Nitra Plastika Corgona od sochara Vavrinca Dunajskeho

Corgoň () is a statue situated in

Nitra Nitra (; also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the valley of the river Nitra. It is located 95 km east of Bratislava. With a population of about 78,353, it is the fifth la ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

. It was created by

Vavrinec Dunajský Vavrinec Dunajský (born 15 July 1784 in Ľubietová, died 15 February 1833 in Budapest) was a Slovak sculptor. He is most famous for his work called the statue of Corgoň at The Canon House in Nitra Nitra (; also known by other alternative n ...

in 1820. The sculpture is a famous landmark and symbol of

. According to the local legend, the real person called Corgoň was a metalworker in Nitra. He was a mighty man of a stocky build, his arms were muscled in particular. Whenever he hit the anvil with a hammer, the whole upper town would quake. He influenced the history of his town when the

Ottoman Turks The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

besieged the

Nitra Castle Nitra Castle ( sk, Nitriansky hrad, hu, Nyitrai vár) is a castle located in the Old Town of Nitra, Slovakia. It dominants the city and is a national cultural monument. It is the seat of the Diocese of Nitra. History The first fortified cente ...

. The invaders were just about to climb the castle walls when Corgoň appeared straight from the forge. He started rolling down huge stones, which brought havoc among the Turks. However, what scared them off more than the stones was the gigantic and coal-black smoke-filmed face of Corgoň. Seeing him, they set off for an immediate run. He was believed to be seen extracting those huge stones from a slope assisted by evil spirits. That was how Nitra's upper town managed to survive the first Ottoman attack. The statue of Corgoň would embody the invincible power of this local metalworker forever. There is a simile applied to someone who shows great power in the area surrounding Nitra which says to be ''as mighty as Corgoň''. In the statue, Corgoň is depicted as

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

. According to a Greek legend, gods punished Atlas for his wrongdoings in a form of columns that he had to hold upright forever as to keep the sky from falling. Later on Atlas was depicted carrying a globe on his shoulders. The artistic concept of the Atlas in Nitra lies in a symbolic holding up the entire floor, which might have its origin in a myth about Corgoň whose bravery kept the upper town safe from the Ottoman raids.

References

* http://www.bbb.sk/en/castle.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20080114072142/http://www.slovakiaphotos.com/product_info.php?products_id=4319&osCsid=d9e2da496358442d40e43091a0b5cc57 {{DEFAULTSORT:CorgoN Slovak art Nitra

See also

References