Английская Википедия:Equestrian Statue of Leopold II, Ostend
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use British English Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Infobox monument
The Equestrian Statue of Leopold II (Шаблон:Lang-nl) is a monument erected in Ostend, Belgium, in memory of King Leopold II, second King of the Belgians. It is located on the Royal Galleries by the beach.[1] The king was commemorated here as a benefactor of Ostend and the Belgian Congo. The inauguration was on 19 July 1931.[1]
Partly due to Leopold II's colonial regime, the monument is the subject of ongoing controversy and has been vandalised several times.[2][3][4][5]
History
During King Leopold II's reign, Thomas Vinçotte produced a portrait bust of the king, which is now in the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken.[6] Shortly after the king's death in 1909, plans started to honour him, as a benefactor of Ostend and the Belgian Congo.[6]
After the First World War, the city government started work on plans for a statue.[6] The sculptor Alfred Courtens was commissioned, together with his brother, the architect Antoine Courtens.[7][1] The City Council may have hoped to regain the dynasty as summer residents but after Leopold II's death, Ostend's status as a royal summer residence quickly crumbled.[6][7] On 22 September 1981, the statue was declared a protected monument.[7]
Description
The Equestrian Statue of Leopold II is known locally as De Drie Gapers ("The Three Gaps").[7][8] The middle of the three passages was made on the sea side.[9]
The monument has an important architectural part that roughly consists of a voluminous upright column, with two horizontal bases on the left and right.[9] This gives a form of a kind of double L monogram (two L's turned away from each other), the monogram that Leopold II often used.[9] On top in bronze, Leopold II sits in military uniform on horseback looking over the North Sea.[9]
At the bottom left a larger than life sculptural group, also in bronze, depicting Gratitude of the Congolese to Leopold II for freeing them from slavery among the Arabs.[9][1] On the right, a pendant, depicting Tribute of the Ostend fishing population.[1]
-
Frontal view
-
Monogram of King Leopold II
-
Equestrian statue
-
Tribute of the Ostend fishing population
Controversy
Congo Free State
Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State; a private project was undertaken on his behalf.[10] He used the explorer Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, an area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[10] At the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, the colonial nations of Europe authorised his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improve the lives of the native inhabitants.[10]
From the beginning, Leopold ignored these conditions and millions of Congolese inhabitants, including children, were mutilated and killed.[10] He used great sums of the money from this exploitation for public and private construction projects in Belgium during this period.[10] He donated the private buildings to the state before his death.[10]
Leopold extracted a fortune from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the natives to harvest and process rubber.[10] Under his regime, millions of Congolese people died.[10]
Reports of deaths and abuse led to a major international scandal in the early 20th century, and Leopold was forced by the Belgian government to relinquish control of the colony to the civil administration in 1908.[10]
Vandalism
The monument has been vandalised in 2004 and 2020.[2][3][4][5] In 2004, an activist group, De Stoete Ostendenoare, symbolically cut off a bronze hand from one of the kneeling Congolese slaves who, as part of the Gratitude of the Congolese group in the monument, honours Leopold II.[1] This was a reference to how Congolese slaves' hands were cut off if they did not produce enough rubber during Leopold's colonial regime.[1] The activists were willing to give the hand back if a historically correct sign would be placed near the statue.[11]
The statue was vandalised again in 2020 as part of the global Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd. A petition to remove such statues was started to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Congo's independence from Belgium on 30 June 2020.[2][3][4][5] On 9 June 2020, Ostend mayor Bart Tommelein said that the city council "takes the fight against racism very seriously" but "replacing or removing statues will not happen".[12]
See also
References
External links
- ↑ 1,0 1,1 1,2 1,3 1,4 1,5 1,6 Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 2,0 2,1 2,2 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 3,0 3,1 3,2 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 4,0 4,1 4,2 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 5,0 5,1 5,2 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 6,0 6,1 6,2 6,3 Шаблон:Cite book
- ↑ 7,0 7,1 7,2 7,3 Шаблон:Cite book
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 9,0 9,1 9,2 9,3 9,4 Шаблон:Cite journal
- ↑ 10,0 10,1 10,2 10,3 10,4 10,5 10,6 10,7 10,8 Шаблон:Cite book
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- Страницы с неработающими файловыми ссылками
- Английская Википедия
- Statues in Belgium
- Bronze sculptures in Belgium
- Sculptures of men
- 1931 establishments in Belgium
- Leopold II of Belgium
- 1931 sculptures
- Statues of monarchs
- Equestrian statues
- Vandalized works of art
- Race-related controversies in sculpture
- Controversies in Belgium
- Black Lives Matter
- Anti-racism in Belgium
- Criticism of police brutality
- Страницы, где используется шаблон "Навигационная таблица/Телепорт"
- Страницы с телепортом
- Википедия
- Статья из Википедии
- Статья из Английской Википедии
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}