The Slovenian Monument Scandal in Cleveland

The monuments to Ivan Cankar, Friderik Irenej Baraga and Simon Gregorčič in the Yugoslav Cultural Garden

Abstract

In 1930, the City of Cleveland granted some ethnic communities the right to use parts of Rockefeller Park at their own discretion. Slovenians decided that the Yugoslav Cultural Garden would become the location for a monument dedicated to the writer Ivan Cankar. At the beginning of 1933, the City of Ljubljana donated a cast of the Cankar monument, the work of sculptor Peter Loboda (1894–1952). Collecting voluntary contributions for raising a monument to Cankar did not go well. In September 1935, they raised a monument dedicated to Bishop Friderik Irenej Baraga. Just before unveiling the Cankar monument and the monument to Simon Gregorčič, they found that Cankar’s monument had been stolen from the city storehouse. The Catholic camp placed blame for the stolen monument on the socialists, who had endeavored to place the Cankar monument in the Slovenian National Hall. The Yugoslav Cultural Garden board commissioned a new statue of Ivan Cankar, which would be based on photographs of Loboda's monument, and executed by Rudolf A. Mafka, a Cleveland sculptor of Slovenian descent. The Cankar monument was unveiled on 25 July 1937.