More statues

A nice pedestrian park along the Danube has three interesting monuments. I have ridden by them many times on the tram and took a few minutes yesterday to get a close-up look at them.

Here's the park, often filled with people of all ages out for a walk. It's on the edge of Old Town, just south of the Philharmonic Concert Hall and the Slovak National Gallery. I took this looking to the east.

This one, at the far end of the park, commemorates October 18, 1918, the date of the establishment of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia after the First World War. This was the first time it had existed as an independent nation-state and it lasted two decades until Nazism intruded. The plaque at the base of the monument is only in Slovak. The building to the right is the Slovak National Museum.

This large engraved stone by the river is just a few yards from the monument above. The engraving, in Slovak and Russian, notes the liberation of Bratislava from the Nazis by the Soviet Red Army on April 4, 1945.

This one is the most mysterious, surrounded by trees in the center of that little park. The inscription on the statue itself, in Slovak, with no date or attribution, translates roughly to "After the battle, freedom does not die." A newer marble plaque, also in Slovak, has been added to the base, but the only word I can translate is "liberty/freedom". I don't know enough about military uniforms or paraphernalia to identify the soldiers.

UPDATE: 10 January: Today I asked a student with almost flawless English to take a look at the other shots I have of that mystery statue to help me with the translation. She would translate the one on the statue as "He who dies in a fight for freedom does not die." We also blew up the picture I have of the marble plaque and it translates to: "For heroic Bulgarian partisans who died for our freedom." Please also see the comment below from Erich about the Bulgrians who fought at the Slovak National Uprising (against the Nazis) in 1944.

NOTE: Click on any image in this blog to see it full-size.