Those passing through Křenová earlier this summer may have noticed the scaffolding that went up around a stone column in the park by the former customs house. The 15th century Zderad’s Column was undergoing restoration work, which was completed at the beginning of August. One of the city’s few Gothic monuments, it once stood on the left bank of the Svitava River, and now stands on the right, despite not having moved an inch. But how is that possible? And who was Zderad? The completion of the restoration is a great opportunity to remember the story of this curious artifact.
Sculptures in public spaces undergo regular maintenance, ideally about once every ten years, when experts clean them of algae and lichen, repair the ravages of time and vandalism, and treat the surfaces to make them as durable as possible.
Every year, the city spends hundreds of thousands of crowns on these restoration works; this year, in addition to Zderad’s column, restoration works will include the Holy Trinity sculpture complex on Zelný trh, the statue of St. Florian in Brněnské Ivanovice, and the cross from 1805 in Slatina, as well as the statue of St. John of Nepomuk in Bystrc. All of these works should be finished by the end of November.
But what is Zderad’s Column? It was probably a cross of reconciliation or confession, which stood on the route from the city to the execution ground, and became the site of confessions and prayers. Such stone crosses of reconciliation have their origin in Vienna, where two 14th century examples can still be seen today. Zderad’s Column is slightly younger, dating from the 15th century. An inscription from the year 1865, clearly legible at the bottom of the statue, refers to the date of a major renovation.
The myth of the column “moving” from the left bank of the Svitava to the right is connected with the 1865 reconstruction, which saw the column completely dismantled and then reassembled. However, the truth is that the column has always stood in the same place, and it was the river that moved; when the flow of the Svitava was managed and regulated in the mid-19th century, its route shifted in such a way that the column ended up on the other bank without moving.
The name of the monument is another mystery; the column only acquired the title Zderadův in the 18th century, when the Moravian historian Dismas Josef Ignác von Hoffer connected it with the events described in the Kosma Chronicle, which mentions the murder of the knight Zderad. King Vratislav was said to have built a column at the site of the bloodshed. However, today’s historians doubt the truth of this connection, and believe that if the murder took place, it was probably more likely on the banks of the Svratka River in the vicinity of Old Brno.
