university circle, don't look for this statue in Wade Park. It's gone. Due to a lot of road and sewer construction work in Wade Park, the regulation was removed from the intersection site in 20 13, and finally moved to Slovak Cultural Park in a controversial move, on the road of Rockefeller Park.

It is easy to understand why the Slovak-American community in Cleveland cherishes Milan Stefani's memory so much, and why moving his statue to a new location 90 years later will cause some controversy in this ethnic community. Stephanic, the son of a Lutheran priest, was born in 1880 in a village in western Slovakia today. He was a clever student when he was young. He received a doctorate in philosophy from Charles University in Prague. 1904, he immigrated to France. In ten years, he made outstanding achievements in many different scientific fields during the Renaissance and won an international reputation. 19 14, the first world war broke out in Europe, and Stefani Qi joined the French army as a military pilot to perform flying tasks for the Axis forces in Europe. Before long, he was promoted to general. In addition to his military duties, he also traveled around Europe and the United States with the future first President Tomagarrigue Masaryk and others, lobbying for the establishment of Czechoslovakia. After the war, Stefani returned to the New Republic in May 19 19 and became the first Minister of National Defense. The plane he was flying just crossed the border and entered the airspace of Czechoslovakia when it mysteriously crashed. Within a few months after Stefani's death,

He died, and the Slovak community in Cleveland planned to carve a statue for him. This is not an easy project to complete. Slovak-American leaders in new york and other American cities believe that this statue should be placed in a more important place. When Washington, D.C. returns to Cleveland, some members of the City Council hope that the statue will be placed in a park in Garfield Heights. However, the Slovak community in Cleveland, under the leadership of national journalist and civic leader John Pancucci, persevered and successfully erected this statue in Wade Park on 1924. According to Panguqi, thousands of ordinary people "pass by" the statue every hour.

1929, just five years after the statue was placed in Wade Park, it was proposed to move it to Slovakia's new culture park being planned by Rockefeller Park. I drew a picture, put my feet down, and started the preliminary work of lifting the statue off the base. But then, John Pancucci and others intervened and persuaded the Slovak community to keep this regulation in Wade Park until 20 13. Now, as the central part of Slovakia's cultural garden, the statue of miral Stefani Qi sits on a pedestal, which is the same as the pedestal dumped by Slovak Citizens Union in the early 1930s. It is located between the busts of two other Slovak cultural heroes, namely, the poet Jan kolar and the founding father of the United States, Stephen Friedke. As mentioned above, this move is not without controversy, but many people in the Slovak community are dismissive of it, saying that the statue has finally arrived home.