Complicated Remembrances

CZECHIA was one of many modern countries that were part of the Habsburgs' Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of WW1.

The Treaty of Saint-Germain - the Balkan and central European equivalent of the Treaty of Versailles - created, among other countries, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (originally known as the Kingdom of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes).

Activists in both nations were keen to stress that many of their citizens had fought on the Allied side against their political masters in Vienna.

Whether true or not, one consequence was the formation of the Czechoslovak-Yugoslav League that, among other things, built a neoclassical mausoleum in Olomouc to hold the bodies of  'Yugoslav' and Croatian Czech soldiers who died in the region.

The mausoleum was technically owned by the country of Yugoslavia, but was allowed to decay, especially after that country ceased to exist and its successor governments were reluctant to take over responsibility.

Eventually a Czech court awarded the mausoleum to the city of Olomouc, which renovated it from 2016-20.

The inscription VĚRNOST ZA VĚRNOST is Czech for LOYALTY FOR LOYALTY, while LJUBAV ZA LJUBAV is Serbo-Croat for LOVE FOR LOVE