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Trakai
Vilniaus apskritis Karaimų gatvė |
Šv. Jonas NepomukasSaint John of NepomukNepomuk c. 1345 - Praha 1393confessor of the queen of Bohemia; patron saint of bridges (Wikipedia) |
Stanisław Horno-Popławski
1935 |
The statue was built in what used to be the middle of them market square and is mentioned in records for the first time in 1622. The present appearance was created in the mid-nineteenth century when a statue of St John Nepomuk was placed on the column. The statue was torn down after the 1863 Uprising and in its place the arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania surmounted by the Russian eagle coat of arms was hung at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The column was destroyed during World War One and in 1935 it was rebuilt by the mayor of Trakai, Colonel Zajączkowski. This statue of St John Nepomuk was designed by the Vilnius sculptor Stanisław Horno-Poplawski and a metal cross was fixed atop the roof. That autumn the column was consecrated by the parish priest Henryk Hlebowicz who was beatified in Warsaw as a martyr on June 13 1999. Around 1960 the statue of St John was removed from its housing and tossed into the lake by the Soviet authorities. Later the statue was found by the Trakai Museum and taken into its holdings in 1961. In 1969 Mikulionis designed the restoration of the column and a wooden horseman took the place of St John Nepomuk. As Lithuanian independence was being restored the Stanisław Horno-Poplawski statue was restored in 1990 in the P. Gudynas Restoration Centre and returned to the column.
As confessor of the queen of Bohemia he refused to divulge the secrets of the confessional. At the behest of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia he was thrown from the Charles Bridge in Prague and drowned. John of Nepomuk is patron saint of bridges.
His figure is often encountered in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Poland and Lithuania. He is usually portrayed with a halo of five stars, commemorating the stars that hovered over the Vltava River on the night of his murder, also is said that the five stars are supposed to symbolize the five letters of Latin word "tacet", which means "silent".
Other attributes are a priestly dress, the palm of martyrs and a large crucifix, to which he is usually looking.
As additional figures there are often one of more little angels, respectively indicating silence by a finger over the lips, with a crucifix and with the bible.
There are several sites listing statues of Saint John of Nepomuk:
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