Prague, May 13 (CTK) – The foundation stone for a future monument to Habsburg ruler Maria Theresa (1717-1780) was unveiled in the presence of Prague Mayor Adriana Krnacova, Prague 6 district mayor Ondrej Kolar and the crowd on the 300th anniversary of her birth on Saturday.
The ceremony was finished by a volley of the rifles of the Habsburg Guard in period uniforms.
Jan Kovarik, who designed the monument along with Jan Proksa, said Maria Theresa’s statue outside the Baroque ramparts would be 5.5 metre tall and three million crowns would be needed to create it.
The monument is to have the form of a reduced figure looking more like a symbol of the ruler rather than her realistic depiction.
The plinth will be created as a skirt and the statue will be made of glass concrete.
“As Maria Theresa was the only woman to have ever sat on the Czech throne, she deserves such a monument,” Kolar said.
Maria Theresa, from the House of Habsburg, was the only woman on the Czech throne. Her reign lasted from 1740 to 1780. She developed the modern centralised state and promoted education, judiciary and financial reforms, encouraged industrial production and introduced registers of inhabitants, real estate and land.
In 1774, she issued the General School Rules that became the cornerstone of compulsory school attendance for all children.
