Statue of St. Florian in Masaryk Square

The statue of St. Florian stood in Ostrava's central square, today's Masaryk Square, as early as 1763. St. Florian is the patron saint of firemen and chimney sweeps and many towns built statues as protection against fire. The same was the case in Ostrava, which was devastated by fire many times.

After one of the other fires, the councillors were deciding whether to buy a fire hose or solve the problem by getting a statue of St. Florian. In the end, they reportedly did both. And in addition to the plague column, a statue of Florian was added to protect against plague epidemics. And the firemen were given a hose.

The Baroque work stood in the centre of Ostrava until the 1960s, when the plague column and Florian disappeared. A statue of a guy with a rifle on his back was erected on the spot where the patron saint of firefighters stood, and the square was named after this armed man, i.e. the Square of the People’s Militia. The People’s Militia disappeared immediately after the revolution in 1989. After the reconstruction of the square, first the plague column returned to the centre, and then the councillors remembered that St Florian used to stand next to it and decided to find it and put it back in place. Meanwhile, the statue of the saint was in Kravaře and for the last few years stood in front of the church in Ostrava-Hrabůvka. Historians confirmed that it was indeed the statue from the town centre and in 2008 they returned it to its original place.

Nevertheless, the defender of Ostrava does not stand as it once did, but performed “an about-face”. As can be seen in old photographs, it originally faced the old town hall, today’s Ostrava Museum. Today, it faces exactly the opposite direction and turns its back to the old town hall. However, it again faces the place where the city administration is located, exactly towards the New Town Hall. So everything is actually as it should be.

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